Lola's Learning!

Making Play Dough...Sort of.

2010-11-15T23:00:00.000-08:00

I have made play dough a lot and have always used the same recipe. It involves heating the flour, salt, water, oil & creme of tartar mixture over the stove top. I didn't have creme of tartar this time so we made a 'no cook' recipe that i found. It was fun. Lola measured out all the ingredients herself & the girls did all the mixing themselves.
The end result was so much like a bread dough, that I thought it would be fun to bake them just to get them really hard & let the girls paint their creations.

Static Electricity

2010-11-12T22:47:00.000-08:00

Today we talked about static electricity. We tried an experiment that we had read about once & then expanded upon it.
We sprinkled some salt & pepper on a piece of paper, then rubbed a plastic spoon on a wool sock. Lola held the spoon about a 1/2 inch from the salt & pepper sprinklings and watched the pepper jump onto the spoon while the salt did nothing.
While the wool rub gave the spoon a negative charge, the salt & pepper were both positive, but only the pepper was light enough to be attracted to the spoon.
Lola was quick to answer (correctly!) why just the pepper jumped & not the salt. Lola's uncle, who was visiting at the time, observed our project and wondered out loud why the directions for the experiment would call for a plastic spoon. He thought metal would be a better conductor so we tried the metal spoon too. Nothing happened. I didn't really know what to say!
Then we had some fun and tried rubbing the spoons on the sock & putting them near our hair to get our hair standing on end. It didn't really work, so we rubbed balloons on our head instead!

A Puppet Show in the Making

2010-11-08T22:38:00.000-08:00

Lola's school handles the core subjects of Math and Language Arts, I like to encourage these subjects here at home too.
Today, Lola and I played a writing game (an idea I got from a book!). It's called the "Silent" game...I passed a note to Lola that said I wanted to play a game with her but the rule was "NO TALKING!". We exchanged the note back and forth, responding to each other. Through the course of the dialogue, we got the idea to make puppets so we abandoned our note soon after to get to work. We have done the game several times since then, though. Lola's face lights up every time I surprise her with a written note!

Here are the puppets we made. Later on, we made a story for them.

Dia del los Muertos, part dos

2010-11-01T22:32:00.000-07:00

No Dia de los Muertos experience would be complete without Pan de Muerto! It's a sweet bread, flavored with anise and decorated with "bones" made from the dough and colored sugar on top!

Dia de los Muertos!

2010-11-01T22:13:00.000-07:00

Today, I took Lola to a historical park where decorated alters were all around for Dia de los Muertos. Lola has such a healthy attitude towards celebrating a loved ones life, I feel sometimes like I have so much to learn from her, as opposed to her learning from me!
She is also part Mexican herself and I love sharing these aspects of the culture with her.

Field Trip!

2010-09-30T22:55:00.000-07:00

Yay for pumpkin patches! I love this time of year! Both my kids were born in the fall & I have always been a huge fan of this particular season....the autumn colors, Halloween, celebrating their birthdays, etc., etc...
One of our favorite activities is visiting the pumpkin patch. I don't know why this is so fun, except that is encompasses all our favorite things about this time of year into one area. Our favorite pumpkin patch has a a huge cottonseed hill that the kids can slide down on little sleds that are provided there. There are hayrides, petting zoos, playgrounds, mazes, etc., but the kids spend most of their time on the cottonseed hill.

Art

2010-09-27T22:53:00.000-07:00

We started a project today with another homeschooling family. But shhhhhh! We didn't finish yet & it's going to take several get togethers before we can present the final product, so....more on this later.

Camping Trip

2010-09-24T21:53:00.000-07:00

This weekend, we took the girls camping very near an old mining town. One of our mornings there, we took the girls to a fun place where you can sluice for gold or gemstones & press your own apple cider, just as folks did in the 'old days'. The sluicing was very fascinating to the girls...they found not only gemstones, but arrowheads, fossils and bits of old pottery from native Americans. They got to drink the very own cider that they pressed, which was pretty cool them & also pretty tasty. They had a blast.

Hamsters!

2010-09-20T21:40:00.000-07:00

Lola was able to take home the class pet this weekend...he is a hamster named Stormy. Very cute little thing. Lola was so beyond excited! But we learned that we really didn't know anything about hamsters...we have a guinea pig & dogs, but have never had a hamster. I took the opportunity to do to a project with Lola about hamsters. We looked up info on the internet and she wrote down the new facts she had learned and drew a picture of Stormy. The girls had a blast with him. In retrospect, hamsters seems much easier to take care of then guinea pigs, I kind of wish I would have known that! :/ (just kidding, we love our guinea pig.)

