Aiden starts first grade

Aiden started school on August 17th and loves it! We have enrolled him in an independent study charter school and his teacher comes over to our house every few weeks to check his work and monitor progress. It seems to be working pretty well so far. Aiden loves his teacher and enjoys showing off his reading skills to her. She seems happy with his progress so far and thinks our curriculum is great. I LOVE the curriculum too; wished I could have learned all of this neat stuff when I was in first grade! For Language Arts we are reading Aesop's Fables, Parables from Nature, a poem a day (from A Child's Garden of Verses right now, AA Milne and others later this year), Just So Stories, Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare, and others later in the year. We also have a chapter book that we read each night (the original Peter Pan right now). For history/geography we are studying Paddle to the Sea, An Island Story, Fifty Famous Stories, Viking Tales, Ingri D'Aulaire books for American history (Ben Franklin, George Washington, etc). For science we read James Herriot's stories, Burgess bird and animal books, and do mostly field work studying nature with the Handbook of Nature Study as our guide. We just took a field trip to the Natural History Museum in PG where they got to see all of the birds they have seen in the field up close and ID them for sure which was so nice... We will be making many trips over there this year. At the moment I am trying to get my hands on a good dissecting scope to really study all the bugs and critters the boys collect. For phonics I am attempting to teach Aiden the Spalding method which includes his handwriting work. Next month he will start copying poems, sentences, and verses from great literature for practice in writing. For math, he is using Right Start math which is very hands on (lots of manipulatives and games). We have been learning Spanish phrases and singing Spanish songs for language for now. With the baby we are also learning a lot of sign language which has been fun for all. Once he has a good handle on reading and writing (later this year or next year) he will start Latin instruction. For art we have been using Drawing With Children which has been a great guide. Aiden is using the skills in there as he works on his painting for the fair next month. Aiden is also learning about the life and work of a few artists this term from the 1400s which has been interesting for us both. I found a site to download and print 8 x 10 prints for his art notebook for free. They look great and are useful for studying. For music, he has started piano lessons and he loves them! He is pounding away at Mary Had a Little Lamb as I type this. We are also learning a few classical composers this term, although I have not organized this study very well yet into our schedule. For Bible we simply are reading through the KJ Bible bit by bit and discussing. For handicrafts he is learning to thread yarn through plastic canvas to make ornaments. As for life skills, he is learning to set the table, fold laundry, vacuum, load the dishwasher, feed his animals, etc. He actually keeps really busy and when he is not inside, he loves to play outside with Liam building roads and dams using bricks, rocks, pipes, and the garden hose. They come in completely covered with mud. Oh, to be a kid again, right!?

Pruning Time

Summer here in Prunetucky equates to pruning time! Caleb runs the saw and I drag the branches/debris to the burn pile out in the field. The kids had great fun with this this year. Aiden helped out a lot as he stacked logs into the wheelbarrow for firewood and helped me stack it by the shed. Then he and Liam took rides in the wheelbarrow back to the pruning site. The kids had a blast. Of course, mom and dad were exhausted after 2 days of this! Liam cracked us up when he independently placed his earplugs behind his ear (like you would a pencil) and said, "Ready, ma!" Wishing I had a picture of that! We spotted many oak apples (mutation of the oak caused by gall wasp larva). My kids love cracking these (and the oak marbles) open to find the baby wasps! Good times...who needs Disneyland, right!?!

Harvest Time

Been enjoying snap peas and carrots at our dinner table and harvesting them is one of Aiden and Liam's favorite activities! Liam loves to point out the new pumpkins, "Ook, ma - punkin!"

Day at the Beach

Took the kids to Lover's Point on a sweltering day in Prunedale and it was pleasant and almost warm in PG! The kids loved building and collecting. Aiden organized a very nice seaweed collection that he and Liam pieced together. Budding naturalists! After watching surfers riding the waves Aiden now wants to surf!

