A Day in the Life: Field Trip Friday

Visiting:
The Museum of Natural and Cultural History at the University of Oregon and Toshi's Ramen . (I forgot to take the camera in to the museum. Pictures from last year's field trip here. The fine young gents look so young.)

The fine young gents voted on possible outings: A trip to Dorris Ranch to walk to the river, a trip to a brand new place, or repeat last year's outing to the museum followed by a nature walk on the university campus and lunch at Toshi's. Toshi's won.

We are wrapping up our History Pockets study of Native American culture and history, so the Museum of Natural and Cultural History is an ideal field trip. The museum has a wonderful display of local Native American culture and history. There are many artifacts, but the displays that catch the attention of the fine young gents are the replicas of Native homes and environments from different regions of Oregon. They got to see model homes and tools.

The museum also has a new exhibit: Shoes. The fine young gents tried on shoes from different cultures, saw the oldest shoes in the world and looked at shoes from different decades in American history.

The hands-down favorite, again, was the hands-on exploration room. The gents played a Native American beaver tooth game and looked at rocks, fossils and bones.

We tried to visit the Eugene Pioneer Cemetery next, but middle gent needed to use the rest room. After this many years, I couldn't remember where the restrooms were in any of the nearby buildings, and the library was quite a trek away, so we moved on to Toshi's.
Eating and drawing: Toshi's has wonderful food and large portions. We ordered gyoza (potstickers), teriyaki chicken with rice, and ramen. The drawback: A long wait. Last winter, the gents showed stellar behavior during our visit, but it was a challenge to keep them entertained. This time, we brought our nature journals and spent most of the wait sketching. Our nature walk was cut short by, well, by the call of nature, so the journal request was "Draw something you saw on our walk, something you can see from the window, or your choice of drawing as long as it has something to do with nature." Second-grade gent drew a fall tree. Kindergarten gent drew houses with fall gardens. Even the littlest gent drew a tree, with some coaching from his brother. My journal entry was the easiest. Each gent wanted to draw a tree in my journal, so I only wrote, "Drawing trees at Toshi's."
We ate a delicious meal, then home for quiet time followed by gymnastics for the younger gents. We had so much food left over that we had Toshi's for dinner too!

Reading:

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum. (Poohsticks Read-aloud)
I had forgotten that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is such an absolutely wonderful, magical story. There's just something so refreshing about a book that flows smoothly as a read-aloud. We'd just finished The Black Stallion (Walter Farley), an exciting story but not my favorite to read out loud, and a book of Japanese children's stories, Japanese Children's Favorite Stories(Florence Sadake), charming but in simple language. The Wizard of Oz is a breath of fresh read-aloud air. The gents have been begging for "just one more chapter," and even wished in all the excitement of eating at Toshi's that I'd remembered our book. We've just gotten to the Cowardly Lion, and the fine young gents can't wait to find out what happens next.


Detectives in Togas, Henry Winterfeld.
Second-grade gent is devouring this book. A light humorous whodunnit set in ancient Rome. Rufus' classmates set out to discover who really defaced the temple of Minerva so that they can help keep their friend Rufus from going to prison. Fine young gent's review: "It's funny, Mom."



Johnny Lion's Book (An I Can Read Book, Level 1), Edith Thatcher Hurd.
Kindergarten gent is at the magical stage where he's discovered that he can read for fun. I keep finding him tucked into corners or curled on the couch with a book, or several, and he's going through the books on the Poohsticks shelves like mad. In one of his favorite library finds, Johnny Lion discovers the magic of books.

Crocodile and Hen: A Bakongo Folktale (I Can Read Book 1), Joan M. Lexau.
Another library find, as I've been raiding the Early Readers library shelf. I keep finding Crocodile and Hen on the couch, at the foot of kindergarten gent's bed, in the upstairs hallway. Crocodile discovers that Hen is really not that different from him. It's a lovely story that promotes peace and the idea that we're all brothers and sisters even when we look different.

