Random Lessons...

On Friday of last week, Lauren, Matthew and I met with our friends Kate and her daughter Jessie. Seeing that it was a gorgeous and sunny day, we went for a small hike.  The Mount Elizabeth Park trail is the perfect size for little legs, and has an educational sheet available to point out things along the path. The kids ran from number sign to number sign, and Kate read the laminated parks info sheet. It was a good lesson for me in that it appeared the girls were not all that interested in listening to the blurbs of info, since they were so excited skipping and hopping, picking up leaves, feathers, etc... But upon reflection about our hike a few days ago, Lauren remembered 9 of the 10 items. In fact, she is helping me list them now! So these are the nature items we learned a little about and got to observe and touch: Big Leaf Maple, Red Alder, Salmon Berry, Moss Beds, Rocky cliffside, Banana Slugs (however, we did not find any), Nurse Logs, Wind-thrown trees (where we learned about strong winter winds, and root systems), and Sword Ferns.

But what was more remarkable was the imaginative play that occurred when the kids found a 'fort' just off the path- formed by leaning and wind-blown trees. It quickly became the Fairy Forest, and we were all fairies in charge of building a home for the birds. We beefed up the roof with fallen branches, decorated with leaves, wrote 'messages' on leaves and left them for the birds, among other fairy tasks. Because I was the Animal fairy, I was in charge of whistling to the birds what the Tinker fairies (Lauren and Jessie) needed me to tell them. Matthew was the Chef Fairy, who ground up rotten fir log into a fine powder, then mixed with soil, to make wonderful birthday 'cakes'. We practiced being quiet so we could hear the birds. The children decided the birds were very pleased with their new home.  The imaginations of the children were contagious and it was a special afternoon.

Last night (Monday) Lauren and I sat down to do her Mind Map. I asked Lauren what she envisioned her upcoming year to look like, what she wanted to learn about, her interests, or anything else that came to mind. A fun exercise!  Many of Lauren's ideas were predictable, but some were surprising- things we hadn't discussed before. For this reason alone, the mind mapping exercise was very helpful.  If Lauren is going to be an active participant in the direction her education will take, this is a great tool to guide me. I kept her Mind Map in my mind, as I went shopping at the School Supply Store in Victoria today and picked up some books that otherwise I might not have (i.e. Solar System and planets for instance).

For the past month I have kept a small notebook with me, and have been writing down Lauren and Matthew's questions.  Lauren asks a lot of great questions, some I can answer and MANY I cannot. When she was younger, I used to ask HER to try and answer her own questions (Matthew still enjoys this), but now she really wants to know "the truth Mom."  It is amazing how many questions we have written down already. This year, we will pick some of these questions to research and answer. I think this will be fun.

Craft time in our house these days is spent with Lauren 'writing' stories and illustrating pictures. She either tells me word for word what to write, including punctuation, OR she 'writes' the story (we sound out many words together, or I simply tell her what letters to put together when she just wants to be creative and not "all spelly"). She has many words memorized now, 'the', 'I', 'cat', etc... Today she wrote a rhyming poem called Cat. She has learned that by putting consonants in front of 'AT', that this spells many other words. It was an exciting discovery. So then we went on to put consonants in front of 'OG' and so on...

I would like to encourage Lauren to practice her small caps, and number writing. Many of the school books we ordered today will address this. Lauren loves workbook and exercises, sitting down with her pencils, and crayons. We have been using those Kindergarten activity books (found a bunch at Cosco last year) and she loves them.  

Finally, Lauren had her first Monday morning at Montessori. She told me she enjoyed being the oldest kid there, They picked apples, made applesauce, had circle time, movement, and then outside play.

Oh, and last but not least, we rented a fiddle today. Lauren took a few classes last winter and has been itching to start up again. Since a small child she has always perked up at the sound of fiddle music. And so, she will be taking lessons with Denny on Mondays. She has already given us a concert as well as her grandparents one over the phone. We will see if her interest continues, but for now she epitomizes the word 'Keen'. I hope I can keep up to her!

Signing off! Goodnight :)