LaPaz Home Learning

Superboy has been slowing down a bit on the notebooking of late because he is focusing in on his experiments, his boater safety certification course, his writing, and his first Karate tournament coming up this weekend. But he did produce this nice page this week.

I really like the looks of it, as it is a bit different than the rest.

Superboy wrote a paragraph about how the old explorers decided on their routes, and under that paragraph is a pocket containing cards he made with maps of many explorers routes (Magellan, Captain Cook, Columbus, etc) and info on where they came from, where they were headed, and why.  He always gets a kick out of “antiquing” the paper to get that old parchment look. I think it is kind of cool, too!

JBug and I are working on number recognition. I have to say it is slow going and a bit frustrating because it doesn’t seem to be “clicking” for her all that well. But we plug away in hopes that when the time is right, “her time”, all our practice will pay off. In the mean time we have fun with these vaguely familiar things called numbers.
Here is a simple “three part lesson” on number recognition we did yesterday:

1. Matching magnetic numbers on a white board: for this she simply had to match up the numbers in the basket with the numbers I placed in order on the white board.

2. Building a “stair” with snap cubes: I made rods of lengths 1-10 with snap cubes. JBug had to arrange them into a stair. It took her awhile at first because she had to count the blocks on each rod. After she built it once and we took it apart for re-building she noticed that from now on all she had to do was match up the next rod which was one block longer and building went MUCH faster!

3. Matching cubes with numbers:pretty self explanatory. She struggled with this a bit, so we will repeat soon.

And that is where we stand with numbers!

This morning as I was preparing breakfast for the children and myself, I was thinking about history and time.

I was frying some bacon, making buscuits, and stirring gravy and I thought about all those women in the past who fried bacon, made biscuits, stirred gravy. An endless procession of bacon-frying. An unbroken history. Ancient women, colonial women, pioneer women, women of the world war eras, 1950’s women, modern women. Cooking over open fires, coal or wood-burning stoves, gas ranges, electric skillets. Frying spattering bacon until it is just crisp, adding lard to flour and gently rolling out the dough, methodically stirring the gravy to remove the lumps.

And all their children. The children they loved and lovingly fed in hopes that they would grow to raise their own families and feed their own children and renew the cycle of frying, rolling, stirring,feeding, loving.

Naturally one thinks of famous women like Martha Washington or Laura Ingals making biscuits, frying bacon, their lives forever set in ink and locked in time, living on to this day as inspiration and example. But what of all those other women? The ones whose lives never made it into a book or movie of the week? Her name and deeds are long forgotten by even her own descendants- the children of those children of those children in whom long ago all her hopes and dreams were laid. Whom she fed lovingly. For whom she fried and rolled and stirred.

I’m sure, like mine,  her life seemed long at the time. Like the days of stirring and frying would go on and on with no end in sight. And even after that distant end her children, at least would still be around. But looking back now, with the perspective of History and hundreds of years gone by, her time on earth was so very short. Such a tiny slice of history. Such a crumb.

And so are the lives of us all. Crumbs, really. But precious crumbs made from the hopes and dreams of our mothers and their mothers before, who stirred and baked and served them up warm and loving. And History is, really, a trail of crumbs. Tiny lives that seem so insignificant, but each leads to the next, marking a trail through time.

Women have always gone about the business of life, caring for their loved ones in rather ancient ways. Frying bacon, kissing boo-boos, tucking blankets in a little bit closer under tiny chins. And loving. Always loving and hoping for the future. That our children will some day have families of their own, to love, to feed, to dream and to hope. Precious crumbs, all.

Much of our nature study the past few weeks has been centered around trees, and today was no different.

Because we happen to have a huge, beautiful Sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) tree in full view of our front porch reading spot, we began by reading a chapter titled “Sycamore” from Joan Maloof’s book, Teaching the Trees: Lessons from the Forest. In this chapter Maloof decribes (among other interesting things) the many tiny insects that live exclusively on Sycamore leaves. The one we found most fascinating was the Sycamore Lace Bug, which Maloof describes as tiny bugs with “armor made of hardened lace, with clear panels between the lace strands.”

So, naturally we set out to see if we could find one! We were not at all confident due to the lateness of the season and the itty-bittyness of the prey.

But, after much searching…

we did find one tiny bug that looked promising! So we took a closer look with our field microscope. Bingo! We got him!

But he kept moving out of view, so to examine him in detail we took him inside to look at under the dissecting scope. What a fascinating little bug!We could have watched him for hours!

Here is what he looks like:

Like any good nature study success, we followed it up with some nature journaling.

Jbug included a computer printout of the bug, traced it’s name, and then traced around and colored a Sycamore leaf.

Superboy also included the bug photo, plus a big Sycamore leaf that he had pressed a while ago (how convenient!).

Then to round out the morning’s study, we read the Bible passage (Luke 19) about Zaccheaus, who climbed…a Sycamore tree (!) to get a better look at Jesus. Superboy printed that up and added it to his page.

But, that’s not all the leafy fun! What could we do in the afternoon while JBug napped? A nature experiment, of course!

The anticipation of the changing of the leaf colors led us to doing a classic experiment involving seperating plant pigments:chromatography!

Superboy went out to collect some leaves for the experiment and learned a lesson about stinging caterpillars the hard way! He ran across this little bugger hiding under a chestnut leaf and got a nasty sting!