ABC: A Child's First Alphabet Book, and 1-2-3: A Child's First Counting Book, Alison Jay.
I chose these Alison Jay books from the library for the youngest gent. He loves them. He looks at them every night before bed, and when he chooses stories for a story time, these are the first books he brings to the chair. My memory insists that these books are another recommendation from Nina at Painted Rainbows, but I can't seem to find them. If not, they're certainly the kind of books that Si and Kitcat find in their reading baskets, which is probably why I am so certain that I first saw them there.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, Michael Pollan.
I've been working on The Omnivore's Dilemma for an embarrassingly long time. It seems to get misplaced with alarming regularity, though not purposefully, or displaced by a must-read-now. After bogging down in the corn, corn, corn section at the beginning, I promised this book to a friend, so I'm finally buckling down to finish. It's interesting. Fascinating, but not for the faint-of-heart. I've just started reading what feedlot cattle are fed, not even the butchering part which loving husband assures me is worse, and I am already sick at heart. Thank goodness we already know where to buy local grass-fed beef.

A Keeper of Bees: Notes on Hive and Home, Allison Wallace.
I have set aside The Omnivore's Dilemma temporarily because A Keeper of Bees is a library book, and must be returned soon. I found it on the table next to the library computer, and snatched it up. It's part memoir, part bee history, information, and lore, and part love letter to bees. Any bee lover would enjoy reading this book.

Watching:
Senator McCain and President-Elect Obama. Loving husband recorded some of the election night coverage. My fine young Obama fan was so sleepy that he couldn't wake himself up to watch Obama's live victory speech (though his kindergarten brother woke and watched, half-asleep on loving husband's lap), so he asked to watch it. I asked him to watch Senator McCain's speech as well, so that he could see that both men were very gracious and eloquent in victory and in defeat. My fine young gent was riveted. Loving husband and I are not "into" politics, though we feel that it's important to educate and inform ourselves so that we can vote carefully and thoughtfully. Our fine young gent, however, is fascinated by the whole process. He's disappointed that his mayoral choice did not win (though the race was very very close). I'm trying to figure out how best to encourage his interest without raising him to just vote like Mom and Dad, how to incorporate politics as a topic into our learning while teaching him to think for himself. A great family challenge, I think.

Playing: Legos.

Random Notes on Piano

Five-year-old gent is a smitten kitten.

Thursday is piano day. We have a lovely piano teacher, Miss Melissa. She encourages students to arrive early or stay a few minutes to observe others' lessons, so we often see the lovely and shy twin girls who take lessons immediately after the fine young gents.

Today, my fine young gent beckoned to me and whispered in my ear, "See that girl in the pink? I think she's beautiful." Then he giggled. I nodded and agreed that both girls are very lovely. "Mom, I just think she is sooooo pretty." He hid his face.

"Mom. I love her. Mom, I think I want to marry her."

His little face. He was giddy. He was even blushing a little. It was sweet, and silly too, of course, because he's five and she's....eleven? twelve? And it was also absolutely endearing because it made me think of how most of us have felt at one time or another in the throes of a mad crush. Smitten and silly and giddy and in luuuuuuv.

Maybe next week, he'll play her a love song.

---

This gent got a compliment today, from his piano teacher. Miss Melissa asked, "Now, how old is he again?" of the eldest fine young gent, nearly eight. "I'd forgotten that he was that young. You know, he plays very well for his age. Very well." The twins' dad agreed.

It's true. He just gets piano. He's not a prodigy by any stretch of the imagination, but he understands how the piano works. He has taken to scales as though he was born knowing them. He likes learning to sight read. Today he told us that as he plays, he can see the music in his head.

He has absolute pitch, too. Sometimes I'll be singing my latest earworm and if it's a song he knows, he'll join in. Then he'll tell me, "But actually, Mom, it's this," and start singing in a different key. If we go to the piano to check, he's always right. His grandfather, loving husband's father, had absolute pitch as well. He was a country singer-songwriter, Wynn Stewart. He was an interesting guy. I should write a post about him sometime. Anyway, story says that he would complain when loving husband's mom sang, because, though she wasn't a bad singer, she didn't sing songs in the original key, so they clashed with what he heard in his head.