Bontannical Gardens

2010-09-17T22:38:00.000-07:00

We are so lucky to have a place like this within a decent drive. It is amazing beyond words, I wish I could explain. The kids can literally play here for hours without a single complaint or whine. There is so much for them to see and do. We had a very memorable afternoon here and managed to sneak in a little learning too.

Farmer's Market

2010-09-10T22:16:00.000-07:00

A great trip to make with kids. I gave Lola $6 and a shopping bag. I let her pick and choose the items that she wanted to buy and encouraged her to count her money & change. She needed my help, but she ended up spending the whole $6 and had a great experience chatting with the farmers and tasting the produce samples.

Museum of Man

2010-09-03T21:04:00.000-07:00

Lola loves this museum. Downstairs is an amazing Mayan exhibition, but it's upstairs is really where it's as far as she's concerned. Besides the really neat primate exhibition, human evolution exhibition, *real mummies*, there's the Egyptian dress-up/playroom. We save this part for last because it's Lola favorite part. She will play here for hours (if I would let her!). Here is photo of her dressed up and playing on the boat in the playroom, after a great tour of the museum.

Cheese!

2010-04-09T22:08:00.000-07:00

Lola and I attempted to make paneer cheese today for the first time. Paneer is a fresh farmers cheese used in Indian cuisine. It was very easy and had only 2 ingredients...milk & lemon juice (or another acid, like lime juice or whey from a previous batch of paneer).

We heated the milk gently, then added the lemon juice. The acid makes the milk curdle and then we did our best to separate the curds from the whey. The curds can later be pressed and formed into a block.

I figured we couldn't go wrong, but somehow, we did. I later learned that we shouldn't have used ultra-pasteurized milk as it does not curd very well. Our milk curds were so small that it was difficult to drain the whey.

We did manage to salvage the cheese by just adding some salt and dill and blending it into a soft spreadable farmers cheese. It was delicious so it was ok that it didn't really turn out the way we expected.

a trip to the bay

2010-03-23T22:31:00.001-07:00

Today, we took a drive to the bay. There's a lot to do and see there, plus many different catalysts for conversations providing opportunities for learning. After playing in the playground, we took a hike on the shoreline. That is where we found our first conversation catalyst...a dead heron on the beach. This sparked conversation about what we think may have caused the heron to die there. One theory was environmental. It was hard not to notice that the beach doesn't look or smell very clean. The water is stagnant and cloudy. Inwardly, I cringed everytime the kids dug their hands into the sand! Nonetheless, we had a really interesting walk and managed to pick up little "souvenirs" along the beach...like shell fragments and golf balls!

Time Capsule

2010-03-22T23:20:00.000-07:00

Today, we discovered a neat website, called Keo.org. Keo is the name of a space time capsule, basically a satellite, that is set to launch in 2012 and will roam space for 50,000 years before returning to earth. The entire world is invited to submit messages to the "future earth" before the satellite is launched. There is technology for the future earth to receive the messages and instructions on how to relay them. Sounds super complicated to me, but Lola decided on her message and we submitted it. She is concerned about the state of the earth and hopes that we don't ruin it too badly for humans 50,000 years from now....

Plant life

2010-03-15T23:00:00.000-07:00

We strolled through the gardens at a popular park near our home. There is a beautiful cactus garden and even a rose garden that are open to the public to learn from. Fortunately, most of the plants are labeled, which was fun especially in the rose garden. Some varietals of roses have funny names, which was very amusing for the kids. Gourmet Popcorn was one of the most memorable!

Sewing!

2010-03-12T22:51:00.000-08:00

Lola is learning to sew!

Making Lotion!

2010-02-22T07:37:00.000-08:00

Today, we made body lotions and butters. I needed to make them for a craft fair that I was co-hosting, so I thought it would be fun to include Lola in the lotion making process. She loved choosing the oils and the fragrances! She spent a lot of time smelling and feeling each one. She also enjoyed stirring the melting wax & oils together.

Chinese New Years!

2010-02-19T07:27:00.000-08:00

We celebrated Chinese New Year and marked the beginning of the Year of the Tiger. We ate dumplings and noodles. We learned that unbroken noodles symbolize long life!
The kids made crafts and really enjoyed themselves!

