Category Archives: it’s cool to school

T week

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we learned about T last week and it was pretty easy. i don’t know if you know this but Ts are everywhere. little miss darla had fun pointing them out …

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drawing Ts in sand and on sidewalks

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we drew pictures of trees

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and got her tricycle out for some trick riding

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we communed with the trees on our nature hike

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and my favorite of the T week activities – darla “planted” a forest at the creek

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we searched for totoros in said trees

we of course took our trip to the tuckers’ and did a drawing of papa tom tucker

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she drove her new tractor – my dad’s contribution to T week

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and spent lots of time just being with papa tom.

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for the record i want a goat in every picture i take now. they make them automatically awesome.

V week

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darla originally picked last week as a T week but i switched it to V because of valentines. ’cause, seriously, V needs all the help it can get. here’s our V learning.

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so i leaned on the valentine thing quite hard the first part of the week. i cheated by chalking out weekly library trip as a “visit” but i wanted to include it in here for the sheer chance of bragging that my child now insists we visit the art gallery of the main library every time we go. oooohhh i love the columbus library. lots of other people do, too. guess that’s why it’s number one in the nation.

we did a lot with vegetables. darla helped me with the veggie portion of meals all week. and we drew up her dream garden. well, i drew the veggies and she scribbled some yellow on it and said it was corn but then she set to work on a scarecrow with the black.

we talked about venus, the planet and the roman goddess. i pulled up the birth of venus and the venus de milo and she was very concerned about where venus de milo’s arms were and why the fairies were so big in boticelli’s painting.

and since we were into art that day i broke out van gogh and velazquez because that’s what we had around the house.

it wasn’t a great week for learning because i was feeling uninspired but i think it will suffice.

a week of F

learning at home about the letter F

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funny faces with our friends and fried eggs in toast

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Fairies! this has to be my crowning achievement thus far as a parent. that and the fact that darla loves to watch water birth on youtube. we did days and days of fairy learning.

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counting them, reading poems and books about them, drawing them, movies about them, dressing like them. we just did a comprehensive fairy lesson. i discovered that robert louis stevenson involved fairies in many of his children’s poems. the elementary school that darla will attend is named after this fantastical man and i have decided that she will enter into the public schooling system under his namesake solely on the fact that he liked to write about fairies. these little beings are no joke to me.

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we drew foxes and frogs. movies about each. we read about foxes and frogs. we even found one book that involved foxes, frogs and fairies. how convenient.

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i let darla pick out some flowers for the week and we reviewed the different parts of flowers.

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we learned a lot about france and i tried to incorporate some french vocabulary into the week

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the end result was some highly stereotyped finger art

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we went out to a french bistro where darla ate butter straight from the packet like any good french citizen would

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we did a lot of other things that i won’t bore you with. but i love sharing what we do so the next time you see my child spinning in circles talking in a made up language i have some proof that i’m making attempts at educating the dear child.

a week of D

we did a week of D filled activities. it seemed appropriate with darla’s birthday week and daddy going back to work. we were able to work around the letter a lot. here’s some of what we did:

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for Donuts

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we shared with friends

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dinosaur stickers: we each did drawings of prehistoric earth and placed the dinosaurs in their respective habitats. darla’s only specifications were her dinosaurs ate pink and blue food.

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lots and lots of daddy + daughter time. i have to give it to my man, he soaked up as much as he could before he left.

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giving Dora a bath on one of their daddy + daughter days (photo courtesy of mike’s iphone)

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dragons were an unplanned thing for our week. this was a happy little coincidence for me, because i love dragons, and also it gave rise to lots of opportunities for talking about da D.

lastly we put the chalkboard dining room to good use outlining all the D things we did. i think we’ll go with these week long formats from now on. it’s a whole lot easier and more comprehensive.20120205-205605.jpgDarla has picked F for next week. i look forward to updating you on how i work fashion and france into everything we learn…

littles

Posted in it's cool to school, kiddie-do by

only a very teensy bit of learning has taken place in our household since we began the move A WEEK AGO. pretty much the only thing darla has learned is how to work streaming netflix on her own. and i’m not joking about that. the girl had way too much television while hubster and i were throwing things in boxes.

but

i can’t say that’s all bad. she’s gotten some good viewage these past coupla days. H.R. Pufnstuf and The Littles! the expansion of her imagination from these two programs alone makes it worth it.

i improvised a little lesson the other day during a packing break. we wrote a letter to “the littles living in our house” because darla became concerned that they wouldn’t know we are moving. she helped me with the verbage and got the spelling of her name correct both times. we sounded out other words and all that good stuff. i tried to impart basic letter writing knowledge, etc. i hope to have her help me write out some of these letters i’m promising myself will happen in 2012. gotta get back to the old quill and ink blot instead of just relying on this old magic box.

that’s what darla is calling the computer now. she actually told me “TV is magical” and i died a little inside. eh, sometime you do what you do right?

littles letters

cincinnati or bust???