---

Here's how I knew that we'd lucked upon the perfect piano teacher: One day, I asked her, "Don't you get tired of hearing 'Twinkle Twinkle' all the time?" and she was taken aback by the question. It was though it had never occurred to her. Here's the crazy part. It's not as though it was just one of my kids playing Twinkle until he'd learned it. She follows the Suzuki method. Traditionally, Suzuki students begin by playing endless versions of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." Over and over and over and over. I've only had two beginners and I've heard the Twinkles enough to last this lifetime and into the next. She said that she enjoys seeing her students learn so much that she likes hearing them play the Twinkles. I would go stark raving mad.

We love our piano teacher. As in, we have a genuine fondness for her and we think she's wonderful. She's experienced. She has clear expectations, and she loves music. She's got very talented students in their teens, and young beginners. She's the perfect blend of strict and sweet, precise and flexible, high standards mixed with understanding of what's developmentally appropriate. She loves the piano, she likes teaching, and she enjoys her students.

---

This fine young gent plays piano too. He likes it, and he's good at it. All fall, since we started lessons again, he'd been dragging his feet about practice. Three weeks ago he had an utter sobbing meltdown over piano practice. He told me he hated piano. He never wanted to play piano again. He begged me to let him quit. "I always make mistakes!" he wailed.

I felt horrible. Was I pushing him too hard? Did I start him too young? Was he comparing himself to his brother? Had I been torturing my child? Was it all my fault?

I hugged him. I told him he didn't have to play piano. He didn't go near the piano for the rest of the week. I resolved to talk to his piano teacher.

Next piano day, I told his teacher we might need five or ten minutes to talk between the gents' lessons, while the boys played outside.

"I never want to play piano" gent waltzed in behind me after a short jaunt through the garden, bowed to his teacher and hopped up on the piano bench. He cheerfully played his pieces and practiced new things and giggled "Oops" when he made a mistake.

When his lesson was over, his teacher asked, "Is this a good time to talk?" And I replied, "Uh, I don't think we need to. It seems to have resolved itself."

During his brother's lesson, he drew Miss Melissa a picture. He's practiced willingly ever since.

---

I don't play piano. At all.

Think!: Halloween Candy Challenge

This week's Think! challenge: Halloween Candy. Create an animal using five pieces of candy, five toothpicks, and two straws.

The Poohsticks gents were joined in this challenge by several of their Busy Farm cousins.

The first question to arise was, "What exactly counts as a piece of candy?" Does a bag of Skittles count as a single piece? (No.) And do the wrappers count as part of the candy? (Sure. Although no one ended up using their wrappers.) It was determined that a "piece of candy" meant any candy encased in its original wrapper, but once the candy was taken out of the wrapper, individual candies each counted as one piece.


In order to encourage them to be thoughtful with their creations (just a little more on this in a future post), I suggested we all vote on the most creative animal. The prize? The winner got to choose an extra piece of Halloween candy.

But who can resist giving each participant a prize? Particularly when there's lots of candy to get rid of, er, to share.

Cal won the prize for the fastest creation. It's a unicorn. Then he helpfully hung over the shoulders of his cousins and brothers to tell them how they should build their animals. Until they told him to knock it off.


Actually, it's not atypical for him to rush through a creative challenge. He needs ideas and time to process them. If we'd done another candy animal challenge (fat chance!**) an hour later, he'd likely have spent quite a bit more time.

Helen tried a few different creations before settling on a spiky snake.



She won the prize for the longest animal. She also got an honorable mention for the most chocolate on her hands. But she's cute, so she can get away with it.



Robyn made a lion attacking a bunny.



That one made me laugh.

Levi unwrapped a lollipop, stuck it in a straw, and said, "Look! I made a candle." When gently reminded that a candle is not an animal, he replied, "I know. I don't want to," and ate his lollipop. He got a prize for being cute.