Local Wildlife Hike

2010-01-25T16:10:00.000-08:00

We took a walk at a nearby lake to observe our local wildlife and take pictures of any plant life that interested us. We found a white bird with long legs wading in the shore that we had never seen before. An internet search revealed the bird to be a snowy egret. We also observed geese and rabbits.
We found an unusual plant that we had never seen before. It has bunches of small round balls that have spikes all over them. We tried hard, but still haven't been able to identify it. We hope to someday soon!

Pretend Store!

2010-01-22T15:10:00.000-08:00

To reiterate what we were learning about coin values, we decided to set up a pretend store in the playroom, where Lola was the shopkeeper and I was the customer. We used all the play coins from another money game that we have and Lola used her cash register. I pretended to purchase a toy and she would tell me the price. Whatever the price of the toy, we came up with as many different formulations of the amount as we could. For example, if the toy cost 60 cents, we would count out 2 quarters & a dime, or 6 dimes, or 12 nickels.

Internet games

2010-01-15T14:57:00.000-08:00

We had Lola's aunt & uncle come into town for a visit this weekend. They brought with them some gifts for the girls. One of Lola's gifts was this stuffed animal (a deer, maybe?) that is part of the Littlest Pet Shop. They have a website where she entered her code that came with the toy and she was able to start playing all these games online. She hasn't really done that before and it was amazing how well she picked up learning how to navigate the laptop. She played games that allowed her to win coins and then take her coins to their little online "shop" and pretend buy items for her pet. It was great to see her evaluate the amount of her coins versus the amount of the item for sale that she wanted to buy. When she didn't have enough for a particular item, she would go earn more coins from playing the games and then go back to the "shop". She was so enthralled, she must have played all day!

Sewing!

2010-01-11T14:46:00.000-08:00

Lola has been begging me to learn how to sew. Today, we took our first crack at it. She took to it right away and didn't seem to have any difficulty, but she soon bored of it. She still hasn't finished the plastic mesh star that she started! We talked a lot about how important sewing is to our society and so many others too. Sewing has been around since the paleolithic times and even appears in history before weaving.
We plan to revisit sewing (and also rug hooking) next month.

Money Bags

2010-01-08T14:33:00.000-08:00

Lola's class has been working on coin value, a subject that Lola has been having some trouble with. It's hard for her to remember the value of the coins and to add them up. I got her this game for Christmas, so we decided to play it today.
Last month, when I was asked by our independent study coordinator to estimate what our focuses were going to be for this month, I knew coin values would be one of them!

The consumer reviews were really good for the game and Lola had a lot of fun with it. It has a feature where you have to assemble a particular monetary amount without potentially being able to use certain coins...for example, you might be asked to assemble $0.50 without the use of quarters. This was really helpful in regards to truly understanding value (as opposed to just memorizing what certain combination of coins add up to).

Sorry, I didn't think to take any pictures while we were playing. I wish I had. Although I have another math idea that I am going to use these coins for and I will take pictures of that.

Moon Sand...

2010-01-04T17:52:00.000-08:00

Oh boy, this one was a doozy. I'm not sure moon sand will never make another appearance in our house, but I'm glad we at least figured out what it was all about. It's fun...just *really* messy.

We wondered what was in the sand to make it so sticky but wet and not dry out. We looked online and found out that we basically could have made moon sand ourselves for a LOT cheaper then we paid for a fancy kit. It's just sand, cornstarch and water!!! We decided we will make it ourselves another time. Maybe for an outdoor activity...:)

January is GAME MONTH!!

2010-01-04T17:50:00.000-08:00

Lola came up with a good idea. She thought January should be a game month (for homeschooling projects), since it's a short month and because they got all kinds of cool new games for Christmas that they really want to play. I thought it was a great idea, so here we are!

Funnest Math Project EVER!

2009-12-14T12:31:00.000-08:00

I love to incorporate math into baking. Lola barely realizes that she is having a math lesson.
Today we baked gluten-free gingerbread men. Lola loves to bake and is very good at measuring out the fractions for the ingredients.
It was originally going to be a gingerbread house but we ran out of time! Either way, the kids had fun. They also got to decorate their cookies and they were very excited about that.

Happy Hunukkah!

2009-12-11T12:07:00.000-08:00

I haven't blogged our homeschooling experiences in a long time, mostly because I've been without a digital camera for a while (ours broke in Hawaii)...it's hard to post without photos!

To mark the beginning of Hanukkah this year, we decided to get together with a couple of other independent study families and teach the kids a bit about the history and reasons why certain foods are eaten during the Hanukkah holiday. The kids ate latkes, fried in oil to represent the scant amount of oil recovered by the Maccabees and how it miraculously lasted eight nights...enough time to find new oil. The kids learned about the menorah and how it is customary to light a candle on the menorah and exchange a small gift each of the eight nights.

