History, Logging, Box Factory

We went to the office for the local Rails to Trails program today to register the kids for the Fun Run they are having tomorrow. I had forgotten that they have a small, local history museum there. The kids had fun looking at everything. Pictures of our town 100 or more years ago and seeing how the people dressed, looking at the old lanterns (E was asking about the difference between lanterns and the torches in minecraft the other day, so now she knows what a lantern looks like), the wagon, the luggage, and the trunks and hope chests ("Mom, a treasure box!") There were also ancient things like typewriters and phones with cords. Lol

We saw pictures of the old saw mill and trains carrying lumber from the forest to the mill. On the way home, I took us the route that goes by the mill and we went slow and talked about why the mill closed and why it looks the way it does now. I also connected it to D's old job for them. Two summers ago, he worked as a fire watchman for a lumber company, and he lived in a trailer onsite. E still remembers visiting him there and seeing all the logging equipment and trucks loaded down with logs and we just happened to have been looking at old pictures of that yesterday, so that was a cool connection.

Then we went for a walk on the trail, and we saw horses, picked more pine needles for tea, and saw lots of pollen in the air. E saw some flowers and knew they were bluebells and I have no idea how she knew that. I hardly know the names of any flowers, and she said her grandma didn't tell her either. I wasn't sure what they were until we got home and I looked up bluebells and sure enough, that's what we saw!  *wrote on May 17

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So, you know how a few days ago, I posted about how the kids and I learned stuff about logging from that museum and drove by our town's old mill? Well, without knowing any of that, my mom emailed me a link to this documentary on a Steam Sawmill Box Factory just because she thought we might like it.  The girls and I had just revisited what creates steam a few days ago AND some of the boxes that they make are for Louis L'Amour book collections and D has a huge set.

This is what I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE about unschooling! The way everything connects to everything else is all around us! It's just a matter of being open to it.   *wrote on May 21

Mine Craft Statue

So today, E and I started making a statue of a person on minecraft that has an anatomically correct skeleton inside it's skin. Well, as correct as you can get with everything being square blocks.  We started with a foot and used an anatomy book to look at the bones- phalanges, tarsals, metatarsals, tibia, fibula, patella and femur- and worked our way up. The skin is glass, so we can see through to the bones.

Then we discovered that we were going to end up making it taller than minecraft will allow, so dh suggested that we build it in pieces scattered around and place TNT near it so it looks like we blew the person up. I think he's been playing too many first person shooters. 

So we started building a heart near the leg.  Using lava for blood. *


*wrote on message board May 6

Goal Setting

I discussed goal setting with my 7 year old the other day, because she has several things that she is involved in that she needs to practice.

She's doing 3 songs in this concert that she's doing. The rehearsals are twice a week, and the show is in 3 weeks, and her dancing is still pretty rough.

Then she has a performance with her ballet class coming up and that class is only once a week and they spend half the class doing barre work.

And she does dog club with 4-H once a month and they are doing a demonstration of their skills at the fair grounds soon.

Also, last year she did this one mile kids' fun run that is part of the larger 5k and 10k for adults. She said that this year she wanted to win, but since it is for kids 12 and under, I told her that might be pretty hard to compete against the 12 year olds, BUT that she could "beat herself." Last year she ran a little, then stopped, ran a little, then stopped. This year she wants to run the whole mile without stopping.

So, I suggested to her that we work on each of these things for a just a few minutes each day. Do each of the concert songs and the ballet songs once, walk the dog up and down the street once and have her sit/stay a few times, and run progressively further each day, starting with one time down the street and back, then two, then three and so on.

She liked that idea, so we've been doing all of those things every day for the last few days.*

*wrote on message board April 19

Reading the Bible

 My 7 year old got out her Bible this morning and said, "When I'm older I'll be able to read this." I reminded her that she CAN read (it's just still slow going at this point) and she said she can read some books, but not the Bible. So I suggested just reading ONE word. We flipped it open and she she read "the," and I closed it and said "See, you can read the Bible!"

"MOM!" she exclaimed.


Then she wanted to read more so she read about 5 words and then asked me to keep reading and I read both girls almost a chapter.

