Is it raining?

Saturday, August 10, we had another fun family day. It was a beautiful morning so we took the convertible:

 to go to Steak 'n Shake to get chocolate chip pancakes (burger and fries for me, biscuits and gravy for Jake):

 and went to Lowes for another build and grow clinic - Gavin made an airplane from the movie "Planes" (with a lot of help from Jake - that one was hard!):

 We also hit up the Goodwill next to Lowes and found a cool bike buddy, a kid's bike minus the front tire that attaches to an adult bike to make a tandum bicycle.

 

 August 14 was our 13th wedding anniversary:

 

 It's still constant knights and castles around here. All available cardboard gets fashioned into all manor of medieval weapons and armor:

 Didn't Jake do a great job making this helmet from a sheet of cardboard?!:

 Had to go get his helmet while reading about knights:

 

The last couple weeks the subjects that have interested Gavin the most are: the weather (especially all types of inclement weather), knights, castles, archers, and airplanes. He also is really enjoying learning about geography, and quite frequently will start conversations about the different continents. He has become very interested in weather radar maps. Especially on rainy days he wants to check it all the time. "Is it raining?" he'll ask. "Look outside" I'll reply, and then he'll say, "No, I want to look on the map." Then we go to weather.com. We have this conversation frequently. What I am most pleased about is Gavin's interest in books. Especially non-fiction or "living books" as they're sometime called. He gets so excited by all the library books I get him about his topics of interest. Last night he pulled a book about military aircraft out of our library bag and exclaimed "Thank you, Mommy!" with a big hug. This morning the first thing he did when he woke up was to get his library book about tornadoes and wake Jake up to show it to him. I found this quote that could be our family's homeschool motto:

 

"Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire." ~William Butler Yeats

 

Amen.

A good life

Lately our Saturdays have been pretty great. Last weekend was no exception. Gavin wanted to learn about biplanes last week, so we did. Saturday we took him to the Museum of Aviation so he could see some real ones:

 It's fun to go to the museum with Jake because he knows a lot more about aircraft than I do. He was able to answer Gavin's questions about what different parts on the planes and helicopters were for. Here's Jake and Gavin being a human biplane:

flying:

 After the museum we went to lunch at a Chinese take-out place. Gavin likes a few (Americanized) Chinese dishes: sesame green beans, chicken on a stick, Chinese donuts, and crab rangoon.

 After lunch we went to the library. While I found a couple books for myself Jake and Gavin hung out in the kids section picking out books about sharks and spiders. I found Gavin an encyclopedia of airplanes which he has been glued to all week, copying the different airplanes in lego form.

Great Day!

 

Proof that Tyler has actually begun to trust Gavin (somewhat): 

Aside from the regular letter and number stuff we always work on, and reviewing what has already been learned, this week Gavin has chosen to learn about crocodiles, castles, knights, armor, archers, and trebuchet catapults. He made a shield with a coat of arms and a sword out of a cereal box today. He's been making castles and airplanes on minecraft all week. I also taught him about carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores, which he pretty much already knew from watching dinosaur train.

If you build it...

This past Saturday was another Build and Grow workshop at Lowes. Gavin made the RC car from Toy Story 3. It was a little more complicated than the truck he previously made, but he did a great job and got it done with a little help from Dad:

 

School Days

Today was the first day of the school year in our local public schools. I guess that means Gavin is now technically a kindergartener. If he had gone to public school and ridden the bus he would have gotten on the bus at 7:50 and gotten off the bus at home at 4:30. This is what we did instead:

8:30am: Woke up after a full night sleep, with no fussing to go to bed last night because he was able to stay up till he was actually tired at 9pm. I'm recovering from a sinus infection and still not feeling great, so Gavin happily ate cheerios on the couch and watched "Wild Kratts" on tv (it's educational!)

Then he got to hang out with Jake until it was time to meet our friends at McDonalds for lunch and play time from 11am till about 2pm. When we got home he took a shower to wash off the McDonalds playplace cooties, then had some watermelon and built a castle on minecraft. Then we watched a phonics rap on youtube and a video with a song about the 7 continents. We then played with this map, learning the continents using super heroes and star wars guys:

(notice the map is not colored. Gavin rarely enjoys coloring, so I don't make him do it - why force a kid to do school stuff he hates if it's not important?)

 and looked at animal flashcards talking about which continent each animal lives on:

He's taking another snack and play break right now. Later we'll read some books and play a math game. Also this week we've been learning about money, biomes, and clouds. Per Gavin's request we've also learned about biplanes and tornados. Gavin's favorite subject is science, so we spend a lot of time on that. We made a tornado in a bottle yesterday. As we drive around town Gavin enjoys pointing out different types of clouds and we talk about what they are called and which ones rain comes from. We also talk about which biome would have the different types of trees we see. I am really enjoying homeschooling. It's not easy, but so worth it.

And the beat goes on...

A couple weeks ago I packed away all the dress up clothes Gavin has outgrown and gave him the 2 new outfits I bought at a consignment sale a few months ago:

 

Jedi:

 bad Spiderman:

 

 Shaving cream bathtub fun. Refuses to write letters in it, prefers to just smear it around:

 

 Saturday the 13th we took Gavin to his 1st Lowes build and grow workshop. It was really cool, especially considering it's all free. He got a free apron, goggles, and wooden kit to make a toy truck from Toy Story 3. They loan the kids little hammers and they all go to it in an aisle at Lowes, building their toy from the included instructions. A little loud but lots of fun, we will continue attending these when available. Brayden was there too, and afterwards our families went to lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant and then played at the park for an hour or so till it started raining. Just an awesome day.

This past Saturday we did a little cleaning in the attic and garage. We gave away Gavin's old car seats (they will expire in another year) as well as his basketball goal he rarely used and a few other toys. You know how the best way to get it to rain is to wash your car? I'm hoping the same is true in our situation. I will gladly run out and buy another car seat when needed. For the first time, we're starting to contemplate a life with only one child. It's an interesting exercise. Not one I particularly enjoy. But the plus side is it helps me to enjoy the time we have with Gavin at this age. I try to get all the hugs and lap time I can, I know this young age won't last forever. I'm not sure if this influences my decision to homeschool, I'm pretty sure no matter how many kids I had I wouldn't feel right sending my 5 year away to school for 8 hours a day. School starts around here August 1, and if Gavin were in public school and riding the bus he would get on the bus around 8:10 and get off the bus at home at 4:40. If I drove him he would be in school 8:30-3:30. I tell Jake all the time how thankful I am to get to be a stay at home mom, especially now that we have decided to homeschool.

4th of July Fun

We had a fun, laid back, damp 4th of July. The food was good, the company was great, and the kids had a blast. Our neighbors treated us to another high quality fireworks show this year, and since it was so damp we didn't have to worry about them catching any trees on fire. The rain stopped for the evening by 7, and it was nice and cool in the low 70's for fireworks. The kids were really into sparklers this year - Jake spent a long time patiently lighting sparklers for the kids one after another. They liked the poppers too, but the sparklers were the favorite. Gavin said he was a Jedi with his.