Saturday, August 30, 2014

Bad Dreams

The littlest boy has been having bad dreams on and off, which is perfectly normal.  But what he apparently dreams about is...well, sortof humerous.  Or would be if it didn't happen to be while the rest of the world was sleeping.
The "alarm" sounds when he starts wailing like a siren.  It's high pitched and loud, without care for any who may be sleeping.  It can be punctuated with little kicks under the covers (and if he has happened to crawl into our bed before having one of these little nightmares, waking up this way is something SPECIAL).  In fact, it looks a lot like a temper tantrum....except....he is not awake.  He is still sleeping.  

"BUUUUUT I WAAAANT COOOOOKIES!" He will wail. His eyes are still closed.  It's the only part of his body that appears to be still. 

We try shaking him and calling his name, "Dylan, Dylan, wake up!"  He seems to feel this but takes it negatively and the wailing goes up a notch.  "Dylan! It's a dream! You are dreaming!" 

"BuuuUUUT I WAAANt COOOOKIES." 

It is 5 a.m. just before sunrise.  There are no cookies in the house and besides, his eyes are still shut.  Finally, I pick him up and lay him on my chest and rub his back.  "Hush, hush.  Wake up, wake up.  It's a dream." 

"whaaat?" His eyes finally open.  

"It was a dream. You are dreaming.  Look, it's still dark outside, everyone is asleep.  It's OK."  

His little body shudders as the sobs begin to diminish and he starts to relax.  Snuggled up he finally drifts off again.  All is quiet.  Now the first glimmers of light are appearing in the sky and the birds are singing.  I am wide awake.  On mornings like this I am so thankful for coffee.  

When he wakes up, I ask him if he had good dreams or bad dreams.  He tells me, "bad dreams."
I ask him what he dreamed about. 
"Ghosts." He said positively. "Big scary ghosts.  Right in the closet!" 
Uh-huh.  

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Our First Day of School

  Oh my, the first day of school was finally here earlier this week! The schedule I had put together allows for a school day from 8:00 a.m-2:00 p.m with an hour for recess in the middle of the day.   I could not believe how quickly we flew through all of our lessons.  We started with the calendar and the pledge of allegience, followed by math, phonics, Ryan reading, bible lesson, history/geography and read-aloud time.  Science would have followed this but our science curriculum arrived one day late.  By the time we finished those things, it was 12:00.  We had a nice lunch and then I decided since we were done, we had penty of time to go to the natural history museum (I figured we could call that science for the day).   

It turned out that we were invited to jump in on a dinosaur tour that had just started.  So we did!  I think I learned almost as much as the children.  We learned there was no such thing as "Brontosaurus"-ever;  We learned most scientists who study dinosaurs now think that most of them were also covered in feathers as well as scales (even the Diplodocus and Apatosaurus).  We learned that scientists found cancer in one of the dinosaur bones in the collection.  We learned that "stego" maens "turtle back."  The man who originally found Stegosaurus found a specimin with the bony plates collapsed and so he thought Stegosaurus was shaped like a giant turtle.  It was not until more Stegosaurus' were found with the plates sticking upright that they realized the plates did not form a shell.  We learned how to tell if the dinosaur bones in the exhibit were the genuine real deal or a plaster fake.  The guide let us touch the teeth of a Velocoraptor, the vertebrae of a Stegosaurus and he let us hold the jaw of a T-rex.  

After the tour, the kids went on a fossil hunt for dinosaur bones.
 Then they got to re-enact life at the time of the dinosaurs with these fun toys.

When we were done with the dinosaurs inside, we played in the small play area outside.  The only hitch in the day, was Dylan, who has been fishing one too many times with his father.  He had marched himself into the nicely pruned shrubs to take a leak.  His pants were around his ankles and his bare bum was facing the street (a very busy street I might add), and he was facing a giant tinted window of the museum.  I have no idea what was on the other side of that window or who saw the little naked boy peeing in the bushes.  Thankfully I will never know.  But I jumped up like greased lighting to make myself a human shield for Dylan from all these other people who were there because they had culture.  What IS it with three year old boys and peeing in public? 

Round Hill Exhibit Farm

I have been wanting to go to Round Hill Park and Exhibit Farm for...well....a really long time.  We had some playdates planned several times, but each time it was rained out.  Round Hill Exhibit Farm is located in one of the lushest farm-iest parts of Pennsylvania.  First of all, the land is absolutely gorgeous.  Second of all, Round Hill is both a park and a "working exhibit farm."  This means that Round Hill Farm has animals and grows crops.  But they allow visitors to come mill about and look at their animals and in some of their barns (Yes, this is FREE).  Adjoining the farm is a super cool playground complete with spray park.  Perfect for a hot summer day.

