Better than Recess

This morning we were at the co-op for a Valentine's Day party  and Presentation Day (kids share something about what they've been working on at home over the past six weeks).  The sun decided to make a rare and much appreciated appearance this morning!! So we left early and headed to the park.  It was GLORIOUS to say the least.  Just what we needed to help shake the winter blues.  We were shedding coats, digging in sand and rocks, hurling stones into the ocean and rocking those swings!  I was feeling sorry for the kiddos stuck in a classroom with their noses pressed to the glass, waiting for the hours to pass so they too could enjoy this sparkling day.

Days like this one remind me how lucky I am to hang out with my kids every day, how much I love to see them playing together; how much I savor our time freedom and our flexibilty.

Yep, today's outing at the park was WAY better than any recess.

 Finding the perfect rock.

 Throwing rocks in the water is a sure kid pleaser.

 Ah, basking in the warmth of this February morning.

 Buddy found a friend to hang out with.

 Yeah, it took me a good five minutes to get this shot.  Worth it?   I think so.

 There goes the train

 Brave enough to hold a little crab!!

 Digging for more crabs.   This kept them busy for a good while!

On the way home we were dreaming about summer, wishing for our bathing suits, making travel plans and thoroughly enjoying some rare Seattle winter sun! 

Kinderboys - Construction workers and Carpenters

Our class with the Kinderboys was really fun this week. We started by reviewing the meaning of a community. This book was very helpful in doing that.



Letter C in this book covers community AND construction worker.  So it's a perfect lead in.

We colored a picture http://www.oncoloring.com/construction-coloring-pages_2.html
while I read and discussed two different books with them



and



From there I let the boys take turns dressing up as a construction worker.  We talked about the use for each part of their gear and tools.  I asked each boy to name one thing a construction worker or carpenter does when they came up for their turn.  The hats are something we already had at home.  We live in earthquake territory, so I keep hard hats, gloves, and flashlights under everyone's bed.  I should have thick soled slippers under there too...but somehow those never stay put!    The vests I ordered on amazon

They were anxious to use some of those tools!  So I used an idea that I got from this book


I prepared a board for each boy that looked like this.  You can see that I left only ONE nail for them to hammer in, which was perfect.  Any more than that would have taken way too long.

The boys who were waiting their turn to hammer were sanding their boards with those blocks that have grit on all sides.  Much easier than using sand paper. They loved feeling the change in the wood.  A great time to talk about texture.

Here's a finished project

From there we referenced back to the books we had read and pointed out the drawings that architects prepare for buildings before construction can start.

My brother happens to be a civil engineer. So I asked him to send me some of his old plans so I could show them to the boys.

Then I gave each boy 3 blocks, some black paper and some chalk. THeir task was to draw plans for an building they could make with their blocks.  We then shared our plans and our buildings with the group.

Then we settled down for a story of Thea House that Jack Built.  I gave each boy one of the items or characters from the story and let them add it to the house as we went along.

The little house is my 2yo's toy.  She loves it. So it was hard for her to see the boys using it. But her agony was only momentary.  I put some barely in a plastic baggie for the "malt" and I used animals from my older girls' farm set. There was no cat, so I printed a free Google image and stapled it to some craft foam.

I was going to give the boys malted milk with snack. But time was short so we stuck with home made mini banana muffins and sliced oranges.The boys gobbled them RIGHT up. 

Here's the recipe. I keep it taped inside of my spice cupboard because it's one of my favorites. It's the one my mom always used and I think she got it from her friend Pam.

Pam's Banana Bread
1/4 cup crisco (I always just use vegetable oil)
1 cup sugar
3 large or 4 small mashed bananas
1 egg
1 1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda


I think I baked them at 350. And since they were mini muffins it didn't take long. Just keep an eye (and your nose) on them.   This recipe made 24 mini muffins and one mini loaf.  Each mini cup held one scoop of batter using this scooper


                            



I should  add that I had planned to let the boys go out to the garage and saw a log that I got  from my backyard, but we ran short on time. I let my own son do this when class was over and it was by far his favorite part!  He worked hard at it and did it all by himself after some initial instruction.