Joab made a dinosaur. A triceratops, I think. His prize was for the best dinosaur? I don't remember. I just remember wracking my brain trying to think of a good prize, when he saved me by suggesting his own.


Henry got the prize for working the hardest because he was the last one to finish. The picture didn't come out, which is a shame because he had a cool idea too. He made a rhinoceros, and because he had a little candy left, he made a baby rhino too.

Then there was Tolly.

Tolly, Tolly, Tolly. He wanted to make a unicorn. It wasn't working. My fine young perfectionist fussed and moaned. He griped and groaned. He moped and whined and even cried a little.

He couldn't get a toothpick to stick into a lollipop. His other toothpick broke. He couldn't draw a smiley face on the tootsie roll. Everyone else was finishing and his wasn't working. "You don't have to do this," I said. "It's okay, you'll still get a prize," I said. "Please stop whining," I said. "No, I can help but I can't do it for you," I said.

Suddenly, it all came together. He squished a Tootsie roll into the shape of a head, kind of on accident. Oooo. You could see the wheels turning. He finished his animal. Whew! Oh wait. He was suddenly struck by inspiration, took the whole thing apart except for the head and created an entirely new unicorn made of Tootsie rolls.



I gave each child a Smartie and told them to put it on the plate of their favorite creation. They were not allowed to vote for their own. Tolly won. I think Robyn, kind heart, might have voted for him. And even though I loved Robyn's lion and bunny because they made me laugh, I voted for Tolly's too because I wanted to encourage his persistence and his new attitude.

The kids' favorite part was eating their creations and their prizes. My favorite was seeing that there's hardly any candy left in the Halloween bowl and sending the cousins back home to my sister all hopped up on sugar. (Just kidding. Kinda.)

**In case you're wondering why I say "Fat chance" to doing this challenge again before next Halloween, here's why:
Look at those slimy sticky hands. I can hear you shuddering from here.

Wednesday Words

Lovely lady, 15, told me a story last night. To paraphrase:
"We had a test today in English. You know those problems that go 'This is to this as That is to...' Yeah, analogies. Well, I did really well. But most of the people in class didn't do very well. So the teacher was trying to figure out why, and she asked, 'How many of you know what the word "elated" means?' And only a third of the class raised their hands."

Two-thirds of a class of high-school sophomores didn't know the word "elated". Which pretty well explains why they didn't do well on the analogy test. If you don't know what words mean, you can't compare them to other words or ideas. Lovely lady did go on to say that the teacher, who's had these students for only nine weeks, went on to say that she needs to teach some basic vocabulary. I said to lovely lady, "Aren't you glad that we started working through that list of words everyone should know by the time they graduate high school?" (100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know) Vocabulary is important after all. Not just so that one can perform well on a test, but so that one can understand what others are saying or writing.

On another vocabulary note, a noun is called "noun". Why is it assumed that a second-grader is not capable of learning the real word for a concept? "Find the naming word." says fine young gent's Language Arts book. He's heard me gripe about this little peeve so often that he now crosses it out himself and carefully writes "noun" above. Same with "action word" and "describing word". Last week, he read his instructions, rolled his eyes and said in a peeved voice "Mom, it's an adjective." (I'm teaching this kid right. It's not my fault, honest. Blame my mom.)

Why should we "dumb things down"--a phrase I'm not particularly fond of in general, but which seems appropriate in this context--in order to make concepts seem easier or more learnable at a developmental stage in which children's young brains are primed for learning new words? I can see writing "noun (a naming word)" initially to help define the concept, but to leave out the word altogether, particularly in a language curriculum, seems shortsighted.

Vocabulary is important. I want my children to know the correct words for the concepts they're learning. They're walking around in the world soaking up the language around them. If we don't use "big" words when we're speaking or writing to children, and if we rewrite new ideas only in words they already know, how in heaven's name will they learn new ones?

