He said "What number?"
"The number there, like 64 or 28, it's a 2 digit number like that, do you see it?"
"No"
Then Hannah walks by and says "You mean the 25 right there?"
Hmmm . . so Leif is mildly colour blind. You learn something new everyday huh?
This week has been chock-full of discussions, observations and good times.
To make up for the loss of soccer activity Leif and Hannah have been playing soccer with their Lego set. They set up a spectator box, ticket booth, medic, video camera guy, referee . . check it out.
They played with it for hours. Leif named all his players; Mike West, Jack Hornby and Carlos Rodriguez. He knows some of the best players are from South America.When Leif played with Taro, it was sweet to hear him give the score by saying "I have 6 and you have 3, so I have twice what you have. But you can still catch up Taro".
Leif and I went to the Jackson Cup this weekend. Some of his coaches from soccer camp were playing in it. It is a local soccer final that sends it's winner on to the Provincials in Vancouver. The kid's coach Steph is the coach for the Gordon Head team who were playing for the cup at this game. Unfortunatly they lost, badly. But Steph told us in the 25 years they've had the cup games, this is only the second time his team has gotten to play in them. So it's exciting to have made it this far. Hopefully we can catch the Provincials on tv or find out the stats so Leif can follow along. It was nice to go out with Leif, just the two of us.
When Taro was over to play, Leif needed to do his paper route. He asked if he and Taro could do it by themselves. I wanted to honour his readiness for independance, but knew I was not comfortable with just sending them out entirely alone. So we compromised that I'd stay at the end of one block, and they'd go up that block, then around the end and I'd meet them at the next block. They were satisfied with this and did just fine. The next time he did his route, I asked if he'd like to do it that way again, and he said no, he'd prefer some company, so we went together.
In the car I try to get some CBC radio time when I can. They were following the trial of the Polish traveler who died at YVR from the taser use. Leif wanted to know what was being discussed, and we ended up having a big discussion about tasers, the police, why we call the police, when they use guns, how a bystander's video brought this situation to light, the court process, and reporters in the courts. It was great, and he seemed to follow it.
They are both starting to wrap their heads around the concept of movies, how the are made, that they are fake, and what actors are doing in them. After watching Annie we watched The Making of Annie, with all the auditions for the lead role, and saw the actors out of costume and character. Then Hannah noticed that the actor in Sound of music is the same actor as in Mary Poppins.
We got in some visits to the pool this week. At one visit we were all in the family changeroom and after a discussion on why we use those changerooms in particular, Leif asked if a person could ever change their sex. I told him how you can change your appearance to look more like the other gender, using hormone drugs, surgeries, etc. . . but that your body will never 'function' like the opposite gender, in terms of reproduction. Then we talked about how cold water makes your penis shrink. We always strive to cover all the important stuff. :)
Leif and Hannah watched an old favorite, School House Rocks, this week. I explained what was going on in the grammar section, how adverbs differ from adjectives, and what conjunctions do, nouns and pronouns.
They were both excited by a discovery they made in the bath this week. When they half-filled a bottle with water, then overturned another full bottle of water on top of that one, with their spouts connected, the water changed places with the air very very slowly, but it did happen. And once all the air was gone from the lower bottle, no more water moved into it from the upper bottle. They repeated this over and over with different quatities of water. Hannah cried "We've made an experiment!".
We finally have pictures to share of our knitted Inuit people. Since it is now Spring, we dismantled the winter table and put our Inuit guys out with the daffodil fairy. Maybe this is why it's still so wintery this Spring? Ivy's is the tall dark blue one, Hannah's has blonde hair and Leif's has dark plum hair.
The kids set up their own Spring nature tables in their room, using all the crafts they've made in years past.
Leif's
Hannah's
Hanah's after she added blue sky and green grass. Can you see it?
Then Hannah added a bear she drew and cut out herself
And a super-cute litte brown bunny with fuzzy wool fur. Love it!
Hannah is churning out the questions as usual. After watching the Sword and the Stone we discussed how Merlin the Magician won the duel, by turning into a germ, which is not invisible, just so tiny we can't see it very easily. This lead us to contagions and how illness is spread.