Afterward, they played the dreidel game with their "gelt", which was the traditional foil covered chocolate coins! They had so much fun!

A day at the zoo

2009-11-02T21:44:00.000-08:00

Today, we went to the zoo. Lola is especially interested in reptiles so we spent a good portion of our day in the reptile house. They were a few stand-outs...mainly the Gila Monster, in the second photo. Lola was quite relieved to learn that, while, they are very poisonous, it's pretty difficult to actually get bit by one since they are so slow moving.
She was also fascinated by the albino Burmese python. It was HUGE!

Word Games

2009-09-28T14:23:00.000-07:00

I found this great educational website through Lola's teacher's blog. It has interactive games/puzzles, as well as some that you can print out. Since Lola is a big fan of word search puzzles, I found her some that had themes that she liked, such as Wizard of Oz, Dr. Seuss, recipe words, etc...She had great fun doing these puzzles and we were able to work on reading at the same time.

She also had spanish class today and learned to how to say the colors!

Diving

2009-09-25T14:32:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, we were in Palm Desert at a hotel with a pool (thank goodness!). Lola and her sister played in the pool all day, the entire time we were there. Lola is getting super brave in the water and even taught herself how to dive off the edge of the pool! Hard to believe this is the same girl that wouldn't let go of the edge or even get off the stairs only a few months ago! Go Lola!

Spanish!

2009-09-21T14:22:00.000-07:00

Hola!
Lola has started a spanish class, twice a week...She loves it!

Gardening Monday...

2009-09-21T14:14:00.000-07:00

We usually stay home on Mondays because the weekends are so busy that we don't get much chores done. Today, we tended to the garden. I stripped the bottom inch off of a pineapple crown and let it air out. It will soon be ready for planting. In the meantime, we took out some of our veggies that had gone to seed & harvested some veggies that are still going strong. We picked lots of tomatoes, eggplant, chard & basil. Sounds like a great pasta sauce to me!!

Diamondhead

2009-09-18T12:31:00.000-07:00

Today we took up a hike up to the very tippy top of Diamond Head. Scientists believe that the type of massive, but brief, eruption that formed the shape of the symmetrical crater is monogenetic, and therefore, they do not believe Diamond Head will ever erupt again.
It's about a 1.5 mile hike round trip and takes up to 2 hours. It wasn't very hard, except that it's unpaved and rocky. The hardest part was probably the stairs near the top. There are 74 of them!! Yikes! Lola was a champ and did the entire hike with me by herself and didn't require any help. She was so proud of herself when she got to the top! She took her own photos of the view. It was spectacular.

2009-09-14T09:29:00.000-07:00

School had just barely started for Lola and we left for Hawaii for a week. Since we were already into the 2nd week of school, we looked for learning opportunities and didn't have to search very far. There were all kinds of new birds & plants we had never seen before and learned a lot about the various cultures that make up these beautiful islands.

Above photos are examples of the different ginger plants and plumeria trees we saw.

Also, Lola and I right before taking hula dancing lessons! We learned how to tell a story using hula dancing and, by doing so, learned a lot about the culture in Hawaii.

Back to School!

2009-09-08T09:24:00.000-07:00

A very happy 1st grader on her way to the 1st day of school!

Volcano, Part 2

2009-06-10T22:31:00.001-07:00

The explosion! Well, first we had to paint it. The girls did a great job. This afternoon was the grand finale...we poured vinegar into the top of the volcano and we got our red lava to bubble up to the top and pour out! Lola didn't like the smell of the vinegar, but she did enjoy the project as a whole!

Volcano, Part 1

2009-06-08T22:14:00.000-07:00

Recently, Lola and I were chatting about volcanoes. She was fascinated by the fact that where her grandfather lives, Montreal, there is a dormant volcano. I told her how we used to find lava rocks as children. She wondered if they were still hot! Anyway, it gave us the idea to make a volcano from paper mache and have it "explode". I didn't realize at the time that it was really a 2-3 day project. Step 1 was making the base and the shape of the volcano. We used plastic cups and balled up newspaper glued to a box to make our shape. Then we poured some baking soda and a few drops of red food dye into the bottom of the volcano. After we waited a day for the glue to dry, we made the paper mache solution and shredded the newspaper. Lola covered it in paper mache, leaving a hole at the top for the "lava" to come out!

