i heart homeschooling

Today Enrique came up to me and said, "Mom, I want to be doing school right now. Will you be my homeschool teacher so I can learn something?"

Adorable.

Of course, I obliged. He wanted to learn all about the world (hmmm in one afternoon?) by talking about his brand new globe that he got for his birthday from Grandma. She also got him a United States puzzle, so we also spent some time putting that together and talking about the names of all the States.

Enrique is a certifiable NUT!

He does not just sit still all calm and cute wanting to learn. No, he is wiggly and jumping up and down and dancing around and singing songs. He cannot sit still for more than 2 minutes. I am for sure going to have to do some research on kinesthetic learning styles. Because that is so him and I have no idea what to do with this amount of energy! No. Idea.

Check it out for yourself. A little song he was singing while putting the puzzle together today...

Enrique's Learning Tune from Lisa Delzer on Vimeo.

See, a nut! I love him so.

nature color hunt

Yesterday we went on a little nature scavenger hunt with our homeschool group.

I painted the insides of some egg cartons with colors I've been seeing on our nature walks: white, purple, orange, yellow, brown and green.


It was threatening to rain, so we didn't have as many kiddos from the group as we expected, but we still had fun wandering around and hunting colors.



But, then our clever little nature game deteriorated when the boys just wanted to be boys!



My friend's sweet daughter picked a huge bouquet of flowers and then gave them to ME! So sweet.


Once we got home, Enrique was a little more into his treasures. We had fun talking about them all.


This is about as structured as we get on the homeschool front these days. I am really liking just being, spending time in nature, keeping it simple. There is PLENTY of time to get a little more serious about our homeschooling. But, for now, we are enjoying doing it like this.

a new learning place

We visited the Pueblo Children's Museum this week for the first time. It is a really great place to take the kids! So much to do.. we could have stayed for hours more.



The coolest thing was the giant wall that somehow picks up on body heat so you can make a giant "painting" using your whole body. Very groovy! I think Don had the most fun with that one!




There are LOTS of art stations, puppets and little puppet stages, puzzles and blocks to build things with, large magnetic walls to make scenes with, little old fashioned movie makers, and so much more that we didn't even get a chance to explore.





The kids really loved the giant building blocks (that BTW are just made out of boxes that have been painted). But there are ALOT of them, enough to build a kid size house, tunnels, etc.




If you are in the Springs and haven't been down there, I highly recommend it! Worth the drive and super cheap to get in.

While we were there, a few school groups were visiting. I was blown away and saddened by how little time these kids had to explore the museum. While we were on the 2nd floor at least 3 different groups came in. Just as the kids were starting to get into stuff, the teachers announced it was time to go! Our kids were there sooo much longer and still didn't want to leave when it was time.

We were with another homeschool family and both of us mamas said how happy we are that we are homeschooling! Both Don and I really felt our commitment to homeschool strengthened by the experience. We want to be able to give our kids the time they need to fully immerse themselves in what interests them and give them the freedom and space to explore whatever it is they want to learn about. I feel so strongly about this and am glad that we get a chance to give our children an opportunity to learn this way.. Yay! Homeschooling rocks!

learning something new!

One thing I really like about homeschooling is the opportunity to learn something new!

For instance, I had no idea that an owl ate it's food whole and then expelled a pellet of all the unused animal parts. That's what I learned at the zoo this past week! Oh, and E learned all about it as well...
The super awesome zoo lady, who is always amazing with the kids, let the boys take apart an owl pellet to see what they could find inside.

They found fur, bones and a whole mouse skull!


Way fun!!

el grito fiesta

Yesterday was El Grito, Mexican Independence Day. El Grito means "the cry." as in the cry for Independence. I decided to start a new tradition and have a little fiesta celebration in honor of Don and my kiddos heritage.

E and I spent all day making preparations for our fiesta. First we used some cheapo brightly colored yarn to make "streamers" and hung them all over the place. Notice the "balloons" that E cut and taped to the mirror. They are all over the place as well.

Then we made some maracas out of paper plates and a few Mexican flags to wave around.

I decided we needed sombreros to wear, which were made with a stapler and stiff paper. They are totally wonky and lame, but Chubbas had fun wearing his around all day.

For dinner, I made us some yummy burritos.

A fun time indeed.

Viva Mexico!

nature walk

With the "school year" beginning, I decided to structure our week just a little bit. And I mean a little bit. On Mondays we are going on a nature walk and then we have the Friday art group. In between, we are doing crafts, playing, cleaning, running errands, etc. Just normal life stuff with a 3 1/2 year old and baby girl.

Yesterday was a really lovely day to walk down to the creek and collect nature goodies.

weekly art group

One of the things I've been wanting to do for awhile is a regular preschool/homeschool group with some other kids E's age. I came across this blog, where she lays our how to start your own weekly art group. Yay! Just what I was looking for. Chubbas is so totally into art these days, so what a great way to fuel the fire and make some fun little buddies for E to play with.

We had our first day last Friday. There were 4 families and 7 kids aged 10 months to 5 years old. It was so much fun! We did painting with 3 colors, using acrylics and sponge brushes. Some of the kids painted for quite awhile, at least one never even gave it a go, and the rest popped in and out to make their own little masterpieces throughout the morning. I have to say I love kids making art. It just makes my heart smile! I love the freedom they have to just explore. They don't care what their painting looks like, they just enjoy the process. And I know I'm nuts, but I also love the mess and the craziness!

And a playgroup at our house would not be complete without a big ol' hysterical laughing session! The kids were so funny and cute cracking each other up. I do love hearing the sound of lots and lots of laughter coming from my own living room.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how our little group evolves over time.

weekly art group

One of the things I've been wanting to do for awhile is a regular preschool/homeschool group with some other kids E's age. I came across this blog, where she lays our how to start your own weekly art group. Yay! Just what I was looking for. Chubbas is so totally into art these days, so what a great way to fuel the fire and make some fun little buddies for E to play with.

We had our first day last Friday. There were 4 families and 7 kids aged 10 months to 5 years old. It was so much fun! We did painting with 3 colors, using acrylics and sponge brushes. Some of the kids painted for quite awhile, at least one never even gave it a go, and the rest popped in and out to make their own little masterpieces throughout the morning. I have to say I love kids making art. It just makes my heart smile! I love the freedom they have to just explore. They don't care what their painting looks like, they just enjoy the process. And I know I'm nuts, but I also love the mess and the craziness!

And a playgroup at our house would not be complete without a big ol' hysterical laughing session! The kids were so funny and cute cracking each other up. I do love hearing the sound of lots and lots of laughter coming from my own living room.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how our little group evolves over time.

tracks

There is a nature center across from our house and they have a really cool interactive track making set up. The kids can make tracks in the dirt of all the different types of animals that live around here: bears, mountain lions, deer, fox, etc. We stopped in there before going on a nature walk and during our walk we talked alot about the tracks that animals leave. We went hunting for some but didn't find any, a little more difficult when the ground is very dry.

When we got home I thought it would be fun to make some more tracks. So, we made potato stamps and pretended we were bears leaving tracks. Grrrrrr...

tracks

There is a nature center across from our house and they have a really cool interactive track making set up. The kids can make tracks in the dirt of all the different types of animals that live around here: bears, mountain lions, deer, fox, etc. We stopped in there before going on a nature walk and during our walk we talked alot about the tracks that animals leave. We went hunting for some but didn't find any, a little more difficult when the ground is very dry.

When we got home I thought it would be fun to make some more tracks. So, we made potato stamps and pretended we were bears leaving tracks. Grrrrrr...