Planes, Trains, Cars, and field trips!

Someone mentioned blogs on one of the groups I belong to and it made me realize, I haven't updated this one in a long time!  But, that doesn't mean we haven't been learning.  So I thought I would just do a quick recap of the last couple weeks and look for some pictures to put in at the end.  (I also lost my camera!!!  So I'm missing pictures from everything that first week, including the christening.  So sad!!)

I mentioned before that we were having family come in from out of town.  So, we ended up visiting the Bower's Museum which is a great little museum.  It was a little over Malcolm's head but the adults really enjoyed it.  And Malcolm really liked watching the video they had playing on Ancient China, getting to see all the different ways gold is found in nature, and the masks created by the people in South America. 

We also went to Pretend City which was the perfect thing for Malcolm.  I need to make sure we go here more often and am considering getting passes when money isn't as tight.  Malcolm got to pretend to work a lot of different jobs around a city.  He worked in the grocery store, the gas station, as a firefighter, on a farm, a construction worker, at the marina, and he got paid for all of it!  He put his time sheet into an 'atm' and out popped pretend city money.  He was very excited and we didn't even get to everything they had there.  They also had areas for babies 6-18 months old so I think we might go back when baby sister is crawling.

We went to Disneyland once that week as well, but that isn't as rare an occurrence for us.  We have passes and Malcolm loves going.  We got to see Buzz Lightyear though and he was so excited since Buzz is his favorite!

And the highlight of this week?  The children were christened at the small church near us.  Their Great-grandmother, one of the first women ordained within the episcopal church, was the one to baptism them.  We feel so honored that she was able to do it.  Not only because of her history but also that we named baby Allie after her. 

The following week was really quiet, at least for me.  Malcolm got to go on his very first plane ride and went back to Florida with his cousin.  They let him into the cockpit and he got to play with the steering wheel and even push the throttle (obviously the plane was not running at this time).  He was so excited and I wish I could have seen it.  He had so much fun with his Aunt, Uncle, and cousin.  He went swimming for hours, went to Legoland, rode on a train, and was just spoiled to death.

Of course, the first day back for him was a tough one.  He needed a lengthy timeout to realize the rules applied again.  This is when it starts to get a bit vague for me so I apologize.  We did end up doing I is for inchworm.  I showed him a few videos on youtube about inchworms and showed how they moved.  He thought that was really funny.  And then we (I) learned a new song.  Inchworm by Danny Kaye and we watched the video on youtube for that.

We also did J is jellyfish.  We got some books from the library about ocean animals.  Even though it wasn't a jellyfish we got the book  Humphrey the Lost Whale.  Malcolm really liked this story, and it's a true store about the whale who swam under the Golden Gate bridge and up a tiny river before the people figured out how to turn him around again.  Malcolm was especially thrilled because I found a reading rainbow DVD at the library that featured this book.  He just kept repeating "Humphrey" over and over while watching it and requested it several times.  Very cute.  We also make jello jellyfish to eat for a snack which he thought was really funny.

We had two fieldtrips at the time period as well.  The first was a tour of the firestation with our nature study group. Malcolm loved getting to see the fire engines up close, seeing all their equipment, and they even took us inside to see their kitchen, beds, workout room,  and dispatch area.  It was quite a treat!

Then, with another homeschool group, we got to go to Legoland in San Diego.  This was also a first for us and Malcolm had so much fun.  It was just us with baby sister so he wasn't able to go on any of the 'big' kid rides which I was a little sad about.  He still enjoyed doing the baby rides like the boats and train, playing in on the playgrounds, building with legos including a little car that he was able to race with other children.  But the best thing about this whole trip was getting to watch him drive his own car.  They have a 'driving school' for 3-5 year olds so Malcolm was able to drive by himself in his own little lego car.  He crashed, a lot.  But he had SO much fun doing it and finally got the hang of it at the very end and managed to make it all the way around the track before time ran out.  I felt bad for the man running the ride.  He was running all over the place unsticking stuck preschoolers who crashed into each other and the walls, Malcolm a large number of the crashes.

Riding the train

Driving his own car!

We have some more really cool fieldtrips coming up so stay tuned!  Including picking blackberries, going to the airport, and visiting the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles. Here are other cute pictures from our past month!

