September Saturday

Erik went out to a football game today.

Meanwhile, the rest of us hung out, did a couple of errands, and schooled a bit.

In the morning, Xander played games on PBSKids.org while I actually took a little nap and Nick had independent playtime. I have been exhausted lately!

Later in the day, we went to Hobby Lobby to pick up a couple of photo albums for our Picture Studies and a sketchbook and watercolor pencils for our nature journals. (I plan to have Nick follow along for the Picture/Art Studies and the composers and songs we learn. He can draw while we're out using nature journals, but he's not going to use the good watercolor pencils.) We also picked up a Balance Bird for Nick. I got a pack of their educational figures (knights) after Xander pleaded. He can't have them until we get to studying that time period in our World History.

That motivated him to do a World History section today.

He:

• listened to section 2, The Nomads, from The Story of the World
• narrated to me a few facts he had heard about nomads
• cut out, glued to an index card, colored, and hung an illustration of nomads on our wall timeline - it's our first history timeline event!
• practiced using the watercolor pencils on paper; he didn't want to paint water over top of his pencil drawings but I did some experimenting (see below)
• listened to "America the Beautiful" a few times and tried singing along (he has heard it before, notably last year at school)
• listened to a story in Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
• listened to me read part of a story from Among the Night People by Clara Dillingham Pierson
• played in the back yard for a while
• spent many minutes playing with the Balance Bird (it cost us about $2 and we've already gotten way more than our money's worth in enjoyment - see below)
• used animal stamps on paper for fun
• held Sandy on his lap while watching another Dinotopia DVD

Xander made a ninja with nunchuks and (I think) an ax

this is a baby dinosaur, I forget what kind

just an illustration of how Nick looks after we go anywhere that has dirt

this one is even more true to life, but really he looks even more covered in person

I used an idea from Valerie's blog Children's Learning Activities to have Nick do horizontal lines...

...and vertical lines, and a square

this is what I drew with the watercolor pencils (Xander also did a fill-in-the-loops drawing)

this is after brushing water over top - if I had pressed harder with the pencils while drawing, the water-added product would have brighter colors

this is our current homeschool central (apart from this book case, we write/draw on the dining room table, do a daily calendar in Nick's room, keep nature journal supplies in a basket near the front door, and store extra art and craft materials and paper in the garage) (oh, yes, we also have a small basket of activities for Nick during school time and a big library basket that gets refilled every week)

the Balance Bird on a football!

Balance Bird on the top of a baseball bat!

Balance Bird on a crack in the wood post!

BB on the handle of a tricycle!

BB on Xander's finger tip!

this guy is trying to come around to see what I'm taking a picture of, as usual

BB on a water ball!

I'm trying to identify this tree in our back yard but no luck so far