We Are Pretenders

Yesterday we did not finish every one of our subjects, mainly due to my energy level, which was extremely low until Erik encouraged me to go running. (I went about two miles and it felt great.) Erik was a big help getting us all out the door in the evening when he came home from work, too. We sat in the cool evening air and he tried to play catch with the boys. Nick was focusing on learning to catch until Xander entered the picture and then most of his focus was lost. I noticed that almost in the middle of a catch, he did lean over and say, "Oh, teeny tiny flowers!" about some wild (weed) flowers that had sprung up after our rains. He is very happy looking at dirt, insects, and other back yard things.

I brought Sandy outside during that time and my spirits lifted. A mosquito got me really bad, though. (Out of all creatures of nature, I think mosquitoes are some of the least uplifting in the world. I'm a wimp that way.) Then we all came in for dinner.

After the kids were put to bed, Erik and I had a good and lengthy discussion about Xander's studies. We got on the same page and did some refining of our science and math plans.

Today Xander and I have been able to do today's work as well as catch up on yesterday's. Some of the busy bag activities I put together yesterday were a big hit with Nick and actually did keep him busy some of the time that Xander and I were reading from The Hobbit and This Country of Ours.

(Specifically, Nick liked Somewhat Simple's Wacky Sacks, Motherhood on a Dime's Cotton Ball Squeeze, and an activity I found and made up years ago for Xander. I cut five pieces of copy paper in half and drew outlines of cute little piggies on nine of those smaller rectangles. Each piggy had a number written on it with a corresponding number of circles. Nick was supposed to place one penny on each circle to make the total number written.

You can see he actually used the buttons from his preschool basket instead. Very cute, I think.)

Xander is really searching for the battles in This Country of Ours. At this point in our studies, we are on Columbus, who is currently encountering kind and gentle native people. Xander wanted me to continue reading, because he was hoping to hear of a battle he could draw for his My America drawing narration. He ended up drawing Columbus and his Spaniards in their full armor landing on the first shore they found.

I am reading Nurture Shock, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, and it's a really good read. One of the chapters talks about the importance of the stages of imaginary play. According to research they had looked at, there are major benefits to be gained when children plan what they will pretend and what role they will take, and then play at that scenario for a length of time (one hour for preschoolers). Um, we have it covered. Xander and Nick do that wonderfully, and they are able to use fewer props as time goes on, which was a developmental step mentioned in the book.

Yeah, we've got that very covered. I just overheard the two of them plan what they would pretend, who they would be, and then begin their "movie." They are running around fighting with zero props, using arms for swords and such and using their mouths for sound effects. Of course.