As we got dressed one day she asked again who made space. Leif explained to her how earth was made (two asteroids colliding) and she said we could also just ask the people who were around then how it was made. So this led us to a discussion about history, and how it is documented by those who survive and that prior to our existence nobody was writing stuff down. So we rely on the fossil record and carbon dating and things like that to make a sort of written history of the planet.
Hannah is starting to sight read some of Ivy's books. And her spelling is starting to incorporate vowels, if she tries 3 letter words. Longer stuff just gets confusing. Pig, cat, bat, hat . . .
All 3 of us had a great time this week at wilderness camp. It was a one day class with a group from Saltspring called Wisdom of the Earth. They teach tracking, survival, hunting, stewardship of nature, and aim to keep the dying traditions alive of the First Nations and other hunter gatherer societies. We only got a taste of things at this class, but they are hoping to offer a 6-week course this spring, so hopefully we can get in on that too. Ivy stayed and grandma and grandpa's, so I could fully participate and spend the whole day with Leif and Hannah. We learned about stalking like a fox, seeing like an owl, and listening like the deer. We played games that taught us about the food chain and how you need a balance in nature for everything to survive (deer eat plants, cougars eat deer, illness hurts all). We learned how to hide, to blend in with our suroundings so we could sneak up on our prey, and then how to throw a thick stick to kill it. We learned some basics of tracking, such has weight distribution on the feet, and how running tracks differ from walking tracks.
And then our class had a strange interruption. The trout truck arrived.
The truck had come to stock the lake for the summer fishing season.
I admit to being clueless about this practice, and found it very strange in a Brave New World kind of way. Growing fish so others could go catch them and feel sporty? The very nice guys working the truck let the kids dump some buckets of fish into the lake, before they flushed about 1000 fish through the big hose at the back of the truck. They said they're stocking bigger fish this time, so it's easier for fist-time fishers to catch any. Again, wierd huh? I guess my view of just letting the lakes sit empty as a clear sign of the damages of over-fishing and how we are messing up the planet as a whole is not so positive. But why create a false reality when things are in such a crappy state? Why not learn, learn, learn from our mistakes? oh well, I'm not a fisher, so I may never understand.
Leif is still figuring out the finer points of dominoes.
Then he built a functioning catapult out of Lego.
Ivy's been nurturing a sweet obsession with owls, so crafty mom made her this little fellow out of wool. Ivy seems happy with it.
And Hannah is starting to share her espresso-making skills with Ivy. Why not start them out young right?
I've been starting to give them some minor responsibilities in the house, in regards to taking care of their own upkeep. Loading their dishes into the dishwasher, making their beds (yes, even Ivy). We're not a 'chores list' type of family, by far, and my goal is not to force these things on them in an overt way. But rather to simply expect that little bit more, as they grow up, so they have a sense of what needs doing, so that when they become teenagers this is just a normal part of life, and when they move out and live on their own they are not wholly incompetent at this stuff. So for right now, it's putting your dishes away, and of course they put their own laundry away. Then we'll move on to doing their laundry and cooking some basic foods.
As for Kit and I, we are well, as always. Kit is off to pick up his new Bobcat excavator machine, and is gearing up for a big season of Ultimate. He has 4-5 tournaments this year, and they are trying to field a masters (over 34 years old) team to play in the preliminaries in Vancouver. The winners go on to the Nationals in Winnipeg. I'm still working on running farther and upping my totals for push-ups and sit-ups. I seem to have a hit a wall in all areas. I'm signed up for a 6-week knitting course and working to find the time to follow my own interests. After 8 years of parenthood, I see some room for my own needs, maybe, to get some atttention.
I'm reading alot about unschooling these days. I used to refer to us as unschoolers, because we do not follow a curriculum nor strive to replicate school at home. I've always believed you learn through life, and if you need to know it, you'll figure it out. Then I met other unschoolers and there seemed to be a check-list of things you DID if you were a homeschooler, and we did not do all of these things (unlimited tv, no bedtimes) so I stopped using that term. But now I'm curious about how it all plays out, how it fits together for those who do do it. I understand that i do not know what the future holds, so how can I accuratey tell them what they *should* know. So I'm reading a lot, gathering the info, asking the questions. I'm never going to be someone who follows any dogma, of any group. But I think there's a benefit to learning more about something you don't understand.
Happy Spring!
C
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