Spring is here!  Its warmed up and we can spend a lot of time outside now.

One of many trips to the playground.

Tummy time!

Playing with our trains we got from Santa.

Hanging out at the park.

Showing off her new cloth diapers, and how big she's gotten!

Cuddling.

Happy Easter!

Laguna Coast Wilderness Park

So I got a new field guide to try and help me identify the wonderful things around us during our nature study days.  I haven't really found anything in my book yet though which is just so disappointing, but I'll keep trying!

 While today wasn't a nature study day, it was just such a beautiful day that we decided to get outside to one of our hiking parks today.  I decided to go to Laguna Coast Wilderness park.  We had been here before when Malcolm was much younger and took a horrible trail that was all uphill, both ways, in 90 degree weather.  My husband referred to it as the death march.  While we laugh over it now, it did make me hesitant to explore this park again.  I'm glad to did though because there was a much easier trail that didn't seem to only ascend up the hill forever.  It was still a hot day however so we didn't go very far but it was fun!

He climbed really high!

Not at the wilderness park but not far away.  View from Laguna Beach of the ocean and Catalina island.

Weekly Wrap Up - Time between breaks

So last week we were ALL sick and didn't have any school at all.  I kept it very low key and we just played and read books when he wanted to.  So this week was ramping back up to school.  Malcolm had moments where he didn't want to do what I had ready and wanted to do something else.  We went with the flow and I allowed him a lot of leeway because for the next two weeks we're taking our 'spring break'.  We have family coming to visit next week and then Malcolm is going back to Florida with his cousin to spend a week my husband's side of the family.  His first plane ride!

Doesn't she look adorable???

Cheese!!

Found these crayola Window Crayons on clearance and thought it would be great for developing those fine motor skills!  I've ready so many blogs where vertical writing surfaces are really good for this but I don't have an easel and was afraid of the mess of just taping paper up on the wall for him to color on.   He loves these crayons but I haven't had a chance to wash it yet because Malcolm won't let me touch it!

I found this idea on pinterest, or at least part of it.  The idea I saw had the masking tape letters put on the carpet in a circle and the child then jumped on the letters called out or used bean bag letters to put over them.  I didn't have enough space for a full circle so we made more of a crescent shape.  Malcolm also isn't as familiar with his letters for me calling one out to jump so and I don't have the bean bags.  But I do have magnatic letters!  So we used the letters to put over the masking tape letters.  Malcolm loved this so much that it was the first thing he wanted to do each day for school.  He also ran down the line as I very quickly said/sang the ABC's which he also really enjoyed.  He tried to trick me by walking slowly, fast, stopping, and even sometimes going backwards but Mom always caught up!

Our Hippo Craft because.. H is for Hippo!!!  I cut everything out but Malcolm glued all of it.

We started working on his name a little bit.  I saw this on a blog and just thought it was such a cute idea!

Our coloring page to add to the wall.

Dot painting!

Happy baby :)

Story time at the library

Wednesday park play day

We did a lot of Humpty Dumpty for our poetry this week.  I found this cute idea on pinterest.  I made humpty dumpty out of cardstock and we playacted the rhyme which Malcolm really liked.  Then one morning I cut him up into four pieces and Malcolm put him back together again with bandaids.  He LOVED this.

On our nature study day he found these sea urchins all by himself!

Art!  We played with mixing colors of paint.  He really liked making green :)

Taking pictures in the car!


We also managed to get a lot of story time done and got some books from the library including the Good Dog, Carl books which Malcolm adores.  We watched our Spanish video Salsa online and played a lot of starfall.com .

Little Corona Tide Pools

 This week for Nature Study we went to Little Corona Beach to the tidepools with out nature study group.   It's amazing how this day was very cool and the days following have all been in the 80's!  I was so excited to see a Black Turban Snail (see pictures below) because I had done a report on the intertidal zone for my biology class last year in college and one of the animals I featured was the black turban snail.  It actually made me a little giddy inside and I'm sure some of the other Mom's that overheard my "oh my gosh!" were wondering what I found.  The baby was very tired by the end of our adventure so Green Bubbles's drawing in his nature journal was cut a little short and I waited until we were home to do mine so there are no pictures of this part of our day.