Baking Cookies

2009-06-01T21:56:00.000-07:00

Lola has been asking to bake cookies for a long time. She is quite independent in the kitchen, wanting to do everything herself. I'm learning to be patient with that because I really want to nurture her love for cooking and baking. It's tough though!
Anyway, this time I let her do a lot more than I've allowed her to in the past. She is pretty competent, I was impressed! We made these great little vegan chocolate chip cookies from our favorite recipe. They were delicious!

Under the Sea!

2009-05-22T17:58:00.000-07:00

Today was a great day to visit the aquarium....especially since it was a free admission day! yay! We checked out all kinds of sea creatures, from jellyfish to sharks. It's always a fun day there.

Melons...

2009-05-18T23:02:00.000-07:00

Lola has been asking to plant cantaloupe for a long time. I decided today would be the day, but the problem was we had no prepared garden bed space left. The melon seeds required 4' spacing and we have a tiny, tiny yard. But I didn't want to let her down so we made a new garden space today. It wasn't easy to dig out the grass, but it's worth it to see if we're successful. I hope it's not too late in the season, though...I wish we would have started a month or two ago.
We worked all day and got it done. We even threw in a couple of corn seeds (kernels) to see what would happen! Next week, we need to get some peas going and our sweet potatoes.

Reptiles, oh my!

2009-05-15T17:54:00.000-07:00

Today we went to the zoo with a friend to check out the insect house and the reptiles. We learned a bunch about snakes, spiders and bees! Too bad there were not a chrysalis to be found in the butterfly garden...we were too late for that.

Wanna sleepover?

2009-05-11T17:48:00.000-07:00

Today, Lola made invitations to her friends for a pretend sleepover party. She can't wait for the day when this party will stop being the pretend party that she fantasizes about and become reality!! Anyway, on her invitation, she listed the items that she thought her friends should bring: slippers, sleeping bag and pajamas! So cute.

Tulip Town!

2009-05-08T22:45:00.000-07:00

While in Washington, we took a trip to Tulip Town. We barely made it while the tulips were in bloom...they only bloom for about 3 weeks! Most tulip farms had already cut their blooms, but Tulip Town still had some fields that were uncut.
Tulips are huge in the Skagit Valley. In the mid 1920's there was an embargo placed on bulb imports by the United States government, so many growers in Holland began to send family members and friends to the US to establish farms and possible growing locations. Many of the Dutch growers had heard of the success in Washington State and came to the Pacific Northwest, settling mostly in Lynden, Washington. After discovering that Lynden winters were not suited for bulb growing, they began checking into the success they had heard about in Skagit Valley, about 30 miles south of Lynden.
The fields are beautiful. Too difficult to describe in words. The contrast of bright colors were like nothing we had ever seen!

Our trip to Washington state

2009-05-04T21:51:00.000-07:00

We went to Washington for a week and stayed on one of the islands off the coast for most of our trip. We rented a house with a huge front yard that was close to the beach, which provided a ton of opportunities for learning about the local wildlife, both land and water-bound.

The beaches there are clearly far more "untouched" than any beach I have ever visited. For most of our beachcombing expeditions, we were the only people there. Of course, it wasn't exactly beach play weather. It was cold and it rained. A lot. Maybe it's different in the summer, but whatever the case may be, it was wonderful to see nature nearly completely unspoiled. There were treasures all over the beaches. Crabs, oysters, mussels, clams....not to mention the beautiful rocks, quartz and shells.

There was also a cute rabbit family living in our front yard. We saw them out and about everyday. We learned about some new birds...Lola learned about robins and red-shouldered hawks. We were also very lucky to see a bald eagle at the beach! She has seen some before, but she was too young to remember. Later on, while still at the beach, I tried to show her what I thought was a crane, Lola quickly pointed out to me that it was, in fact, a blue Heron and NOT a crane!

Scavenger Hunt!

2009-05-01T16:58:00.000-07:00

We had just arrived to Washington, day 1 of our 7 day trip...The house and surroundings were beautiful! And what better way to get familiar with our new environment than doing a scavenger hunt?
We helped Lola to read the list of items that she needed to find and collect around the house and off she went! She was quite successful the first time around so we made a harder one next time!

Your name in Japanese....

2009-04-13T11:27:00.000-07:00

We discovered this fun little website....it translates your name to Japanese. Lola had a lot of fun with this and enjoyed copying the Japanese characters. She did every name in our family!

Millipedes in the garden!

