Thursday, February 16, 2012

Nature Study: Fullerton arboretum





This week we went to the arboretum.  It is right next door to California State University Fullerton where i graduated last.  needless to say we have spent a lot of time here when i was running early for classes.  malcolm loves it here because they have a pond full of turtles.

here are some pictures from our nature study (without Allie who stayed home sick).
Mud!
daffodil

The bees loved this flower
climbing a tree
This monarch stayed still and eye level of all the children


everyone's climbing now!
Huge tree!


Malcolm made a bridge

Exploring the creek

A boat!

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Sea and Sage

So I posted earlier that we found a new nature study homeschool group and our first trip with them was to Sea and Sage.  I loved getting to meet other families that believe what I do about homeschooling AND have children the same ages as mine.  So many of the groups I have found have older children (which makes sense) so I'm just thrilled to find toddlers and preschoolers finally.

So without further chatter, here are some of the great pictures I took while there!

Look, dirt!

Other kids!

Run!

Ducks!

Exploring the edge of the pond

Throwing sticks in the pond

Bladderpod

Not sure what this is, but I thought it was cool

Searching for pine cones




Humming Bird!





Bird's nest

Coastal Sage



D, E, F, Disneyland, and the Zoo!



Alright, so like everything else, I fell out of the habit of posting.  I would love to say it was because we were so busy but the truth is, I just didn't make it a priority.  We still had a lot of fun the last few weeks.

Malcolm did D is for Dinosaur, E is for Elephant, and F is for Fish.  We did pretty the same activities from the previous weeks.  We also worked more with playdoh where Malcolm made a tremendous leap forward and sat making his own little 'snakes' out of playdoh!  I know he was capable of this a long time ago but he always wanted Mommy to do it for him. Not anymore!
Learning to glue all by himself!



Sorting and Stringing Beads - Matching Mommy's Pattern
DIY Pompom Magnets
Alphabet Memory Cards Mommy Made
Dot Markers for D/d
Painting (Picture Al la Malcolm!)

Dot Painting!
Love our coloring page wall
Dot Painting!  E :)

Our new wall of books :)

Measuring fish with Goldfish crackers

Valentine's Day box for Valentines from our homeschool party!


The biggest news the past few weeks however is that I finally managed to get my little man potty trained!  We've tried a few times in the past but he never really wanted it and it was just a battle.  So we ran out of diapers (at least in his size anyway!) and told him we weren't buying more.  Malcolm just accepted it, moved on, and after only a couple accidents (all involving #2), we breezed through and I can say with 100% confidence that there is no backsliding this time!

We also attended homeschool day at Disneyland!  Malcolm had a blast getting to tie-dye his shirt and wants to wear it all the time.  He calls it his tie-dye Disney shirt.  We also went to a Valentine's Day party with one of our homeschool groups.  He loved getting Valentines.


Other great events?  We joined a Charlotte Mason Nature Study group!!  I couldn't be more thrilled.  We're going to be using Charlotte Mason (and really sort of are right now) for our homeschool when Malcolm gets a little bigger.  Nature study is pretty much the only thing Malcolm is supposed to be doing for school right now besides Habit Training.  The kids in his group range from 6 to 3 months (Allie!) although they are due to have two new babies soon so she won't be the youngest for long.

We've already gone to new parks I never even knew about and are going to be visiting some old friends in the weeks to come.  We visited Sea and Sage which actually isn't that far from where we live now and I never even knew it!  This is a marsh area so we got to view a lot of different birds  (although Malcolm didn't seem to care about the birds that much).  Carbon Canyon Regional Park was beautiful, but hot.  We didn't make it to the redwoods but the kids loved exploring the lake.

We also managed a field trip to the San Diego Zoo with a homeschool group for great discount tickets!  Malcolm LOVED the zoo and I'm sooo glad we went.
Petting Zoo



Beautiful Peacock, we got really close to him too!

Standing on one leg like the flamingos

Moneys grooming each other!

Strange bird....

Grizzly Bear

I actually don't remember what this was..

His favorite!

The watcher :)


I love homeschooling!