This is the aptly named “Saddleback caterpillar” (Sibine stimulea) and boy, does he give a nasty welt on a tender arm! But Superboy toughed it out and continued with his experiment undaunted.

Once the leaves were collected they needed to be chopped.

The hand method was taking too long, so Superboy decided to turbocharge the process and use my coffee grinder!

Much better results!

Next he added some acetone nail polish remover to extract the pigments. Stinky!

Then he prepared the “chromatography paper” from a coffee filter.

He used a bamboo skewer to “paint” a line of pigment across the bottom of the paper. This took quite awhile as you need to paint many layers to get enough pigment concentrated on the line.

He put the paper into a jar with a small amount of acetone in the bottom,

and watched it creep up the paper…

When the acetone reached the top, he took it out to dry.

Results? Well…you’ll just have to try it yourself and find out!

Well, that was our day learning about trees and a lot of leafy fun!

I don’t think so!

Just so folks won’t think all we ever do is work, work, work…

We also have alot of fun and share alot of love.

Happy Tuesday from the Lapaz Farm gang!

Dawn at By Sun and Candlelight is hosting the Early Autumn Edition of Field day on Sept. 27. Have your entries in by Sept 25! I know there are lots of you doing wonderful nature-study activities. Share the wealth and join in this field day! 

Today was one of those days.

One of those those days when you look out the window and your heart just melts and you can hardly catch your breath because the simple, utter beauty of your life hits you in the face and you realize that you are blessed beyond all measure. And you know how very lucky you are to have been given even one of those days.

I’ve been busy making some more materials for JBug. She has been very interested lately in caterpillars and frogs and how things grow. I had an idea to make a book with pictures of different life cycles, but I wanted it to be interactive. So I designed it with the life cycles on the left, and a work space on the right, where she can place matching life cycle cards I made for her. Hard to explain, but pictures may help.

Cover. No big deal here. You can’t really tell from the picture that the book is actually oversize (11X14).

Here is an example of the life cycle on left, with work space on right.

Here you can see another, with the matching index cards.

Here is the frog life cycle after the cards have been arranged properly.

The monarch butterfly cycle did not fit on one page comfortably, so I made extensions and these pages open up

To see the larger life cycle work space within.

So far in the book I have done life cycles for Ladybug, Ant, Monarch, Frog, Chicken, and Bean plant. There are several blank pages left to do more as we study different things. (for instance we will be reading Pagoo soon, so there may be a hermit crab cycle added then). I think the last page will be human.

JBug has been very interested in watching me make this book and has already worked with a few of the pages before I got the book together. She is eager to do the rest soon.

Anyway, it was a fun project to do. It took me about 2 weeks of working in spare moments to get it together, and I think JBug will get alot of use out of it. I already am thinking of another book called Cycles of the Earth and Sky (moon phases, seasons, water cycle, rock cycle, etc.).

For her birthday recently Jbug received a most beauiful gift.

But let me go back a bit.

Quite some time ago I had mentioned to my step-dad that I would love to have some wooden blocks for JBug. I said I would like them to be out of different kinds of natural wood, two blocks of each kind, so that she could do some sorting and matching activities. He said he thought he could manage that.

Well…he did more than manage! This is what Grandpa made JBug for her birthday!

This gorgeous hand-made mahogany and ebony jewelry box! But that’s not all…

Inside the box is the most beautiful set of blocks I have ever seen!

They are made of ten kinds of wood including exotics like yellow-heart, teak, and ebony as well as redwood, poplar, pine, cherry and oak and a couple I am not sure about but will have to find out. They are all natural (not stained) and absolutely lovely to hold.

Here they are out of the box:

The picture really does not do them justice! They are smooth and polished, with an amazing variety of not only color, but weight! The whole family finds themselves drawn to these blocks, just to feel and hold them, sort them by color, examine the different grains and smell their scents. Glorious! Thank you so much Grandpa Phil for a gift that JBug will treasure, I am sure, for many, many years!

Ya know, I realize we can do all the practical life activities with our everyday dishes, but where is the fun in that? I wanted to have special things set aside for the sole purpose of JBug’s Montessori activities, but without paying outrageous catalog or department store prices. So I decided to go to a few yard sales and thrift shops saturday and see what I could find that might be useful. I am very, very pleased with the results, all for under 10 bucks total.

A lovely stainless steel tray, cups for pouring, 2 sets of (sherbet?…ice cream?) dishes for sorting, a juicer, a stainless creamer pitcher and cup set, tongs, 2 white stoneware bowls, a lovely walnut bowl, and a jar full of wooden beads (free!). Just think of the possibilities!

And you should have seen the look in JBugs eyes when I told her all of these things were for her “school work.” She couldn’t wait to try them all out!

After much begging I decided to go ahead and set up one activity for her (despite it being saturday and not officially a “school day” LOL!) while I cleaned up the rest and found storage places for them.

I kid you not, transferring the “potion” from bowl to bowl occupied her happily for a good half hour. Not bad for a bowl full of colored water!

Today’s work:

JBug had the best time trying to spoon the beads and sort them into the 4 dishes! She showed remarkable determination as some of the shapes (the long ones) were not easy to spoon! And then she spooned them all back again!
You just gotta love that Maria Montessori. She sure knew what she was talking about.

And, by the way, I have added a new page to my blog in which I attempt to gather up all my Montessori-related stuff onto a single page, for those interested. It is called Some Montessori Activities and the direct link to it can be found on the top tabs or the sidebar.