Yesterday and today, they've both been rhyming a lot of words, which leads to them making up some words to get them to rhyme and also stumbling on words they didn't know before and end up asking me the definition. Yesterday it was "par" like when two things are "on par," and this morning they learned "might" and "bask."*

*wrote on message board April 24

Fire Trucks

The girls saw fire trucks at the Children's Fair in May, and they got to learn about the hoses and ladders. We compared the big red fire engines with the Forest Service type trucks that D drives/rides in at work.

Bowling

We've gone bowling 2 or 3 times this year.  The computer does their scores for them, but they still pay attention and do some math too, noticing how the computer got the score it got by adding the number they just knocked down to the previous total. 

Pop Concert

Both girls had their first rehearsal for a local pop concert they will be in. The oldest has done a musical theater production with Broadway songs for the last two years, so this will be different for her. It's the first thing my 4 year old has been old enough for. The rehearsal was 3 hours long!  I wasn't sure how my 4 year old would do, having never done anything like this before, but she did great.   *wrote March 24


 E and L had their first pop concert performance tonight! They did an amazing job!
I can't even believe my 4 year old! She is SO little and the rehearsals were so long sometimes and she'd get tired. I told her a bunch of times that it's ok if she doesn't want to do it, she could always do it when she's bigger if she wants to or not at all. I thought maybe she was just doing it because her sister was and that it might be too much for her, so I made sure to let her know that she didn't have to do it. But she did it! And she can be really reserved around people until she warms up and gets to know them, but she had NO fear in front of that audience tonight.

My 7 year old worked so hard on her dancing and she nailed it!  This is the third performance like this that she has been in (the other two were shows with Broadway show tunes) and she's getting better every time.   *wrote on message board on May 11


The sound isn't great because the performance was a in a gym and my videography leaves a lot to be desired.  They are next to each other in pink and black.  L is the littlest one in the hoodie and E is next to her.  




I was so busy trying to get good shots of my girls (nearly impossible in the semi dark) on this one that the video totally misses what everyone is cheering about.  They were throwing a teenager girl in the air cheerleader style and she was doing all kinds of flips and stunts.  This is the song Diamonds by Rhianna.


Here's another one of that song.


They were in another song too and the finale, but I don't have videos of those.

Caterpillar to Moth

We caught a woolly bear caterpillar the other day and now it is cocooning! I guess I don't need to buy a kit after all (though the butterfly kits might still be more cool than a moth). We are looking forward to seeing which kind of moth it will be. Apparently, there are about 6 different species of wooly bear caterpillars/tiger moths and we couldn't tell from the caterpillar's looks, but the moths are more diverse looking.*

*wrote on message board on May 16

Ballet

Christmas Spectacular Performance

I can't seem to find the pictures/videos of the actual performance.


Here's the year end performance that was in May.  She is on the left (of the screen), sitting down in the front in the beginning.  There is a boy and an older girl to the left, then E, then another girl sitting to the right.  She LOVES ballet and will probably do it again next year.  She dances every day!

What L does during E's ballet class

L dancing

Welcome Home D!

We threw a little party for D last fall to welcome him home from his firefighting season.

This is the sign the girls and I made.  We were all so happy to see him!  The summers get long without him. 

Art in a Box

Letter to Restaurant

E wrote her first activism letter today. We used to have a restaurant here that E really liked until it burned down. For months, we drove by it every day, watching the repairs come together, and wondering if it was going to reopen. Finally, there was an article in the paper saying they aren't reopening, and now there is an sign for a different restaurant there.

She mentions how bummed she is about this restaurant being gone at least once a week, so I suggested that she write them and tell them she wants them to come back. She mailed her letter today.*

ETA: since we were talking about writing earlier in the thread... she usually writes in capital letters. For this letter, I suggested that she do it the proper way, with caps/lower case in the right places. She had a hard time forming some of the lower case letters, because even though she's used them before, she doesn't use them as often. So I helped her with the ones she couldn't remember, but by the end of the letter, she was already remembering how to form the ones she had done in the beginning of the letter.*

*wrote on message board on May 8

Loomed their own hats, won first prize at the fair!

The girls finished making hats for themselves on their round looms today!*

Then they entered the hats in the County Fair and won first place in Fiber Arts.  Unfortunately, the fair messed up and put L's name on both hats, but we know which was which.   


*wrote on message board April 5