Summer Vacation-Part 2

After our fun in Oregon we headed south back to CA to stay with Dad and D for 5 days in Hoopa. There we enjoyed more great company and lots of D's delicious food! Dad took Aiden and Caleb crabbing off the dock in Eureka using fish carcasses and a crab trap and caught 13 rock crabs and 4 dungeness crabs. Yummy! D and I and Liam shopped in Old Town, poking around in old bookstores, toy stores, galleries, and antique shops. Dad took us to play at several area parks and the river below the house. Every day the boys and I would forage in dad's garden for peas and blueberries. Liam LOVED the blueberries and could have sat there all day eating blueberries had he been left to himself. We had dinner and camped out at the campground (grandpa being the bravest of all of the adults sleeping on the hard ground with a very thin piece of foam beneath for 3 nights in a row with Aiden!). Caleb and I lasted 1 night out there and nestled our aching selves into the nice soft bed at the house thereafter. Mama rode on grandpa's motorcycle through the valley and had a lot of fun (to her surprise). The whole vacation was just incredible and it was so nice to visit with family again!

Our Summer Vacation- Part 1

Well, we stuffed the Subaru to the brim and beyond (storage shell atop) and headed up to Salem, Oregon to see Dad, Patty, and Erik for 5 days. We marveled at the lush green wonderland that is Oregon (reminds me of Plattsburgh, NY). Dad and Patty completely spoiled us with great meals, a trip to the cinema to see Up in 3-D - great movie!, a really unique children's museum (The Gilbert House), and the Portland Zoo which is the best zoo I have been to thus far. We also enjoyed spending some time with Erik over those few days and visiting him at the nursing home where he works. He is all grown up and getting ready to head off to nursing school in Portland. We are really proud of him!

Babies everywhere

Since the first part of May a female house finch decided to build a nest in our hanging flowerpot outside our front door. We noticed her frequent trips to the flowerpot with grass in her beak and worried that that spot was too busy and not very secure (and our plant in the flowerpot would probably die), so we moved the first bits of the nest to a nesting box Aiden built up higher in the rafters on the porch thinking we knew best (?). Sure enough the finch moved her nesting bits back to the flowerpot and continued her building there. After a few days we had 4 perfect light green eggs for a few weeks. Every time we would open our front door the mama would fly off and leave the eggs unattended, sometimes for quite long periods. Amazingly, the birds hatched out and they are doing well. They have grown so fast! We were able to snap a picture of 3 large babies (1 has already flown off)! The dad sits in a nearby yucca chirping while the mama feeds the babies. They have been so much fun to watch. The geranium in the hanging flowerpot has not fared so well (I have been sneaking an ice cube into the pot on the opposite side of the nest periodically when mama is gone), but all the organic matter (if you know what I mean) from the babies should make it grow beautifully very soon when the babies have all left!

We also have 6 new fuzzy additions to our flock of chickens. One of our Rhode Islands Reds had stopped laying and eating and drinking and just sat on the other hens' eggs all day. After much research I have learned that this is known as "brooding" and we used this opportunity to introduce new chicks with her as the surrogate mama. It worked! She is a great mama. They are so cute as they peek out from under her or jump up on her back! The mama (we call her 'Auntie Red') is very protective of her new babies and she attacked Aiden after he tried to pick up one of the chicks. Aiden is not very fond of this new chick-raising method as he really enjoyed raising the other chicks and the adults he raised are so tame they stop and kneel down when he walks behind them to pick them up. Anyway, all is well with the chicks and Aiden anticipates a boost in sales in his egg business in 6 months or so.

To add to all of this baby madness, yesterday we stumbled upon hundreds of baby toads at the park down our street that had just hatched from the pond and they were trapped between the concrete curbs and stuck in the road. We spent a good part of our morning there rescuing the babies and we brought 2 dozen to the wet part of our yard to cultivate a nice toad community here as well. Liam loved the toads and gingerly picked them up and kept 3 or 4 in the palm of his hand and gently dropped them where I directed him (so sweet!). I wished I had my camera handy to document that.