Like "elated" perhaps?

Wordless Wednesday

Teachable moments: Symmetry

The fine young gents and I just spent twenty minutes dissecting the alphabet. Which letters can be divided symmetrically? We spent almost five minutes on "O" alone. Second-grade gent, all on his own, figured out that "O" can be divided symmetrically in "more than a googol" ways, which started a short discussion of infinity, which the gent in turn related to earlier "half of a half of a half of a half...." math play.

I thought the alphabet would take five minutes. They surprise me this way sometimes. An activity I'm sure will be a hit falls flat. A simple activity I throw in as a filler sparks a lengthy discussion. The point is not that I have math geniuses, by the way. Nor am I a math genius or a teacher extraordinaire. It's a fairly simple activity in which kindergarten gent was able participate easily, and I mostly sat there and asked questions. The point is that by taking extra time to really explore the idea when they were engaged and interested, we had the opportunity to explore new ideas.

Alphabet symmetry: Go low-tech, and print the capital letters on a sheet of paper from the recycle bin. Draw a line through each letter to divide it so that both sides are matching. Look at the halves. Do they have to be facing the same direction to be the same shape? Are they still symmetrical if you have to turn the pieces? What happens if you draw a line here? Or here? I draw my "U" with a tail. Is there a way to change it to make it symmetrical?

Or print out this worksheet: Symmetry in the Alphabet

Or go high-tech. For a more in-depth exploration of symmetry, try this webquest, Symmetry All Around, to learn about point symmetry and rotational symmetry, create a snowflake or a quilt block, or to find more links to activities for teaching symmetry.
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On another math note, Julie K in Taiwan left us a great tessellations link in the comments on the tessellations post. It's too good to miss. Visit Tessellation Town! Don't miss the rest of the site. Visit mathcats.com for lots of math fun. Thanks, Julie!

Where's Luigi?

We had a perfect Halloween.

Thursday, we carved pumpkins. We don't have the coolest pumpkins on the block, but I still like ours best. I gave each of the fine young gents a Sharpie marker and a pumpkin, and loving husband cut out the faces they drew. I love their little pumpkin faces. Lovely lady the younger declined to participate, but lovely lady the elder freehanded the phenomenal dragon pumpkin. I burned the pumpkin seeds, so no pumpkins seeds this year until I make our Thanksgiving pies. Our eldest lovely lady put the finishing touches on her handmade wolf mask, also phenomenal.

Halloween night. The lovely ladies were out, one to a Halloween birthday party and the other trick-or-treating with friends in the neighborhood across town where they give out big candy bars. The fine young gents trick-or-treated the neighborhood. People would look at them, puzzled, for a moment, then laugh and ask "Where's Luigi?" Then we came home to eat candy and watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! Their lovely sister came home with a smile and a huge bag of candy to share.

Life is good.

Tessellations

A geometric tessellation covers a plane with a pattern of shapes in such a way that no region is left uncovered.I'm not sure how I happened across this blog, Julie K in Taiwan, but hats off for this great idea: Art Lesson: M.C. Escher. Check it out. It's great fun and doesn't take long.

Art and math and ghosts, oh my! Who can resist?

The fine young gents, that's who.

To my cheerful suggestion that we do a fun Halloween project: "Do we haaave to?"

"Yes. You have to. Or I'll make you do math." (horrified gasps)

Actually, I kind of have this desire to instill a love of learning and all of that happy sunshine. So I didn't really threaten them with math. I just replied, "Yes."

Once we got started, the not-so-fine young gents became fine and dandy. Then kindergarten gent began to fuss and moan. Finally he said in frustration, "But I can't do it perfect!"

Okay. He's right. It's not perfect. And I'm not about to tell him that it is perfect because he'd know it was a lie. So I told him it was total crap and he had to start over. There it is, that love of learning thing again.

Not really. I really told my fine young perfectionist The Rules, honed by his fine perfectionist older brother. They don't take after me, by the way.

Nuh uh. Do not.