So here are all the pictures from our nature study.

Green Bubbles and Grandma

Mommy and Little Miss

Seagulls and cormorants I believe

Green Bubbles found a big cave!

Reminds me of The Little Mermaid

Found this cool shell

And something was still living in it!

Sea Anemone (out of water)

Seagull

Hermit Crab (Green Bubbles found a LOT of these!)

Tiny little crab (sorry its a little blurry)

Hermit Crabs climbing around a sea anemone

Black Turban Snail!!!

Seagull and cormorants?

Sea Urchins

See the crab behind the rock?

Love the waves crashing onto the rocks

Two sea anemones

Weekly Wrapup - Kids Market!

So I decided to redo our routine again this week and came up with a homeschool schedule that I'm going to TRY to start doing.  I like having just big blocks of things to check off and think we'll end up getting more done once I get used to looking at it for inspiration.

Everyday starts off with Calendar/Weather time and then some chores.  After that on most days we have 'blanket' time where we'll pick one or two good books from our literature wall to read.  This helps me read more to him during the day, something I know we've been slacking on lately since the baby has arrived.  Then on Mondays we will work on learning Spanish by watching Salsa videos.  After that we will play with musical instruments (something we really need to do more of).  Then it is free play, lunch, and hopefully after lunch we'll take a walk and go to the playground.

Tuesdays after blanket time we'll work on our new letter of the week doing the coloring, dot painting, magnets, or whatever else I may have planned for that week.  Then we'll do math which varies depending on our moods.  This week we worked on patterns.  I made him some pattern sheets (ABAB, and ABCABC) and had him repeat the patterns beneath it with pompoms of the same colors.  Then I pulled out our number cards (1-4) and had him put the appropriate number of pompoms on each number.  After math is copywork although at this stage I won't have him actually copying any letters.  This is meant to be forming the letters in playdough and, when I get around to making them, foam pieces like the wooden pieces from Handwriting without Tears.  After that is lunch and then the walk to the playground.

Wednesday is our park day where we go to visit our friends.  This week was Kids Market however and it was a lot of fun.  Kid's market is when all the homeschool children in the area sell their old toys, books, crafts, clothes that they no longer want or need.  The children do all the pricing, setup, selling, haggling, and even buying.  It was a great experience to see.  I gave Malcolm a baggy of coins, $2 worth, and he bought a remote controlled (wired) walking robot, and then haggled a boy down for a magnadoodle.  But there were so many great things so I pulled out my change from my wallet (and Grandma came up with some change as well) and the grownups bought Malcolm a duplo fire engine, Little People farm blocks, and a little Einstein's rocket (with all the kids) for an additional $3.50.  We were supposed to do art and poetry after we got back but I just didn't happen.  I made sure we read poetry during breakfast on Thursday and Friday to make up for not doing it on Wednesday.

Thursday is our nature study day which you can read about in the previous post, Fullerton Arboretum. Since baby sister was sick, we ended up leaving nature study a little early and so we did our nature journals once we got home.  I pulled out the watercolors and let him paint what we saw today.  He painted for a LONG time and finally announced that he painted "a butterfly, bird, bamboo, turtles, and Zoe!" I think it's really cute he included one of our dogs in his painting.  We were also supposed to work on our letters a little today but since we didn't start our new schedule until Tuesday and did our letters on Monday, we didn't do it this day. 

Friday was a bust this week.  We didn't get to blanket time.  And, out of order but at least accomplished we managed to read poetry during breakfast, go to playground before lunch (collecting pine cones along the way), and we did an art project mainly to focus on fine motor skills.  I gave him a page of stickers, a piece of paper, and some markers and let him go.  He did this type of activity a lot in his old preschool so he knew just what to do with no direction from me whatsoever.  Malcolm peeled a couple of Cars stickers and then colors over the whole page with a purple marker.  He informed me he was drawing 'zeros' and then 'Mommy's name'.  Of course, it just looks like a bunch of circles spiraling around but I thought it was really cute.

We had a lot of fun this week.  I didn't take any pictures this week besides what I got on my camera phone during nature study.  So I'll leave you all with a cute picture of Allie who is starting to get the knack of putting things into her mouth.

Allie - 3 months old