Our study of Washington state will, I believe, take us to the end of the year. I have not been posting weekly updates but we continue to explore what's around us. We have talked a little bit about Washington wildlife, had an impromptu science lesson on the beach, watched a parade of the species, planted some for our garden and learned a little bit about growing veggies in our climate, and read some in our library books!
Our impromptu lesson on the beach took place on one of our first sunny days of the season. We decided to take Jake to play because he was going to be left at home all day the next day. When we got to the beach there was only one other family there with their lab puppy. Their son was about Ronan's age so the boys all began to play together. Jake did his best to ignore the puppy in favor of his ball but the puppy had a blast bugging Jake! The father of the boys' new friend happened to be an oceanographer. So we spent the next hour or so turning rocks over to observe the life underneath (mostly baby crabs), and trying (without success) to dig up a gooey duck. Even after their new friend left the beach Jonas and Ronan continued to look for crabs, clams and gooey ducks.
The day after our beach lesson we all drove to Olympia for the Procession of the Species, a special earth day parade. In this parade people dress up like all different kinds of animals and show off their costumes. It was a fun day with Chelle, Ale and Kayleen! To represent Washington there were floats made to look like a huge salmon, and an orca surfing a wave as well as many others. There were even mythological creatures this year.
The boys continue to watch their tomato and sugar snap pea plants grow. Hopefully we will be able to plant them in the garden soon.
They continue with riding lessons (Jonas has begun trotting by himself!) and Jonas
continues with his violin as well! He has grown out of his first violin
already and we are in search of a 1/4 size for him. Cross your fingers
that I'm not outbid today!
As far as letters/numbers/reading/writing go the boys practice in their notebooks, Jonas does letter recognition in conjunction with his violin practice too (A-G) and we are starting to sound out words. Ronan recognizes many letters but gets just as many
wrong hehehe. He loves the letters in his name. They both love to practice their letters and reading on the Kindle Fire (educational games).
Our impromptu lesson on the beach took place on one of our first sunny days of the season. We decided to take Jake to play because he was going to be left at home all day the next day. When we got to the beach there was only one other family there with their lab puppy. Their son was about Ronan's age so the boys all began to play together. Jake did his best to ignore the puppy in favor of his ball but the puppy had a blast bugging Jake! The father of the boys' new friend happened to be an oceanographer. So we spent the next hour or so turning rocks over to observe the life underneath (mostly baby crabs), and trying (without success) to dig up a gooey duck. Even after their new friend left the beach Jonas and Ronan continued to look for crabs, clams and gooey ducks.