Posted in it's cool to school, kiddie-do, parenting apparently? by

here’s our day:

all three key players loaded into car. only one of us has egg on her face: success!

arrive at beautiful cincinnati museum center: success!

take in some architectural elements: success!

explored exhibits: success!

deliciousness at our lunch spot discovery servatii: success!

and, as always, a little silliness: success!

i’m reminding myself of the successes of the day b/c a good portion of the second half was a total bust. no rest for the weary girl. no rest for the weary parents. behavior issues from toddler caused behavior issues from parents. okay, just from me. and why does she insist on having a full force surge of independence show down every single time we’re in a parking lot? it’s all trivial stuff in the long run but by the end of the day i wanted to bang my head against the backseat window. oh yeah, did i mention i had to ride smushed in the backseat with wild child while the ikea purchase took up most of the room in the car? i’m sorry to complain but i’m trying to poke fun at the chaos more than anything. also it’s my writing so ICanDoWhatIWant!

despite the pitfalls, we discussed with jubilant enthusiasm (jubilant i tell you!) returning another day and time. we only scratched the surface of all that the cincinnati children’s museum has to offer. and with our reciprocal museum membership we have no excuses.

B day celebration

Posted in it's cool to school, kiddie-do, parenting apparently? by

no annual milestone over here, just our letter of the day. and what a B-eautiful day it was, too.

we started of course with breakfast of bread and butter and berry yogurt

it was at this point in the meal that my daughter jumped up and ran out of the room yelling “oh i forgot something.” she returned 20 seconds later wearing her ruby slippers. only her ruby slippers. she stripped out of her sleeper and put on a pair of buckle shoes in a speed that is going to make me very frustrated then next time it takes me 18 minutes to get her in or out of an outfit.

i think she took B day literally and so wearing her birthday suit was entirely appropriate. 

after getting dressed with a lot of attention paid to the letter B – braid with a blue hairband, boots and a birdie shirt we hopped on cordelia and biked to the audubon center for bird learnin’. hence the appropriateness of the bird shirt.

i know i post about the audubon park a lot but it’s by our house and is really a beautiful, magical place. this town does a great job with it’s parks. here’s our little bird watcher.

using the binoculars (the wrong way) to spot what she says is a “jerry bird.” huh?

and there he is. just imagine my sugar sweetness congratulating her for being able to spot an 8 FT PAPER MACHE GULL. ohhh, i laugh at life.

in the center we: read books about birds, bats, bugs, butterflies blah blah blah. visited the salvaged art butterflies which are still holding up with original coolness factor and did some of the center activities testing different bird beak designs.

we discovered a new room with lots of grand activities including bird and butterfly costumes seen here as well as a simulated climbing tree biosphere complete with root system too.

but the greatest resource discovered at the audubon park today….

BIG KIDS

i have previously noticed the magnetic pull that exists between pre-teen/teenage girls and toddler girls – probably toddler boys too but i don’t have as much experience with that. darla first adopted this group of homeschool kids and they were impressed that she knew words such as “audubon,” and  “insect.” i think they were most impressed by her cowgirl boots, though. they then adopted her and entertained her for 15 whole minutes. i ate and entire apple in peace!  all three were jumping, hand in hand, from atop this fire pit thingy, pretending to be birds and chanting “we fly so high in the skyyyyy!” it was very cute and gave me hope that one day darla, too, will grow into a lovely pre-teen and give a weary mother a break by bossing her toddler around for her. thanks again, universe.

what really happened

Posted in it's cool to school by

the weather made a liar out of me yesterday. it turned sunny and warm abruptly. after darla had paraded around the house making messes and climbing every piece of furniture we own, just enough to make me truly, truly afraid of those upcoming housebound months, i pulled the trigger and got us on a bike ride. we had a picnic lunch over the river and spent some time examining driftwood.

this tree stump was by far the coolest find.

so yesterday was a practice of patience, adaptation, and finding the beauty in all this rain. these past few months have really made me skittish about getting started on schooling. it’s days like yesterday that set my wheels spinning about homeschooling or unschooling. darla is not going to get these kind of hands on learning opportunities sitting in a classroom. i really have no idea what path to choose. for right now, i just have to be thankful for the time i’ve had thus far to be her educator, her full time parent, a stay at home mom.

today is back to cold and wet, by the way.