Picture Sequencing

P and I looked at the photos in a recent National Geographic magazine. P was able to identify a series of time-lapse photographs as being part of a sequence and the time between each of the photos, based on the captions underneath.

Japanese Spring Festival

Meet and Greet Therapy dogs

We attended a library event where service dogs were brought in, and their jobs and lives talked about and also how to approach and pet a dog.

P was pretty attentive, and mentioned the seeing-eye dog he has seen working each Sunday. He has shown repeatedly that he understands the step process: ask permission, allow dog to sniff either your closed fist or the palm of your hand, and then pet dog.

Egg Dyeing

Power Tools, Music, and Outdoor Fun

Learning Coop Activity Day
There was a lot of focus and intensity on the drilling/decoration activity of creating Stick Men and/or Spring Trees.



Both P and K waited their turns to use the drill to make a hole and select an appropriately sized stick for their selected activity of a Spring Tree. P even let a few other kids in front of him, most notably his sister.

After drilling the hole and placing the main stick, everyone worked diligently to create the Spring Tree of their vision.



The final art trees:



Afterwards, the kids went outside to explore the yard, using shovels to dig into the dirt, finding worms and beetles. P held an earthworm for the fastest count-of-5 ever, and all of the kids enjoyed fresh air and dirt, with a healthy game of "catch me".


The end of the day, P got the chance to "jam" a bit musically on the guitar with a local musician who was a guest of the host's boarder. They had a great time!

Flying Cloud

Today, P learned about the Flying Cloud (which I mistakenly thought was the name of our model ship, which is in actuality a model of the Gorch Fock; my parents' model was the Flying Cloud). P remembered several hours later that the Flying Cloud sailed from New York to San Francicso around South America (Cape Horn) in a record 89 days. He used a world map to trace the pathway from New York to San Francisco. He then, looking at the map, suggested that another path might have been north around Canada through the Queen Elizabeth islands; Kristin suggested to him that it would be very cold with ice that way.

Space Rover

30 Seconds to Mars

P and I watched the video animation of the Mars Rover launch on YouTube, which documented how the rocket launched, how the mission packaged deployed, how the lander entered the Martian atmosphere, and how the payload package used an inflatable ball system to absorb impact and and on the surface of Mars.



Today, P demonstrated the first portion of the video with Lego blocks, showing an understanding of how rockets operate.

Craft or Art?

P and I had a brief discussion on what craft is compared to art. I told him that what I mean when I say it for him, it is that with craft, there is a specific end goal/look that is trying to be achieved. Art is more about whatever the person doing it wants to do. It is a process more than a goal.

And so, out came construction paper, scissors, glue, crayons, paper plates, previously-cut colored transparent plastic shapes, scrapbooking edging scissors, paper crimpers, and sequins. Let the art begin! Favorite tools for each child: P loved the edgers, glue and sequins; K loved learning to use the crimpers, and learning about scissor safety.

Laid-back Morning

What a great start to the day this has been. P and K have been playing together, showing sharing and turn-taking, and many other social skills. Compromise, self-expression, anger management, problem-solving, and most importantly conflict resolution.

We followed that up with a number of rounds of Shape Shuffle (tangram puzzles), where K put together on her own a number of puzzles that required shape matching. She also made color matches and patterns.

P worked at harder puzzles that had no guiding lines, and showed how a circle can be divided into two half-circles or even four quarter-circles. He showed some creative manipulation of pieces to make a candlestick all one color with limited pieces. We also briefly discussed how you can make other pieces from smaller pieces. He made color patterns and isolations within puzzles as well. Finally, he studied the shape name sheet.

After that, we pulled out Hullabaloo where P and K had a great time moving around in different ways (galloping, walking, crawling, hopping, etc.) and following directions while also making color and shape distinctions.

Oh, and another social skill -- they cleaned up when they were done! This is one we often have trouble with, so it is worthwhile to mention.

Oatmeal Cookies

P and K helped me make oatmeal cookies today. We measured out ingredients (US measures), prepared the separate bowls of wet and dry, and mixed it all together. We then "patiently" counted the 9 minutes down to when they could come out of the "very hot" 375-degree oven, and then divided them up evenly between the three of us. Yummmm.

Syllables

Today, P and I reviewed number of syllables within words. We talked about its similarity to drum beats, which made it crystal-clear for him. We figured out the beats/syllables of everyone in our family's names, cats included. We ranged from 1 to 4 syllables, and then tried supercalifragilisticexpialidotious -- however it is spelled!

Color Mixing, Additive versus Subtractive Colors

Learning Coop Activity

To we learned about color: both additive and subtractive. We used tempera paints (red, blue, yellow) to create additional colors and painted on sheets of white newsprint as an example of subtractive color. We read the book Water Dance and also talked about additive colors with transparent color films I'd cut into pieces.