Of course, a simple trip to the park is not a dry one this time of year. After playing in the park for a while we made it to the van and I thought we were home free, but there sat a large, and apparently very tempting, puddle in the parking lot. The kids headed into it. Just when I thought I'd try to avoid the wet/cold kid scenario, I realized that they were actually grabbing different things and testing to see if they float. So what's a homeschooling mama to do but let them learn! So we tested sticks, rocks, an old apple core they found, and a soggy glove some unfortunate soul dropped in the parking lot. We tried tiny twigs and big huge sticks and observed how no matter how big, the wood still would float. Sure there shoes got wet but it was sunny at least!
Before hand we had went on a trip to the Children's Museum only to find out that the entire parking ramp was full so we turned around. The kids were disappointed, of course, so we decided to go to Ecopolitan for a raw vegan parfait. It wasn't busy at all there at that time so the kids walked back to the juice bar that overlooks the kitchen and watched the food being prepared and talked to the workers about raw foods and everything else they could think of. They asked about their dehydrator and their big giant walk-in freezer. Luckily, the staff was very cool and didn't mind chatting at all. After the parfait, the kids went on and on about it, telling the employees that the parfait was even better than going to the museum! We ordered some raw taco pizza slices as well. The staff seemed to be enjoying the kids' enthusiasm and even gave them some extra strawberries to nibble on as they went on about how they liked the taco pizza even better than the vegan ice cream they had... All this leading to a very happy mommy knowing that the kids enjoyed such a healthy lunch so much!
Another highlights of our week included a sighting by Ava of an eagle sitting up in the neighbor's tree at dusk. She was out playing and saw it across our street. She then waited at the end of the drive way so she could point it out to everyone on their evening strolls. It was such a nice night out and she even met some new neighbors we hadn't talked with yet!
The kids happen to be night owls (Ava tells everyone she is "nocturnal,") so night times can get quite late. Thankfully, we get to be flexible. The other night the kids were playing while John and I watched a show and around 10 pm I thought we should start trying to get everyone to bed. Just then, Planet Earth came on the National Geographic channel and the kids were instantly fixated on it and asking questions. So the night ended up even later. We didn't make it through the whole movie before everyone was too sleepy but they did get in some great late-night learning.
(Not sure what happened to the allignment of this paragraph. It won't let me fix it though...)
This is a random aside but I have some cute pictures so I'm stickin it in:
At home, we don't need a specific "Home Economics" curriculum to get the idea of how to do the daily activities like dishes, cooking, laundry, etc. All three kids get involved in daily chores and cooking. Of course, this isn't some spectacular daily occurance that the kids happily do all the chores. But they are young and this is a fun learning process too! On the most part, I think that like other learning, if this is a forced and hated event the good habit won't last. So the kids have had fun doing laundry, dishes, sweeping, vacuuming, and other helpful chores around the house on their own. I look forward to learning things like sewing, gardening, and do-it-yourself projects as well as they get older. It's kind of strange school has to have a formal class on the subject since most of us don't know how to do many of these basic things anymore.
Along with all the spring weather comes the mud! As Noah exclaimed coming in from playing the other day "MOM! DIRT AND WATER MAKE MUD!!!!" It's become one of my favorite moments I think (and a cute picture!).
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