The One that Was Another Casual Week

The king bird watching 

Here is our little daily journal from the past week of a few of the highlights of each day.

His most recent obsessions have been his tinker toys, his one hundred bead abacus, and, yet again, bird watching. He has also been working with Brandon with the new punching mitts a lot.

The day with the spray nozzle  4.2.10 - Friday

Had a little bit more of a "normal" day today. With just Mom and Hunter home after quite a long time of not-very-much school, they read some books, played the sliding game, and played Hunter's new favorite word game.

Hunter read quite a few board books today, including Where Does Maisy Live? and Where is Baby's Belly Button? Mom is humored at how much he has been reading all his old board books lately, and she thinks it may have to do with the fact that the short sentences and big words are quite easy to read (therefore giving him a significant sense of accomplishment), along with a sort of novelty effect - that is, he hasn't seen them in a while and so they're therefore "new".

While Mom and Hunter were in the kitchen, Hunter says, "Hey, I know what to do if there's ever a fire, a real one, a real one that's red." He grabs the spray nozzle from the sink, motions towards the flame that is flickering under the pot of water and says, "I'll just come over here, and take this, and spray! Whoosh! Whoosh!"

He is full of humorous little ideas.

The day with the egg hunt 4.3.10 - Saturday

Whole family spent the morning relaxing at home, while Hunter spent most of his time building some pretty cool cities and contraptions with his tinker toys, blocks, and Lincoln Logs.

Went to the store and bought some punching mitts, which were actually a lot more helpful and useful than Mom first expected. Brandon and Hunter used these to work on punches, kicks, elbows, and some other neat things for martial arts.

Went to friend's house for the afternoon and evening and had an egg hunt. Hunter was quite timid at first but eventually became a little more assertive and, in turn got a lot of eggs.

Had Easter dinner with friends, and Mom was reminded to be thankful that she has a food-adventurous, non-picky son.

The day that was Easter  4.4.10 - Sunday

Mom picks up Hunter and they find alligators, lips, rabbits, and other such creatures in the many thick, puffy cumulus clouds that scattered the sky today. Later on, it actually rained a little bit for the first time in weeks.

Mom and Hunter cut up a cantaloupe together and had a great deal of fun with fractions, first cutting the whole melon in half, then fourths, then eighths, then sixteenths, and finally cutting each slice into eighths as well. Mom sees that Hunter seems to do quite well with fractions and wonders why she ever found them so difficult in school.

Hunter tells Mom, "You guys eat my candy like it's your own or something!" with a smile and twitched eyebrow in his matter-of-fact manner. Whoops. Guilty as charged.

Hunter's piggy bank breaks over $20 today, after adding the quarters from the Easter egg hunt. Mom is reminded that she keeps planning to take Hunter to the bank and open his first account. Hopefully soon.

Family has a simple Seder dinner for Passover. It went well. More on that later.

The day with the dog  4.5.10 - Monday

Mom and Hunter went shopping and bought a new reading book. This was definitely a deal because these "early readers" are normally $3.99 a piece, but this one collection book with five stories was $7.99. Hunter read, Run, Remy, Run! (from Ratatouille) in the car.

Mom and Hunter spend a large part of the day playing with the dog and, also, moping. A bit of math and writing are done but other than that, this day was pretty slow and sad.

The dog had to find a new home because, for a short answer, military Child and Youth Programs childcare rules are very strict and as such, made for a not-so-happy life for this much beloved puppy. Mom and Hunter worked together to find a good home for her, and mutually decided on one that included a little boy and two other puppies to play with. But even after just six months with this puppy, it was hard.

The day with somersaults and algebra  4.6.10 - Tuesday

Mom has nightmares about the dog running away from its new home and getting hit by a car.

Hunter, randomly, while getting dressed, says, "Mom, I'm really gonna miss you when I'm gone."

"Why, where are you going?" she asks

"Not now. When I move out, when I grow up. Yeah, I'm gonna miss you."

Mom and Hunter do a little reading together, and work on counting in Spanish. While she makes lunch, Mom asked Hunter to do some somersaults, twenty five to be exact. Nine somersaults through, Hunter comes in and asks how many he has left, and we do a little fridge algebra (9+y=25, is it 11, 16, or 19) to find out. Six more in we break this down into 9+6+10=25.

Hunter is full of his usual questions which tend to lead into interesting scientific discussions. Some that I have remembered to write down over the past few days include, "Mom, how does the water turn on?" "Where do carrots come from?" and "How does the air move the ball?"

The day with the funny spelling 4.7.10 - Wednesday

Hunter decided he wanted to be a king today. He walked around all day with a paper crown from Burger King and a gray and blue foam sword. Mom never quite knows how he will dress himself for the day and he frequently surprises her with some very imaginative attire.

Hunter played more with his abacus, which he has been toying with all week. He tinkers with it quite often, recently counting on it "by twos", moving two beads at a time saying, "one-two, three-four, five-six" etc. He has known how to count by twos for a while, but this little version of "two counting" is new. Mom always wonders what little connections and permutations are going on in his head.

Hunter makes another note for Brandon, this time reading, "I lik to play wis Bradin and dreso wis Bradin" [translation: I like to play with Brandon and wrestle with Brandon]

He cracks Mom up because even though he can read so many words easily and by sight (such as like and with), he still spells words in the most humorously phonetic way. Dreso for wrestle? Perhaps this is why they say kids can be excellent readers and horrible spellers at the same time. Guess Mom needs to work on some ideas for spelling lessons!

Mom works on printing out her "legal" section for her homeschool planner, including the Department of Defense Education Activity Homeschooling Memorandum, the state's homeschooling laws from hslda.org, and, the last and not really necessary part, the California Content Standards (first grade standards). She realizes it is not truly needed but tends to do things in overkill sometimes.

Hunter thinks he hears "an owl" while he was doing some math, which was most likely some kind of dove. They never did see the bird but had a fun time listening to it and guessing what kind it was.

The day with T-ball practice  4.8.10 - Thursday

Hunter plays word game again, this time with -oy words, which he apparently dislikes due to their shortness in number. Mom realizes how competitive he is (self-competition, that is) when he became increasingly frustrated because he kept "losing", that is, not making words with the given cards.

Mom also realized how much he likes order because throughout the game, he kept making sure all the decks of cards were neatly stacked and the counters lined up. By the end of the deck of cards he had made the words toy, joy, boy, ploy, soy, Roy, and Troy, much less than the 20+ words he was getting with some other endings (such as -ack and -ing).

Hunter plays the sliding game and has been getting very creative with his placement of the units. He will, for example, instead of just lining up the tens and ones, make some interesting design out of them to form ninety three or whatever number he is supposed to make.

Hunter had his first T-ball practice. It was quite an amusing experience, and Mom's worries about him being "the youngest on the team" (the league is for five to seven year olds and he just turned five) were definitely over thought. He was shorter than a great many of the kids but did absolutely fine.

Mom also learned that Hunter doesn't know how to do jumping jacks. It looked remarkably similar to this. Yes, please laugh. It was very funny.

"And he hath filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship"

Exodus 35:31

Hunter is 5 years, 0 months old