Holiday Crafts

We made crafts, cards and treats during the holidays. We made these fun Cornstarch and baking soda Ornaments for the first time inspired by my friend Sarah. They are apparently popular if you Google for the recipe.
We got this "I can Draw Animals" book at the Getty museum shop in LA recently and we've been learning from the book quite often. I'm glad to see Andy is a lot more interested in drawing (and a lot more comfortable) since. It helps when the book breaks down steps in a simple language that kids understand.
See caption for Andy's funny ideas.

201212AndyXmasCardAndDecoration

Landform Diorama

Andy's class was studying land and geography in March. The very creative Ms. Lori got Andy to do a project with Iris's help one week: build a landform diorama during that week's noon quiet time (Andy and Iris are the only kids in school that never naps).  When Andy brought it home on Friday, he was all excited telling me about how they stuffed shredded paper in the volcano, glued moss as forest and sandpaper as desert, the words he copied from Ms. Lori, etc. We were thrilled to see it and so grateful for his amazing teachers at Little Dinosaurs.

Last Day of Homeschooling While On Leave

It's the last Friday of the five-month maternity leave before I go back to work next week. It's been an amazing time that I'm already starting to miss. I spent precious time with my boys, pondered about their education and my art, and got to know some amazing people outside the high tech circle. I have also thought about what are the best ways for us as working parents to spend limited available time with our children. I think I found my answer.

On Friday morning, after spending quite a bit effort working through a fairly advanced Chinese story book, Andy was able to independently read the whole story to me fluently. We were both thrilled. I wanted to do something adventurous for a change of pace. I had a few ideas and Andy picked the Pacific Science Center. After an hour of drive, bus  and walk, we arrived! It was a fun adventure despite my shoulders hurting from lifting ~17 lb all day (Daniel + backpack). We learned about everything from genetics (the first exhibit as we walked in), tide pool creatures (this really friendly staff explained what they all were so now I can tell mussel from clam), to a history and future live show (I explained concepts like future and predictions to Andy, he liked the show a lot). He didn't like the 3D IMAX Sea-Rex though, the sound effect made it too scary for him.

Working on DNA sequencing

a Hermit crab

a clam

Today was an example response to my question. I think it is about exposing kids to things they don't  readily experience in school (museums, hikes, libraries, sports, etc), and doing things either the parents or the kids are excited about. When we first started homeschooling I was amazed by how fast Andy absorbs knowledge like a sponge and was eager to teach him as much as I could. Slowly I came to realize that they have many many school years ahead to learn academics and you wouldn't want him to get bored in school. So I no longer spend much time teaching reading and math. Aside from the social behavioral teachings in the daily doing, it is my privilege to explore the world with him. Our homeschooling turned into more of doing projects and exploring places together. Andy loves doing projects. It started out as me suggesting project ideas and he soon started coming up with his own. We work together to complete each other's ideas and implement the projects. One of the first projects he came up with was making a dragonfly out of 1 branch (body), 2 rocks (eyes), and 2 leaves (wings). We are currently working on a flower press project. I look forward to weaving a learning journey out of fond childhood memories together.

Discover Our Own Special Light

"We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege and our adventure to discover our own special light."
- Mary Dunbar
I had been wanting to put this quote up for a while and told Andy we were doing a big project on this on our walk last Friday. So we started brainstorming what to put on this BIG project (and I brought out my biggest drawing paper). Andy said a tree, a person, a truck, etc. I was amused how many things he rattles out without a pause. We started the project after his nap. It took us a few days and we finally completed all the decorations tonight! We played as equals and got busy putting forth our ideas. We took turn writing the words (can you tell whose is which) and bounced off each others' ideas decorating it. For example, he asked me to cut out the letter E, and I got the idea of cutting out mountain shapes from that, and then he decided to put up houses with chimney using the rectangle and triangle shapes I cut. It was a fun creative exercise for both.

We decided to start a new ritual following the Waldorf school tradition by lighting 2 candles (one for Andy and one for Daniel) and saying the quote we put up at the start of our homeschool days to establish a rhythm. We both get excited about blowing candles :-)

Our new school space: a card table (no more messy dining table) in front of living window across from our Special Light quote.

Kids are so full of ideas. Give them a seed of imagination to start, nurture it, and they grow a garden-ful of ideas.

Leafy Turkey

We went for a long walk in the late afternoon on Friday collecting leaves and pine cones for our project (though the pine cones were wet and small, not quite what I had in mind for the bird base).  We discovered an apple tree in the Mark Twain park so picked a few apples too.  Andy requested using the apple for the bird's head. Hmm, challenging but we made it work. As Andy was helping me taping down things, he stuck the roll of tape under the apple for the base -- the boy is more creative than me.

Orchestra Concert

We went to Everett Philharmonic's family concert of the year this afternoon: "Music for the Imagination featuring Peter & the Wolf". It was a whirlwind tour from Spanish, Beethoven, Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf", to the contemporary Star Wars Medley and Stars and Stripes. The music selection and the performance quality were both great. Afterwards, the kids got to visit each selection of the orchestra!

Meet the percussion section...

The Strings

The wood winds

And the conductor!  

The conductor gave everyone a candy cane and a lesson on conducting 2,3,4 beats. Andy said that his favorite instruments were the big drums and his favorite part was the candy cane :-) .

The Tree of Gratitude

In the spirit of Thanksgiving...  We started this project last night in the heavy rain.  We brought out flashlights and went on the hunt for our tree branch.  Afterwards, Andy insisted on working on the project first instead of dinner (close to 7pm and he's usually the foodie whining for food before meal time).  So I cut out leaves while Andy brainstormed what to write on them.  He had a lot gratitudes to give.  We addd a few more and taped it all up tonight.  One of the gratitudes Andy said was for doing this project.  I seconded that.

Yesterday was an action packed and heavy rainy day.  We went to the Little School for its open house.  I like their philosophy.  We then drove to Seattle to meet up with Sarah and her kids at the Frye Art museum.  Zoe the oldest (~9 years) was quite an artist, drew in a sketch book as we looked at the pieces.  Andy was all ready to go to our next "surprise" destination (I didn't tell him where or he would have insisted on going to the second place first) when we walked in the museum, so it was a short visit.  We then had yummy dim sum, and then went by a pastry shop and a grocery (stocked up on goodies for the road trip tomorrow) in China town.  It was mid-afternoon by the time we got home and by the time we finished a couple lessons and flashcard games, it was dark already. The day went by fast!