Star Wars- Episode Cute May 30, 2009

This is the culmination of an entire semester of acting classes. Sadie IS Princess Leia. She knows the whole play by heart. She is pumped about being on the big stage! Upon seeing her all bunned up and ready, her adorable brother says to her, “Sadie! You look great!” They all wore black as their acting was to speak for itself. The Pretend Players were beyond cute and brought down the house. Unfortunately there is an issue with the video- I can’t find it. Once I figure out this *(&*%$#@ technology, I’ll post it. It’s got to be in there somewhere.

How cute are they?! That’s Sadie- 2nd from the right on the bottom.

Little Cleaners May 29, 2009

Did you know that cleaning is fun? It is! These guys will spray and wipe anything and with the green/dilute cleaners we use, it’s all good! They are also prone to sweeping, doing laundry, and (darnit) would vacuum if they’re little play vacuums actually sucked up anything. The batteries really should be removed b/c all they really do is heckle me about the dirtiness of the floor.

DIY Pinata May 29, 2009

Take a 9 month old flattened mylar balloon and insert a few candy items from the checkout. Seal closed with packing tape and hang from the ceiling fan.

Beat endlessly while giggling with a pink, foam bat.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra & then some! May 29, 2009

 

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra periodically puts on children’s programs. This was fabulous! The kids really enjoyed it. Homeschoolers got box seats! They loved hearing all of the different instruments as they told a story as it was narrated. Bravo!

 

Now what to do?

We hooked up with some of our friends and decided to go looking for some picnic food and a picnic spot. After some wandering, we settled on a little cement slab. Sadie wandered up some stairs near the picnic spot and came upon a beautiful city oasis!

It was a rooftop patio with a large mural and beautiful fountain. The kids sat together to dip their feet in on this hot April day. At least that’s how it started…

Splashing and tracking footprints all over the patio ensued. It was tremendous fun!

It ended something like this. What a lovely day in Dallas.

Caddo Lake May 11, 2009

Sadie still constantly has her hand in something going on in the kitchen. Here she helps to prepare the pizza dough for our impending trip to Caddo Lake State Park  in East Texas. It is the only natural lake in Texas (imagine that!) and is located on the Louisiana border. We couldn’t believe how similar the landscape and weather are to our native land of New Hampshire- lush, green, hilly, humid, and buggy!

After setting up our campsites, we joined the Quinns on (what turned out to be) a really long hike! We soon discovered that tick repellant was in order as I pulled 3 off of Sadie- clearly tired, she spent quite a bit of time tripping into pine needles…

This is the view from our campsite. The tent was set up about 5 feet from the water’s edge. There was initially some concern about the proximity of the alligators but we were assured by the park attendants that they hang out on the other side of the lake! After gorging on hot dogs and s’mores and reading a book by the fire, we adjourned to our tents for a really noisy night on the lake. All the wilderness came out to play that Friday night and the decibel level was incredible. Frogs, owls, and any number of other wild and noisy animals could be heard until the early morning hours. For Chris and I- who sleep very little and not very well when we camp- it was wildly entertaining!

Grand slam breakfast! Eat your heart out, IHOP.

There was frisbee…

and walks…

plant identification (yes, poison ivy blanketed the campsite)….

Jiffy Pop….

Uno playing….

wrestling…

sorting of treasures…

… and fishing (with a rubber fish on the end of the line instead of a hook)! The kids have decided they’d like their own rods (here Sadie borrows Liam’s) to cast with endlessly- expressing their disinterest in eating fish or hurting them for sport only to throw them back. They’ve decided the real fun is in casting.

We canoed around the lake and saw many turtles, jumping fish, brightly colored birds, amazing bayou trees, and a giant snake curled up by water’s edge (no gators…). Chris and I became quite adept and navigating the old, metal canoe around and through the trees draped with moss and vines. It was a fabulous adventure!

And apparently exhausting.

Dusk on the dock.

We four girls had an early breakfast of rice cakes and peanut butter on the dock before packing up the site and heading home! A grand adventure it was and comes highly recommended. Bring tick repellant.