2009-03-31T22:14:00.000-07:00

Here is a fine example of why I love homeschooling....opportunities for little ones to learn are literally everywhere! Their brains are are like little sponges and they just love information. They are keen and smart as whips. It's not till we get older that complacency sets in...environmental factors fog our desire for learning. But with children, it's still all pure and bright. Call me sappy, but I'm having a great time learning right alongside with Lola.
Here's a new specimen we learned about today. I snapped a photo of this member of the arthropod family, wandering on our front path, just a few feet from our garden. Other family members include spiders and crustaceans.
Millipedes are really helpful in gardens because they prey on common garden pests. I was really happy to run into one and placed him right back in the garden where he belongs as soon as his photo session was over. I assume he was displaced temporarily because I had just recently transplanted my failing gardenia bush to the backyard.

Lola's Lemonade Stand

2009-03-19T21:59:00.000-07:00

We've been learning a bit about coins and their value lately, so I thought it would be fun to have a lemonade stand. Lola's been asking for one for soooo long. There's actually more involved in having one than I anticipated, so today we staged a practice round.
We made the lemonade, the cookies and the lovely sign, but we just invited our friends and didn't actually collect money. Our original intent for the practice round was to have a bowl of spare change that the children could take coins, learn how to count them out and "pay" for their purchases...but that didn't happen. We were so involved with the making of the products and the presentation that we didn't actually get around to the financial aspect of it!! Oh well! We've done so many workbook exercises and games lately that I feel like the concept was well understood all the same...and soon we'll do it again for real.

The bay

2009-03-17T21:39:00.000-07:00

We were going to do something related to St. Patrick's Day, but, in the end, it was so hot today that we decided to head down to the bay. It was surprisingly cold once we got there. There was a great information board describing all the wildlife in the bay. We played at the playground for a while then walked over to the bay beach. The water looked and smelled a little...er...funny, so we didn't actually get in the water, although there was another family who were totally swimming.

Nature Walks & Opossums

2009-02-20T22:09:00.000-08:00

Today I took the girls to Ant-Sized Adventures, a great little nature program at Mission Trails, geared towards pre-K to K. The focus of this particular class was on raccoons and opossums. We learned a lot about each and sang cutesy songs about them. Lola loved it, but Elise was not into the classroom portion of this at all and pretty much pouted on my lap the whole time. She did get into the nature walk, especially the furry caterpillars we encountered along the way. Lola pointed out a bunch of stuff to me on the nature walk that I probably would never have noticed by myself. Her favorite part was getting to meet a live opossum after the nature walk was over. Our adventure ended with a craft, then we had lunch outside the visitor's center with some friends. It was really nice. We are signed up for another adventure next month. I hope Elise will share some of Lola's enthusiasm next time!

New math games....

2009-02-06T22:36:00.000-08:00

I bought a great book with tons of math games for k-1 aged kids. We are having fun with it today and I even made up some of my own games with the new burst of inspiration!

our new pet Henry!

2009-01-26T22:30:00.000-08:00

We got Lola a guinea pig! She named him Henry. We sure learned a bunch of new stuff about guinea pigs today.....honestly, I wish I would have known some of it before actually getting one, but so it goes!

Art Project!

2009-01-19T22:25:00.000-08:00

Lola made a lovely art project that we ended up giving as gifts to our friends. She made paper plate faces of her and Elise. We are planning to give them to her aunt J & uncle M. So cute! We went to the craft store and found yarn to match their hair color and everything!

5 senses (at home)

2009-01-12T22:16:00.000-08:00

The weather hasn't been warm enough to do our 5 senses in the park, like I'd prefer so we improvised a new game here at home with ordinary household objects. We focused mainly on touch because we had been talking about textures earlier that day.
This is what Lola had to say about each one:
1. Fuzzy lamb slipper: soft, squishy, furry
2. Stainless Steel water bottle: the metal part feels smooth, the plastic part is smooth in some parts, but bumpy in others
3. Pine needle branch from our dried out Christmas tree: rough and scratchy. Feels smoother when touching the branch in the directions that the pine needles grow, but scratchy when touched in the other direction.
4. Penny: Feels smooth around, but you can feel the texture of the engravings on the face.
5. Cat toy: ball with bell inside. Feels smooth, but textured also because of the holes.

