Plants and Other Work

Miss Mega is 1 year 2 months old

Zilla is 4 years 0 months old

For our second study theme in the Year of Learning Lessons with the B-Bears I chose to jump to Grow-it which is actually timed to be read in the spring. We have both a spring and a fall growing season here.  The reading of the book timed perfectly with the fall garden preparations.  Zilla and I even managed to make a trip to the garden shop to pick out a few new plants to grow indoors.  With the radiation issues continuing I have decided to have indoor herbs this year.

After reading Grow-It we tried to grow roots from the top of a daikon and a carrot. 

 The daikon only lasted a couple of weeks but the carrot is still going well a month later.  Soon we will probably more it to a pot with soil.  

 Zilla enjoyed making the picture journal as they grew.  Since he can't write yet I added 2 extra picture places on the back for the 1 week and 2 week updates.
Miss Mega has enjoyed checking on the plants daily.  She now makes a surprised face when she sees them as if they all magically grew over night!

Since we are starting to see pumpkins around town we also read the B-Bears Prize Pumpkin.

Zilla's questions about how plants grow and how seeds work lead us to this book - The Magic School Bus Plants Seeds. Zilla really enjoys the Magic School Bus series because it shares so much detail.

 On the activity shelf Zilla found this math exercise.  It was really too easy for him.  I had been waiting until he had a better grasp of numbers, as the last time he tried it it was too difficult.  My timing was a bit off!

Zilla's newest workbook challenge includes the lowercase letters. He is in a sensitive time for writing right now and it is so much fun to watch!  When his workbook pages are done for the day (minimum 1 letter, limit of 4) he often goes in search of other writing activities such as our names or pointing out/tracing letters around the house.

Been Busy Learn'in!

Miss Mega is 1 year 1 month old

Zilla is 3 years 11 months old

This week was again busy... busy in the sense that a lot of learning and exploration has been going on.  Here are some of the things we did:

This is the Pop Bottle Science kit we're using for experiments a couple of times a week.

These are the 2 Kumon workbooks Zilla is currently working through.  He does 1 cutting page and 3 writing pages a day.  Those numbers were decided by him as he likes to work according to his age (3) and his sister's age (1).

We have shelved the Alaska related books.  We learned much about Alaska this summer but now it is time to move on to some new things.

 The sensory table (which has been a huge help since radiation concerns have kept us indoors this summer) became a workbench one day.

 Zilla is asking for tougher math tasks.  He's also still trying to figure out why 6 and 9 have to be so similar.  He asked me this week why we didn't just change the shape of one of them so they didn't look alike anymore.  Good question!!!!

Clocks are still a mystery to be solved.  He has figured out that the short hand moves slower, and that the different times of the day have different positions.  Here he is matching his clock to the ones on the pages in a Wiggles book.  He has also gone around the house matching it to the other clocks we have.

The other big lesson this week has been learning to share.  2 hammers, 1 place to pound...