Ghost Town and a Dry Creek Bed

 

"Sometimes her mom pretends she's sick and takes her to do fun stuff."
that was a little boy's explanation for why Mockingbird wasn't in school that day when his mother asked.  It's true, and was pretty much how we did Kindergarten.

This time it was joining Mr. Owl on a business trip to St. George, UT. The children and I ended up taking field trips of what once was.

Silver Reef ruins

 Silver Reef, a ghost town originally settled for mining, was a spot we visited twice. Once for the crumbling walls of by-gone homes, and again for the amazing personal museum tour that must have lasted well over an hour. The kids got to ring the actual mine bell, heft an iron iron, try out a hand drill and other contraptions pulled off the wall of tools. But the best was learning about the legendary  Charlie Parkhurst. He was the most colorful stagecoach driver of Wells Fargo, and his story got even better when he died and it was discovered he was a she.

Great stuff, we went home and our library kindly order a children's book for us about Charlie called Rough, Tough Charley. Written in unique, sparse verse this biography also has a map following Charlie's life and travels into the west.

Our hikes took us to Anasazi ruins and up a dry creek bed. The children had to help eachother up 5 foot dropoffs and around boulders and bushes, as I had a baby in a backpack. Besides, someone needed to take pictures.



Back down the creek bed

Anasazi food storage ruins

I wouldn't recommend this with an 8, 6, 3 year old, and 9 month old in the heat alone, with no reward but red rocks and more red rocks. But Mrs. Magpie hadn't been out in the wild in a very long time apparently. Fortunately children don't know any better, and humored my need to "just go and see what's around the next bend--I promise."

 

Handwriting Y3

What we have done for handwriting this year, that is transitioning from print to cursive is this:
For learning the letters we did something each day with one new letter

Monday--Draw new letter in the air with hand big. Trace the capital letter I've drawn on writing paper, and write some of her own.

Tuesday--Do the same thing with the lower-case letter.

Wednesday--Combine the letters with words using what letters have been learned so far.

Thursday--Do copywork of some exerpt from readings.

Once this is done for all 26 letters (26 weeks), I copied out several Children's songs (using words, not "song language") onto wide lined paper using 3 lines per capital, and skipping a line in between. Then I put them in clear plastic sleeves in her school binder, with notebook paper in between each.
Now she will trace them with a dry-erase marker (if needed) then copy on her own paper what she has just traced, maybe half a page a day. I know it is recommended to to exerpts from readings, but I found that it takes a lot of concentration to connect letters at first, and knowing what was coming up in short words is more doable--and as side benifit helps us hum our way through at least this bit of school work.

What does 'hostage' mean?

We are reading in This Country of Ours, albeit a bit controversial for some--but a book great for discussions on viewpoint.
This week it was Pocahontas being traded for a copper kettle then held hostage on a ship by colonists. I asked Bowery Bird, "do you know what 'hostage' means?"

A pause then she sits up off the couch, "Yeah, Princess Leia and Han Solo were held hostage by Darth Vader in the Cloud City until Luke came and rescued them from Jabba the Hut--"

"and C-3PO was shooting the Stormtroopers and saying "Die Jedis! Die!" and then "What am I saying?!-- Oh Pardon me." ( Kingfisher interjected, complete with facial expressions).

It went on from there as they relived a few more scenes.
"So I guess that's a Yes..." and I tried to reel them back into the 17th century.

The Path We're Set On

I have been thinking lately of my children's future, more specifically. There are so many options in homeschooling and how we use our time, that I want my children to be pulling to their strengths while strengthening their weaknesses. That's why I've chosen to give them a liberal arts education (meaning a little bit of everything). I don't want to tell them their career, or limit their options. But I can see some tendencies and I believe the Holy Ghost will allow me that as their mother.

So after a lot of thought, the best I can do is:

• Expose them to passionate people and what is possible. This can be done through books, speakers, field trips, and hopefully friends.
• Equip them with skills in areas where their interest and gifts lie. Starting with the basics of an area now that will give them the early freedom to explore and develop it if they choose.
• Eliminate distractions and the unnecesary so there is space for them to get to truly know themselves. Limit media and the trivial.
• Encourage them to do more of what work they find fulfillment in. Applaud & admire the effort not just the end product.

Thumbguard for the Thumb-sucker

Kingfisher was a thumb-sucker from the beginning. Give him his blanket and lay him down and he'd magically put himself to sleep until he was about 4 1/2 years. I LOVED his sleeping habits, but started to stress about the thumb-sucking dental damage.

I tried distraction, stealing the blanket, socks on the hand, etc. and it was getting me nowhere.

This is what worked for him to stop sucking his thumb:

We got a thumbguard

He only sucked his thumb when he had his blanket, which we allowed only at sleeping time. So we got a thumbguard about the time his naps started tapering off. It's not cheap, but less than a dental plate that insurance won't cover or extra orthodontics later. The company has excellent customer service and if you buy from them you can exchange thumbguards for different sizes--which we had to do. It didn't initially work  because he could still get suction. When we got the bigger size he said, "Hey this doesn't fit right-I can't suck my thumb!" (perfect-o). Sorry little guy, "Doctor's orders."
FYI, I've heard you can buy replacement bands at party stores.

We made a rewards chart for 30 nights of wearing it.

The grand reward; a Star Wars jet plane. But after less than a week with the proper fit Kingfisher decided he didn't need his blanket anymore (and it's been hidden ever since...). It just didn't hold the appeal without being able to suck his thumb.

It was a relatively smooth, non-invasive, no-fight transition and he soon stopped needing the thumbguard all together.

Now we do these speech exercises from Mommy Speech Therapy

As a result, Kingfisher has an interdental lisp. Using the downloads from this website we are practicing saying our "s" not "th". This is a great site for speech questions, I found it so helpful.

and hopefully that will be the end of our thumb-sucking story.