The 5 Senses Nature Day

2008-12-08T21:03:00.000-08:00

We had a nature day today. There's a neat park not too far from our house, that has winding hiking paths and a nice clearing with picnic tables. I love parks that don't have play structures. It really makes the kids bond with the outdoors and nature so much more. Plus, Elise is at the age where she really wants to be pushed on the swings all the time, so it's really nice to come to parks like this where she gets more involved in playing with the other children.
I had the idea for Lola to find random things around us and compare how they felt, smelled, looked, etc...
She seemed really into it at first, but starting losing interest about halfway through. Here are some of the things that we talked about:

First, the leaves: The leaves were brown and felt very dry. They made a crunching noise when you crumpled them. They smelled like dust.

The rocks: There were different rocks and some felt smooth and some were bumpy. They were hard and gritty. They smelled like dirt.

Pine needles: These were long and green. They felt smooth and left your fingers sticky. They smelled like our Christmas tree.

Afterwards, Lola had fun playing with a magnifying glass and looking for clues. I'm really excited for Christmas because I got her a kids geology set that I think she will really enjoy!

Fairy Making!

2008-10-27T10:16:00.000-07:00

Lola received this cool little fairy-making kit for her birthday from one of her friends. It's awesome! We made the cutest little fairies and had a lot of fun making them. I would definitely recommend this gift to a little girl of this age, (even though Lola needed my help for certain parts).

Science Project: Dissolving in water

2008-10-20T20:43:00.000-07:00

Today, Lola had an idea for a science project. She said that, at school, her teacher had used colored sugar to see if it dissolves in water so today Lola wanted to try other types of solids to see if they would dissolve also.

We tried five things. Flour, sugar, salt, ground oats and oil.

The flour only partially dissolved, but mostly did not.
She knew already that the sugar would dissolve completely, but we tried that one again anyway.
The salt did not completely dissolve, as she noticed the water was quite cloudy after mixing it.
The ground oats did not dissolve at all and she was able to pick up spoonfuls of oat particles.
Lola hypothesized that the oil would not dissolve but didn't realize it would end up sitting on top of the water! She thought that was pretty cool.

More on DISTAR...

2008-10-13T20:16:00.000-07:00

We did our math and language arts lessons today and I have come to the conclusion that I enjoy using this method for math, but not so much for language arts. It seems awfully redundant and, while I understand the theory behind the repetition, I feel silly some of the time and I feel like it bores Lola. I think in a group setting like at her school, it's probably a little more exciting, but when we are just doing it one on one...not quite. Again, maybe too soon to make a judgement, I'm going to give it more time.

Birch Aquarium and Distar

2008-10-10T22:54:00.000-07:00

I felt like I haven't done as much outside the home with the kids as usual so I decided to forego playgroup today and take the girls to the aquarium. They love it there so much. In fact, when I gave Lola a few options of where to go today, she chose the aquarium.
A few of the exhibits were closed, but the girls enjoyed themselves nonetheless. Lola loves to stop and play by the gray whales sculptures. There is a board to the side that has tons of information on them and she loves me to read gray whale facts to her.
We visited the tide pools, where some staff were showing kids a couple of snails. There they are in the box that Elise is crouching by in the first photo. Except Elise did not give a hoot about the snails, she just wanted to dip her hands in the water and maybe even sneak her fingers into her mouth, if she could get out of mommy's line of vision for a quick second!

Later on, when Elise was napping at home, Lola and I did a math lesson and a language arts lesson using the DISTAR. It went a lot better today now that I have seen her teacher doing it in class. It's actually pretty self-explanatory, once you understand the concept, because there is a script to follow. From what I understand, we have as much freedom to stick to the script or not, as we please, but I want to at least start off doing it the same way as Lola is learning it in school. I don't want to confuse her even more! She is doing great, though. I'm not 100% sure about this DISTAR stuff yet, but I need to give it more time for sure.

To catch up a bit...

2008-10-09T22:26:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, we took a family trip to the desert so I haven't blogged much lately...We went with a few other families with kids so there was tons of socializing, playing and swimming involved!
Monday was the day after we got back home and my first day to work with Lola using DISTAR. This is the method of instruction that is used at her school. So, on Thursdays when I pick her up, her teacher will give me the sections of the workbook that I will need for the days that I am homeschooling. This way Lola is on the same page as everyone else on the days that she is in school.
My first time trying this method was confusing and I felt that the material itself was far too easy...Lola was yelling out the answers before I could even finish the request. We ended up fiinding some fun math and language art excercises online instead.
But after volunteering at her school yesterday, I finally got to see her teacher using the DISTAR correctly and realized that I had not been doing it right at all. I am going to give it some more practice and see how it goes.
For tomorrow, I gave Lola a few options of what we can do and she chose the aquarium. She said she wanted to learn more about whales! Anyway, when we get home and Elise is (hopefully!) napping, I plan to give DISTAR another good effort!

p.s. new camera finally arrived so expect photos very soon!