Everyday is Earth Day May 2, 2009

The kids experience Earth Day in a state of protest. They remain appalled that there is one day of the year that is deemed ‘Earth Day’ and are continually explaining that “everyday is Earth day.”

So we did something that we do fairly often in the spirit of Earth-conscious, functional fun. The kids rode their bikes and I pulled the wagon with our re-use stainless steel water bottle and shopping bags to the supermarket. Turned out that we needed dog food (20 lbs.) and bird seed (20 lbs.) in addition to groceries. It was good exercise on the way home for Mama on this hot day!

We ate a quick lunch with Mema and Daddy (who worked from home as he sometimes does- eliminating his commuting emissions) and headed to Homestead Farms for their Earth Day celebration.

There were icies!

We visited this farm last year when this goat was brand new. We were all floored at how much she’s grown.

The kids planted beans. As of this post (9 days later), the bean plants are about 12 inches tall. They’re bound for the veggie garden!

Elijah reads the bunny’s name. The decoding continues…

Elijah tries his hand at roping.

Then home to deal with the prolific algae issue in the pond. We put the fish before the plants (see cart/horse analogy) and ended up with a severe case of algae.  We were anxiously awaiting the arrival of the online-ordered pond plants and in anticipation removed the fish, drained the pond, and wiped the liner clean. Not wanting to boil our little goldfish, we promptly re-introduced them to the pond later in the afternoon- apparently not long enough to allow the chlorine from the hose water to dissipate. We’re gonna need new fish… We were rather attached to those little 12-cent cuties. Our pond plants came and, supplemented by plants from the backyard pond of our friends the Ritchies, should now naturally stabilize the pond environment. We noticed this morning that there is a natural evolution going on! There are tiny little organisms growing and swimming around. Very cool!

We finished the day off with some pool splashing and popsicles. It’s not quite warm enough (by Texas standards) for full-on swimming but it was great for splashing and is warming up quickly.

 

Lunch with Daddy! May 2, 2009

We met Daddy at The Salad Bowl for lunch! This picture is priceless because it’s so…. well… Sadie! She was explaining something rather in depth here.

Great Daze May 2, 2009

 

We woke up to another beautiful Texas morning and decided this warranted an expedition. Elijah puts his shoes in Sadie’s backpack in an attempt to preserve them while riding his wiggle car. Sadie took the one-mile loop around the neighborhood on her bike while I walked with the dogs.

Hawk-eye Sadie found this piece of a bird’s egg. We later identified it as that of a House Sparrow- of which we have many around these parts.

We stopped at the playground for some pretend play which led to some talk about light, shadow, heat, and cool. Mucking was also on the agenda so off they ran to explore and play in the drainage area.

Look what we noticed on Lulu! Her black spots are very hot and her white parts are cool. What colors would be cooler to wear on these hot days? Why are darker colors hotter?

Then back on the bike/wiggle car and home for a quick lunch on the way to Sadie’s acting class! She is still absolutely loving her class and apparently knows everyone else’s lines for their upcoming production as well as her own and is apt to cue them when needed.

All of a sudden the door to reading has opened for Elijah. He goes through every moment of the day now armed with his decoding tools (word recognition and phonics) and attempts to read EVERYTHING. Big words, little words, signs, stickers, instructions, recipes, books, words on TV, plant stakes, you name it. He nailed this sign without hesitation. Because reading is a part of life, there are no celebrations for his newfound skill. He finds satisfaction and joy in the challenge and feeling of mastery that he has when a word “clicks.” It doesn’t make it any less impressive to witness and is a true testament to the validity of unschooling as it relates specifically to the realm of education. Living in the world, children will seek and acquire the skills to function at the level they desire. 

He’s gone from primarily choosing math-related games to (with a little strewing) loving doing word puzzles and playing games like Scrabble, Jr. This time we flipped the board over and used the blank side to create our own words rather than using the pre-printed side. 40 minutes (Sadie’s class length) wasn’t enough!

Yes, he’s sounding out everything…