Dylan loves all things animal. This was right up his alley.  *Note to self: next time bring bread to feed the ducks.

 The farm had several baby animals.  There were three calves.  


 and we got to pet them. 


 They also had a sow and some piglets.  
They had some goats, rabbits, and other animals that you would expect to see on a farm (including barn mice and a a barn cat). 
  
 And they had an enormous amish working horse.  This guy was so big. 
Dylan was beside himself with joy.  He exclaimed over each animal.  After we had explored the grounds and seen the corn cribs, silo, inside of the barns (which had an impressive milking stall for the cows), we walked across the street and played at the park.  This was totally worth the drive and we will definitely be doing this again sometime soon. 

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Preparing for School

It's almost that time of year.  The time where yellow school busses ferry chatty students to and from school in the midst of all the glory of cooler weather and blazing leaves.   The time where new worlds open up for young minds.  New adventures are had. New friends are made.  It's a great time of year.  
This will be our second year of homeschooling.  

Dylan starts preschool this year. We will be working on learning colors, shapes, the alphabet, simple counting, pre-writing, separating from Mommy and whatever he happens to pick up from watching Ryan learn.  I have built into the schedule time for "recess" where the boys will stay at the YMCA child watch.  This will be time for the kids to socialize with other kids and also work on Dylan's ability to separate from me. 

 We are using a mix of curriculum this year.  For Phonics, Ryan will continue with level 1 Saxon phonics.  For math we are using Math-U-See Alpha.  For social studies and science we are going with Sonlight.  With Sonlight there is also structured "read-aloud" time, which sounds really good. I will be following the general "bible" layout Sonlight provides, but will use our own children's bible. Sonlight can be a little pricey, so I have cut costs by not purchasing all the reading books (there are a lot of them!). I have  only purchased the schedules and encyclopedias to be used every day.  The read-aloud books will be reserved ahead of time at our local library.

   I am extremely excited to be part of a co-op with some other moms in our church this year.  We will be teaming up to teach  units during the year on fitness/health, art, and music.  Each unit will be taught with an instructive/informative part which our children will help with teaching the "class" the first week.  Second week will involve a craft, third week will involve a writing assignment and fourth week will include a field trip.  It is also a great opportunity to make friends! 

Last week, I spent some time organizing the school room.  The games and books are organized by subject (math, reading, science, etc).  I made a colorful bulletin, which I'm sure will be changed throughout the year with dfferent seasons and themed units.   For now, it is the solar system.  I made it out of some long pieces of styrofoam attached with sticky wall attachments from target.  The black background was made out of a dollar store table cloth ($1.00).  The planet banner lining was the most expensive part ($2.99) from the teacher store.  The planets I googled and printed from my home computer, cut out and taped on.  Thanks to the tablecloth, they will pull of easily and I can still use the black background for a few units in a row.  Above that, are the constellation charts Ryan did for the class offered by his local library (FREE).  It's not easy to see, but there are glow in the dark stars taped onto each major "star" in the constellation so they glow in the dark when the lights turn out.  

 This is the "opening" station where the days of the week, month, weather, holidays and simple counting for Dylan are discussed.
 Our school table and white board for lessons.  The magnetic strips are for hanging timelines, art, charts of phonics rules, maps, etc....
 This is where their best papers and artwork can be displayed. 
 And since we will be learning more about writing and sentence structures this year, a few posters to remind them how to create great sentences and helping generate writing ideas ($2.00 at the teacher store).

Last year, I bought a leapfrog tag system map.  This year we will actually get to use it.  The kids have been pulling it out lately and it's surprisingly informative.  It offers various levels of identification of continents and countries.  It takes the children on "journeys" where they have to "walk" the tag pen from the Saharah dessert to the Nile River, find the tallest mountain, find a waterfall, find a dessert, etc. There are pictures of children in various countries and they can ask questions about what they eat, how they say "hello,"  and what the weather is like in their country.  It also introduces the children to the rose compass (North, South, East, West), and the legend.  This will certainly be implemented to add fun to the geography lessons this year!