Frontier Girls Induction

I remember going to meetings with my Brownie troop when I was in second and third grade.  And I remember loving it.  I have always wanted my girls to experience something similar, but I have had increasing concerns about the Girl Scouts and their progressive agenda.  They just aren't the same organization that they used to be.  You can check out some info for yourself and see what you think.  This might be a place to start
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/girl_scouts_the_awful_truth.html

I had really no intention of getting involved in a badge earning club of any kind.  I felt too overwhelmed already.  But then an aquaintance introduced us to Frontier Girls and I fell in LOVE wtih it!  It was everything we needed:

• Solid values and principles 
• Unapologetic patriotism
• Motivation to learn and explore
• Flexible requirements that are age appropriate 
• Family friendly adaptations (you don't have to join a troop. You can do it alone as a family)
• Affordability
• Best of all, no cookie sales! Hurray!

Check it out at www.frontiergirlsclubs.com

There are several of us in our area operating as "pioneers", meaning that we don't have an official troop. We are earning badges individually in our families. But we plan to get together for service projects or group activities now and then.

One of the moms graciously offered to do an induction meeting to make our journey with FG official.
Here's how it went.
The girls lined up and some were asked to read the
Mission: Raising women of honor to be the mothers and leaders of the future, through life skills, leadership, characterbuilding, team work, and service to others.
Promise: I promise to love God , Be loyal to my country , and to love my neighbor as myself.

Motto: If you see a need, take the lead.

Then the girls gathered around a table.  Each girl read a line of the FG Creed.  AS they did so they used an already lit candle to light a smaller tea candle.
As a Frontier Girl
I will be Loving, treating others as I would like to be treated.
I will be Joyful, finding the blessings in every situation.
I will be Peaceful, respecting others opinions and beliefs.
I will be Patient, persevering toward my goals despite obstacles.
I will be Kind, respectful to all and willing to help others at all times.
I will be Good, pure in all I do, think, and say.
I will be Faithful to my God and loyal to family, friends, and country.
I will be Gentle, taking special care of those weaker or less fortunate than I.
I will have Self Control, using my time, materials and talents wisely, and being accountable for my own actions.

The mothers presented the girls with their vests and level pins.

Then they sang the FG creed song

 

We ended with cookies and conversation.  Quick and simple. My kind of meeting!

There is an off shoot of FG for boys/co-ed that my son is excited to join called Quest Club.
 You can check it out here
www.questclubs.com   

 

 

Taking A Ride Downtown to the Station

So, I told the kids that this better be the ONLY time they ever see the inside of a holding cell (JAIL!)  and they all agreed that it would be.

Our trip to the police station was better than expected!  The officer who gave us the tour went way above and beyond to show us every inch of the facility including office space, departments, break rooms, lockers, interrogation rooms, gun lockers and more exciting places like briefing rooms, the 911 call center, the crime lab (evidence room) the shooting range, the situation training area,  the holding cell (scary!) and the tunnel leading to the courthouse. We got to check out the radar guns and the breathalyzers.  We met the animal control officer and squeezed inside a patrol car.  YEP!  They got to honk a really loud horn too.   All of it was super cool. I learned more than the kids did, I think.  enjoy the photos.

It tied in well with the class we had because we got to correlate our own target practice with the shooting range, our exercise game with the workout room, our fingerprinting activities with their new digital fingering system. etc.

FYI: Here in WA the state has just recently  legalized recreational marijuana.  I didn't vote for it, just so you know.  I asked the office what he thought this new law would do to his workload.  And he explained that the major repercussions will come in the form of DUIs.  And they don't make breathalyzers for marijuana yet, so it means a trip to the ER for a blood draw.  yeah. That's got to be cheap.  and efficient.  and tax-payer friendly.  ug. 

