Butterfly Plants Kill Moths!

It is sadly true, but we are worried about Fozzie -- Ms. Piggy has most definitely died, and Fozzie is thrashing around and exuding some liquid. It isn't good. We figured out that the plants we bought to feed the caterpillars is actually KILLING them. So, out it goes, in weeds come.

Update

In the last few weeks, we've finished Mrs. Piggle Wiggle as a read aloud, Whittington by Alan Armstrong as a read along (book and CD), and 6 Magic Tree House books as self-read (#4 Pirates Past Noon, #13 Vacation Under the Volcano, #15 Viking Ships at Sunrise, #23 Twister on Tuesday, #24 Earthquake in the Early Morning, and #27 Thanksgiving on Thursday). We have, of course, been reading other things from our library, but these are the ones we've borrowed and will be returning today.

We also have two Giant Leopard Moth caterpillars that we're raising in our homemade terrarium. A very large one which we've had for quite a while and a small one which is a relative newcomer. Both have molted once. The smaller one is acting as if it is going ahead and spinning a cocoon, so we're concerned "Miss Piggy" won't make it. Fozzie is loving the marigold plant we've added, however.

Scissors and Art

P made a representation of a train, including engine, coal car, and caboose while K practiced with scissors.

PK City

P and K spent much of today creating PK City. Copious time was spent perfecting animal life locations, arranging buildings, walkways and train tracks in relation to existing roads, and having nice spiders around to catch bugs.

Farm animals are found in pens, with guard dogs:


Water animals are located on the largest body of water:


A small lake is populated by a sailboat:


Traffic includes car, train, and pedestrian:


There is a town square, complete with a clock tower:


Even fictitious creatures, like dragons, have a home here -- lying in wait to destroy!!:

Caterpillars

We have now found 2 caterpillars our on our amaryllis plant, and have adopted them. The large one is named Fozzie (we found him first) and the second is named Ms. Piggy. They are eating amaryllis leaves and we bring in other things from outside we find looking for other foods, as we only have two amaryllis!

Still Drumming

P is still involved in drumming at Studio Percussion each Tuesday afternoon, and is often practicing his songs for us.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (HP2)

So, Jeff started P on Book 2 tonight, and already got through the first two chapters: The Worst Birthday and Dobby's Warning. This looks like it'll be a faster read, considering P actually started reading chapter 3 on his own after Jeff was done.

HP1: Finished!

This past week, we have finally finished the last 5 chapters of Harry Potter, Book 1. I'm not sure if P is ready to continue on to the next book, and so I'm looking around for other options. Jeff and I found The Tale of Despereaux, which looks like a good read.

Drawing Play

P and K both decided to make some art today based on some of the creative play they had been involved in this morning.

P's drawing involved rolling hills, trees, houses, and an airplane.

K's drawing was of a cactus in the desert.

Learning math

We starting officially doing the Math-U-See Primer curriculum. P breezed through lessons 1 & 2, and will need to work on writing, which I expected. K also breezed through 1 & 2, though it was quite clear that she just didn't get the concept of "zero", so we'll be focusing on that for a short while for her.

The National Geographic Atlas

P has been reading the "Habitable Earth" chapter of the National Geographic atlas, using the map legends to determine where on the globe certain things are, like mild summers/cool winters (finding where in America has the same temperatures as western Germany), and determining what the temperature is in Florida.

Yesterday, he went through to locate where the major religions in the world are located. He also looked at the maps showing how plate tectonics have moved the continents over the past 600 million years. Each of these maps has a paragraph description that he's been reading to us, which, when ran through a SMOG readability calculator is apparently college-level reading!

Like his father, P just loves looking at maps and seeing how things are different in different places.

HP1: Quidditch and The Mirror of Erised

P and I took a little break from Harry Potter, Book 1. I'd thought we would be finished by now, but we both focused on other things instead. I am looking forward to selecting another book soon, so I hope to finish this one within the week.

World War II

While we were out today P pretended cracks in the parking lot near the restaurant were tectonic plates.

We continued our discussion with P about the causes and chain of events of World War II. Watched interactive maps on the year-by-year history of the campaigns.

European Theater Map





Afterwards we practiced the th and f sounds.

Tectonic Plates and World War II

We looked over the atlas with Parker and described the events of Word War II in general terms, and talked about all of the places where there were battles. We then talked about tectonic plates and shifting, looking at maps of how the Earth looked up to 250 million years ago, and the projected maps of what earth will look like 250 million years hence. P used his grits this morning to make 'continent plates', which he pushed together to make mountains.

New Life!

We were lucky enough to get a phone call from a friend who had a pregnant cat who was starting to have her kittens. We got to see the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th kittens born and latch on to nurse. P asked for the date, and then let us know that this would always be the kittens' birthday. It was a magical experience.

Alien Names

Based on an entry off of the Art Projects for Kids website, we created "Alien Names" for both P and K, which they then colored in to make their "aliens". We used both watercolor crayons and oil pastel crayons.

HP1: update

We've read three more chapters -- Chapter 8: The Potions Master, Chapter 9: The Midnight Duel, and Chapter 10: Halloween -- since the last time I mentioned it. We're just really loving the story, though there is much to be desired in some of the interactions between the characters.

Muskets

After reading a bit about the Revolutionary War and George Washington, P wanted to know more about muskets (and how they differ from Han's blaster in Star Wars). We watched and discussed the following videos about the length of time it takes to load and discharge a musket and the relative inaccuracy of them. We also talked about how battles were fought then compared to now, in terms of lines of men versus taking cover.

HP1: The Sorting Hat

P already knew which house Harry would be going in, so either he remembers it from elsewhere, or he's been reading ahead.

HP1: Diagon Alley/The Journey from Platform Nine and Three-quarters

P is so thoroughly enjoying the book that he's wanting me to read more than one chapter at a time. So, I did read chapters 5 and 6 tonight. Lots of pages! I missed some words/sentences here and there, and he picked them up and read them for me, letting me know I'd missed.