Do not!

The Rules

Give it a try.

Do your best.

Ask for help.

Give yourself a break.

"Did you try?" Yes, he nodded. "Do your best?" Nod. "All right, then give yourself a break. You've done exactly what you're supposed to. Need help?" Another nod.

Turns out the littlest gent was not as interested in tesselations as he was flying chess pieces around the room and rolling on the floor with the cat. I'd been making a tesselation page for him to color. Instead, I told frustrated kindergarten gent to keep trying, and when I was done tracing my page we'd trade.

Look at that face.

I'd wondered from the beginning if the project might be a little much for his emerging fine motor skills, anyway, and so it was. But then again, if we only give our children the things we are certain they can accomplish, they rarely face new challenges, don't get the opportunity to work through frustration, and they don't get to surprise us with abilities we'd never suspected.

It all worked out. Kindergarten gent was delighted by the black-and-white faces in Julie K's example, so he spent a good amount of time copying them with his own little twists. The youngest gent decided he wanted to get in on the fun too and happily drew little ghost faces on his brother's rejected artwork.



More on tessellations:

What is Tessellation?
Tessellation Tutorials
(Both from mathforum.org)

Tessellations with Technology include a 30-second video on tessellations, definitions and elementary lesson plans

Tantalizing Tessellations, a series of ten upper elementary lessons on tessellations

Politics

"Who are you voting for?"

Seven-year-old gent asked this of a little boy on the playground. The little boy was threeish. The dad replied that the little boy would vote for Barack Obama, if he knew who he was. "Oh, yeah. I know who that is," replied my fine young gent. "I might vote for him too." Very earnest. He takes his politics seriously.

Later we drove by a yard full of political signs. "Mom, I'm voting for Jim Torrey for mayor."

"Why?" I asked.

"I dunno."

I asked if it was because of all of the signs. "Well, maybe."

I pointed out that a person with a lot of signs might just be the person with the most money, or the person that everyone else was voting for. Are those good reasons to choose someone to be mayor?

"Well, Mom, I really want to vote for him because he was a good mayor last time, and he's a stronger leader. I want to have a strong leader."

Oh.

Sounds like someone has been listening at the dinner table after all. I thought he was just drawing designs in the sauce on his plate and trying to golf the peas in his soup. Not only that, but he drew his own conclusions from a discussion about the merits of each candidate. Heck, I'd far rather, any day, that he make his own decisions based on information he's gathered than let me tell him how to vote anyway.

He was a little disappointed to learn that he has to wait another 11 years to exercise his civic duty. I did let him drop my ballot into the drop box today, though, which was almost as good even if I didn't vote for his choice of mayoral candidate.

Hmmm. Maybe I should start dinner table debates over the relative merits of keeping one's floor picked up versus always remembering to make one's bed without being reminded.

Think!: Apples

This week's Think! challenge, Apples Again: Sculpt an apple into a person, place or thing using only your teeth and four toothpicks. (Though you may notice in the photo above that some of the gents used far more than four toothpicks. Apparently poking toothpicks into apples is quite entertaining. Who knew?)


Kindergarten gent carved a star into his apple.


Second-grade gent made a snowman.



This guy happily poked lots of toothpicks into his apple and called it a thing. A "sing." Darn, he's cute. What kind of thing? "I don't know. Just a sing." It's not so much what he says as the way he says it. He's just a little hoot.

I played too:

The fun didn't stop there. We've still got a huge bowl of apples in the kitchen and even more in the garage.

This fine young gent made a guy smiling. What's that on his head? Hair. One hair because he ran out of toothpicks.
Second-grade gent's second creation:

Another guy smiling? Nope, this is an alien. Now kindergarten gent's smiling guy is really an alien too because he likes that idea better.

We ended up with a snowman, two aliens (or an alien and a smiling guy with one hair), a cat, a bitten star, a carved star, a toothpick star, and two "sings". And, eventually, a giant bowl of apples slices on the table for a snack. Not bad for a morning's work.