Eclectic Mix

The day after our hike was Wednesday- aka Farmer's Market day in Salem. Lexi and I spent our morning there.

We looked at some pretty flowers, purchased some yummy veggies, eyed some homemade goodies, bought some caraway rye bread dough {it was SO good!}, smelled some scented goat's milk soaps, found a Lexi-sized bouquet of flowers, and listened to a street musician while drinking our freshly made berry lemonades and eating our gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches.

A pretty good morning, I'd say :)

The next day, the boys had their science fair at school. They chose to do an "underwater volcano" that demonstrated how hot water rises above cool water. They started with a large jar filled with cold water. Then, they added hot water and a little food coloring to a smaller jar. When they lowered the small jar into the larger one, the colored hot water poured out of the smaller one like a volcano and rose to the top of the larger jar. 

There were probably about 50-60 experiments in all, some of which gave me great ideas of things to do with the kids. 

Over the weekend, we had the Awesome 3000. For those of you who don't know, it's a HUGE deal here in the Salem, Oregon area. It is a race attended by over 3000 kids from preschool to high school seniors, with distances ranging from 300m-3000m, depending upon age. I ran it several years as a kid & this is our 3rd year taking our kids. This year, Lexi ran 300m, Rogue ran 1500m, and Eli ran 2000m. 

They all did great & had a lot of fun, as always.

Yesterday we FINALLY got around to finishing one of Lexi's acrylic pieces of art. We got out one of the canvases the we prepped with a textured base last week {btw, as the gesso paint dried, it flattened out quite a bit. I made a mental note to make the paint much thicker for texture bases in the future. Or perhaps I need a different medium? Anyway, it's something to look into...}. I decided to just let her go for it, with very little instruction. My only input was to cover the canvas and to be careful not to overdo it. She often makes wonderful drawings with a mixture of the abstract and literal, then after she shows it to me, proceeds to cover the whole thing in lines or polka dots. I got a little concerned when she broke out the polka dots in this painting, but luckily she was able to keep them from taking over the whole thing :)

She decided to add a few things she picked up on our hike last week, too.

The final product! She named it "Rosie".

Wow. That was a long one! Sorry. That's what happens in the spring time with a homeschooler, and 3 kids in baseball {which I'll be posting about soon}. It doesn't leave much opportunity for blogging. Well, at least not when we're finally getting some decent weather in Oregon, and we want to spend every spare moment enjoying the outdoors!

Take a Hike!

The only thing I really hate about the rain in Oregon, is that it keeps us from enjoying the outdoors as often as we'd like to. Of course, as a kid, the rain didn't phase me any, in fact I loved playing in the rain. As an adult, it's not nearly as much fun, especially since I have grown less tolerant of the cold over the years. Anyway, it seemed that the rain was going to hold off for a few hours yesterday morning, so Lexi and I spontaneously decided to scrap the art lesson for the day and head out for a hike. Since the weather was still a little bit questionable, we didn't want to stray to far, and opted for a hike at Silver Falls again. We were just there last week hiking the South Falls, so this time we opted for the Winter Falls trailhead. One of the nice things about going when it's not a gorgeous day, is the solitude. We were the only car in the parking lot. We actually did pass one couple on our hike, who must have been hiking the long Canyon Trail, but other than that, we were alone.

Here we are headed out the door:

When we arrived, we read the map to find out what direction to go and what Falls we'd see.

We ended up visiting Winter Falls,

Middle North Falls {one of my favorites},

and Drake Falls {which is pretty puny in comparison}.

I couldn't get a good angle on this one. Plus, I left the house with the wrong lens on my camera for taking good waterfall pictures. 

While on the hike, we mostly discussed the different plants we saw.

We also considered the different animals that might live in the area. When she mistakenly called a little stream a lake, we talked about the difference between ponds, lakes, streams, creek, rivers,....

Here, she is drawing a picture in the mud of a lake and a stream.

Check out these roots from an enormous tree that fell {and, of course I explained the different reasons a tree might fall or be cut down}.

{Oops- she's a little blurry in that one}

She was impressed that sometimes nature provides things like homes {caves}, tables, benches, and chairs all on its own.

This is a little sampling of the specimens she brought home to incorporate into her paintings today.

We finished off our trip with some hot chocolate at the lodge, where we watched a short video about the creation of Silver Falls Park {did you know it used to be a small logging town of about 200 people back in the late 1800's?}, and looked at some different plants and animals they had on display. 

Look how much she learned in a relatively short morning hike! This homeschooling business is easier than I thought it'd be! 

On the Homeschooling Bandwagon {well, there's probably no bandwagon, but I'm still on it anyway}

A few weeks ago, I decided to homeschool Lexi for the rest of her preschool year. I LOVE the preschool she attended {Secret Garden Preschool in Silverton}, and I highly recommend it. The reasons we left was strictly geographical and monetary.
{Insert then delete an unnecessarily detailed description here}
Once I made the decision, I then contemplated what kind of structure, if any, to provide. Should we wake up, get ready for the school day, sit down at the table and work on certain things for a certain amount of time each day? Should I created themes for each week or month? Or should I just scrap the whole idea of structure and just play? Should we go on hikes and talk about the plants and animals we see, go to the zoo and talk about the different countries they come from, or visit a museum and talk about art, then go home and recreate it?
Ultimately, I went for a "somewhat organized unstructured version". We've gone for hikes, bike rides, and walks; to museums, libraries, and farms; and worked on reading and art at home. She's an independent, inquisitive little girl, so she often directs the learning instead of me. It's been fun, and I think she's enjoying it.
In an attempt to get back on track with my blogging, I've decided to start posting about some of the things we do each day. Today was filled with some art and math....

We started by prepping some canvases for tomorrow's acrylic painting lesson. We used a mixture of gesso and acrylic texture builder to create a textured base for tomorrow's paintings. {On a side note, ALL of these art supplies, and more, were bought on sale at Craft Warehouse. The tub of Gesso was by far the most expensive item I bought. I think all of the tubes of acrylic paint, including the texture builder, were less than $1. Go get some!}

Then we laid them out to dry, so they'll be ready to paint tomorrow.

Next we worked with oil pastels. And talked a little bit about the color wheel.

First, I just had her pick some complimentary colors from the wheel, and just draw for a bit. Today she was interested in shapes; some literal, some abstract. Then we watched an online video that taught us both about using pastels and blending them, after which she focused on creating a little blended red flower on the corner of the page. We'll be working on full page oil pastel drawings next, as well as incorporating them into some of her abstract acrylic paintings. 

After a quick snack break,

we moved onto math. I searched a couple of stores for these, and finally found them at The Learning Palace in Salem. They even came with a handy-dandy booklet of ideas on how to put them to use.

We created simple patterns, then moved onto more complex ones. I made her guess what was next, then pulled ones out of the middle to figure out what was missing {she was a pro, btw}. Then we moved onto addition equations; adding two sets of blocks, or picking a number {4 is illustrated in the picture}, and finding the different ways it can be broken down {4+0, 2+2, 1+3, 1+2+1, 1+1+1+1}. Sticking out your tongue ALWAYS helps, in case you didn't know.

A pretty good day, I'd say. "The best day ever," according to Lex, although she gives that rating out pretty liberally :)