Last but not least, we have a "class pet" this year.  The kids found and caught a wooly bear caterpillar a few weeks ago.  We read up on them and discovered they turn into Tiger Moths.  We learned about what they eat and also that they hibernate for the winter.  So, we will be attempting to keep this one alive, watch him hibernate this winter, and then turn into a moth this spring.  

It's going to be a great year.  I'm very excited for all the new things the children will learn and all the new friendships we will make!


Thursday, August 7, 2014

Fireflies


One of my favorite things is watching the boys experience something new.  I love watching them learn and explore their world.  Another one of my favorite things is when they come into contact with that which they have experienced before with the same sense of novelty and wonder as they did the first time.  
Like fireflies.
Every summer they come out glittering and glowing, these beautiful twinkling lights on warm nights.  Every summer the boys have renewed excitement, "Fireflies!" Off they go to catch them. 
 Ryan is retaining knowledge about them now.  "Did you know fireflies flash their light in a pattern?" He will ask me.  Then he will inform, "It's how they find a pretty girl firefly."  
   On the wings of catching fireflies, Dylan's favorite bed time story this summer has been, "Sam and the Firefly." This has been the first year he was old enough to sussessfully catch fireflies.  
The fireflies will go away again very soon.  We see their twinkling lights less already than we did last month.  But we will look forward to next summer when they come out and twinkle again.  


Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Summer: Fishing

"There is ccertainly something in angling that tends to produce a serenity of the mind." --Washington Irving




We are enjoying the last days of summer.

Sea-shell Shadow Boxes

After our week of sun and sand and surf, we spent some time in Nashville with my husband's side of the family.  Ryan was showing off his sea-shell collection one morning and his grandfather was teaching him about the animals that used to live in the shells and about the mollusks he had brought home with him.  This led to his grandmother having an idea for a very fun craft....sea-shell shadow boxes.   Ryan enjoyed this project so much he made two shadow boxes.   We used sea-shells he had brought home with him as well as shells in Grandma and Grandpa's collection.  

                       
 Materials for this craft: 

Wooden Shadowbox from Hobby Lobby.
Felt
Hot Glue
                                                                      Seashells (can also be purchased at Michaels or Hobby Lobby)
Sand 
 Ryan made a shadowbox with sand collected from the beach.   We glued the felt in the bottom first.  Then we painted the sides.  After that, we played with different ways to arrange the shells in the box.  When we were happy with an arrangement, we hot  glued the shells onto the felt.  Ryan put sand in this one.  We added the sand after glueing the shells down.  Then we put the frame top on and hot glued the edges so the sand would not slip through the cracks in the back. 
In their collection of sand and shells, Ryan's grandparents had a bag of bleached and colored coral.  That was especially fun to work with and added to the composition of the pictures! I believe they had purchased the coral from the craft store. 

Summer: The Beach

 We spent a heavenly week enjoying the sun, white sand and pristine blue-green surf of the Florida beach at the end of July.  Here are a few of the things we enjoyed there:

1. Spending time with cousins!
   
                           
2. Building sand volcano's. 

3. Picnic Lunches on the beach (in the breeze and shaded by a colorful umbrella).                                               

 4.  Collecting sea-shells

 5. Exploring Sand Dunes

6.  Discovering marine life: We found living sand-dollars, ghost crabs, sting rays, schools of fish and         minnows, and clams and hermit crabs.   
7. Boogie Boarding

8. Paddle-boarding 


The best part about this trip was the time spent with family. All five of my siblings were there and I met my nephew Jesse for the first time.   Ryan and Dylan played their hearts out with Noah and had lots of adventures together.   

Summer Days: Swamp Walk

Recently we found ourselves visiting family in Florida.  While the white sands and clear blue water were a definite draw, we spent one afternoon touring my sister's university which happened to have a nice little "swamp walk."  There were signs posted to beware of alligator and venemous snakes.   The kids were very excited about seeing an alligator.  My father was very excited to see turtles.  He had even bought turtle food for the hike. My sister warned everyone that we might not see anything and that seeing turtles was far more likely than seeing any alligators.  When the boardwalk stretched over the marshy water, we paused to throw turtle food into the water.  Several were sunning themselves on half submerged logs.   Then a movement caught our attention.  It looked like a water snake at first.  But as it came closer it was clear it was an alligator hatchling.

The kids were over the moon with excitement.  From closeby on the banks we could hear a reptilian chirping and concluded that there was at least one other hatchling close by who was calling for his mother.  Although we looked hard, we could not see anything lurking in that murky water.   None-the-less a fun experience!