Kinderboys - Police Detective Lesson Plan

I have four children.  My third child, the only boy, is five right now.  Since he lives in a house full of girls, it's important to me that he has plenty of time to hang with other boys and just BE a boy.  So I created a class for him called Kinderboys. 

I started teaching Kinderboys this fall at our co-op. But things didn't exactly go as planned, and it ended up being just a 3-week session.

So starting today I began a new session of Kinderboys, held at my home.  We currently have 5 boys in the class and I think that's pleeenty for now. :)  Love their energy!  This session we are focusing on Communities and Community Workers.    My theme was inspired by some curriculum I bought from Moving Beyond the Page.   It's an ok curriculum.  I don't love it as much as I was hoping too.  It's a little too School-ey, if you know what I mean, and doesn't really seem tailored to the home schooled child.  It's supposed to be for "Gifted" kids, but I'm not sure which part of it is supposedly "gifted".  The only part of the lesson that I incorporated  today was a printing page for the letter P.

Anyway, it served as a guide to spark some ideas and I took off from there. Actually, let me say that the internet did most of the work for me and I just added a few of my own ideas to it.  I'm so grateful to all of you moms and teachers who post your work and your ideas to share with the world. 

So today I introduced the concept of Community and defined it as "a group of people who live and work together."  We talked about different levels of communities all the way from families to nations.

We started by reading



I asked the boys to count all the different jobs they saw people doing in the book. At the end I asked them what their favorite job from the book was. 

Then I asked if they had seen any police in the book (no).  I asked them to close their eyes while I pulled out a police hat



They thought that was pretty cool.  I let them each try it on. I asked each boy, as he took his turn to wear the hat, what he thought police officers do for work.  Some of their answers were interesting.  "Put people in chains!" was my favorite answer.

So to clarify what officers, and especially POLICE DETECTIVES do, we read this book



That helped!

From there we practiced doing things that police detectives do. 

First, we talked about the importance of keeping your body fit if you're going to be chasing bad guys.  We did some Alpha Exercise!  I have cards that have exercises on them corresponding to each letter of the alphabet.  So we spell the child's name, and do the exercise for each letter of the name.  I think I Have a post on this blog somewhere about those cards.

Then we did some target practice.  That was fun.  We used a dart gun to shoot at this target drawn on a white board and keep track of our points.  Each boy got 3 shots.

Next we talked about fingerprints.  I got my ideas for this part of the class from this site:
http://www.squidoo.com/detectives-lesson-plan 

We took finger prints using washable ink, classified their patterns (loop, whorl or arch). Using the magnifying glass to look at finger tips was fun.

Then we lifted our own finger prints off of a mirror and added those to our folders as well.  To lift our finger prints, I had the boys press a greasy finger onto a hand-held mirror, dust the print with cocoa powder, and cover it with a piece of clear tape.  I found that the best way to remove excess powder without destroying the print was to use the ends of my hair as a brush.  Sounds crazy, but it really worked well. Every other brush I tried removed too much of the print.  Then we lifted the tape and put it on an index card which we added to our files. Here are some pictures of the file folder I put together for the boys with their finger print books i.  You can see the cocoa powder print on the bottom left.


Here are some pictures of the file folder I put together for the boys with their finger print books in them. 

We didn't' have time to color the Nate the Great hat during class. I sent that home with each boy. But we did have time to make badges.

And we took mug shots of each boy.  Here's my kiddo's "bad guy face"

I think one of our favorite activities was the shoe print matching game.  We talked about foot prints being clues for detectives.  Then I showed them the paper with all the shoe prints on it and gave them a bucket of shoes. As a group, I asked them to match the shoe to the print.  It was fun to watch them discuss it and come to a consensus.  They got most of them right!

At the end of class we read Nate The Great



while eating popcorn and applesauce.  Yum!  We had a great time and it took the entire 90mintues. Our Kinderboys meet every other week, with field trips in between. So next Friday we're going to tour the police station.  Then we'll have a class on construction workers and carpenters.