Art Day!

2008-09-29T10:20:00.000-07:00

Today, we were supposed to go to the New Children's Museum, but we had a rough night with the baby, so we changed our plans. We decided to make today an art day at home. We're having a Halloween party for Lola's birthday and we need decorations so we hit the craft store and came back with some great ideas and new art supplies. We made some really neat spiders, bats and black cats! There are so many that we are not nearly finished them all. Lola used puff paint to decorate the bats. She did such a beautiful job. Photos will be uploaded soon!

Playing with friends

2008-09-26T10:13:00.000-07:00

We had a nice day playing with our friends! It was mellow, but mellow is really good sometimes!

Cool science projects

2008-09-22T20:33:00.000-07:00

Today, I couldn't decide between 2 science projects so I decided to do both even though they weren't really related concepts. Oh well. There's a lot of good ideas out there and a lot of them don't take very much time to do, so I don't see the harm in doing as many as we want.

The first was an experiment on what floats in our bathtub. We grabbed a box and went around the house finding stuff to put in the bathtub, to determine if the object would float or sink. I asked Lola first if she thought the object would float or sink before she put it in the bathtub and why. Some of the items were cups or bowls so we tried each twice, once empty and then again when they were filled with water. She really liked this experiment and Elise enjoyed getting a bonus bath out of the deal!

Next, we moved on to making play dough. We measured all the ingredients and put them in glass bowls. I let Lola feel the different ingredients and we talked about the difference in the textures, colors. smells, etc...we then made the play dough, during which we talked about how each of the ingredients plays an important role in the finished product. For instance, I asked her how she thought the play dough would have turned out if we had forgotten to add the flour or the water, etc..

She's been playing with the dough all day. She loves it. I also gave her a handful of whole cloves that she's been using to create eyes/noses/buttons/cake candles, etc....

Playgroup again

2008-09-19T20:30:00.000-07:00

Today we went to playgroup and the kids both played at the park for nearly 4 hours. Um, I think Lola met the minimum of P.E. minutes she needed for this week, and then some!

Aquarium

2008-09-15T20:06:00.000-07:00

We went to the aquarium today. We learned a lot about gray whales in particular. Lola loves whales and was especially interested in the differences between gray whales and humpback whales. She also loved the sharks and jellyfish. While visiting the tide pools, we learned from a staffer that one of their lobsters had recently shed its shell and was currently hiding under one of the rocks, since it was now "soft" and vulnerable to predators. Lola got to hold the discarded shell, which was cool. Another staffer picked up some starfish for the kids to touch and observe. I definitely learned some new things mysel today!

Fridays...

2008-09-12T19:25:00.000-07:00

Ok, Fridays are going to be interesting because we usually go to playgroup at the park on Fridays, but I still want to try to fit in a math or language arts lesson in somewhere. What might work out well is going to playgroup in the mornings and then doing a lesson while Elise naps. Today, we went to playgroup for an hour, then came home and logged onto PBS Kids. There is section specifically for teachers with fun little learning games and other great resources. Lola and I played Kindergarten-specific math games together and we really enjoyed them.

Our first day!

2008-09-08T18:55:00.000-07:00

This is officially our first real homeschool day. I figure that, as a mom, I'm pretty much my child's first teacher and, therefore, homeschooling all the time, but this is our first "real" day since she started Kindergarten. Lola is part of a great new charter school that offers a hybrid program where she goes to class 3 days a week and I homeschool her the other 2 days.
What I love about this so far is that I'm way more attentive than I used to be. There are tons of opportunity for learning and I've become far more aware. I definitely feel more accountable and that's good. Keeps me from being Lazy Mom. And the bonus? Elise gets to learn right along with Lola. Elise loves to do everything that Lola does, so it's very nice to have her home part-time.

For our first day, I thought we'd do something fun so we went to the zoo with some friends. My friend lead us to areas of the zoo that I don't usually go to. I get stuck in ruts a lot because I'll develop a routine and never really stray from the routine. This was fun because we saw exhibits we never saw before and Lola loved it all. We went to the insectarium where there was a butterfly garden. We got to see catapillars in various stages of metamorphosis. One, in particular, was only partially hidden in the chryssalis. It was awesome to observe the process that closely.
We also to see a snake's recently shed skin in the tank. Lola was so excited to point it out!
Morphing seemed to be the theme of the day, which was pretty appropriate, I thought!