Storytelling

Part of our bedtime ritual for the past year has involved some form of spontaneous storytelling. Currently, our stories of choice are "bad day stories", during which we make up a fantastical bad day - aliens, monsters, dinosaurs, natural disasters, and so on. Following is a transcription of one of the boy's recent bad day stories:

I woke up in the middle of the night and heard tiny little footsteps. I opened my eyes and I saw a tiny little monster. It looked like it had wings and it was black. And it looked like it had wings like a bird. And then when it came up to me, it was [sister]! She was dressed up in a costume of a monster in the middle of the night, and I said, "[sister], why are you awake in a costume of a bird monster, awake in the middle of the night?" And then I said, "[sister], go back to bed," and she stayed awake all night long and I keeped seeing her. And one time I saw a big blue monster and when it came close, it was actually [brother] in blue pajamas. And then I looked out and I saw some real monsters, and [sister and brother] keeped saying, "there's monsters out there!" and then I was scared so I counted one, two, three, and I went into the hallway and jumped on them and then they ran away into the front door and fell down. The end.

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Fine Arts: Drama
Language Arts: Speaking and Listening

Lego creations

Much of the boy's day is spent wrist-deep in Lego. Sometimes he recreates his various sets following the instructions, while the rest of the time he designs his own models.

Recent designs have included a family of ducks (parents and several babies), a giraffe, people, vehicles, a playground, and a Duplo vacuum. His first still life drawing attempt was based on one of his self-designed Lego vehicles.

Testing a "harbour" he designed to keep boats from being washed into the town by big waves.

A playground which he continued to add to over the next several days.

A beach house he built following the set's instructions.

Vacuuming the rug.

Drawn replica of his Lego vehicle.

He also enjoys playing a few rounds of Creationary whenever he can find willing participants, and loves to take many (many) pictures of his Lego creations.

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Mathematics: Shape and space
Fine Arts: Visual arts (creativity, artistic design)

Fun with accents

The subject of accents came up this weekend following an interesting discussion on world languages. The boy was interested in the idea that people could speak English in different ways (distinct pronunciations) and wanted to hear examples of this. YouTube was the ideal way to quickly explore a variety of regional accents, including Irish, Scottish, and Australian.

Since then, he can occasionally be overheard muttering phrases to himself in different accents as well as incorporating it into his play.

The British Library has an excellent resource for listening to UK-specific accents and dialects: Accents and Dialects of the UK.

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Social Studies: Characteristics of different environments

Dancing raisins

Okay, now this was just cool.

I've heard about the dancing raisins experiment many times and often wondered how well it really worked. Well, I can now heartily say, along with the boy, that it works really well!

We filled our glass containers with carbonated water, dropped a raisin in, and sat back to watch. Sure enough, the bubbles soon gathered around the raisin and carried it to the top of the water. Once there, the bubbles popped and the raisin sank back to the bottom until enough bubbles had once again clung to it to begin moving it upward again.

The kids asked great questions. "What if we put more in?" "Does it work with other things?" "What if we filled the glass with raisins?" "Will it keep doing it forever?" We discovered that it does indeed work with other things, including lentils, dried cranberries, and even beans! The beans were particularly interesting because, being smooth and heavier, it took longer for a sufficient amount of bubbles to collect on them and carry them to the top.

Who knew raisins and carbonated water could be so engaging?

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Science: Observation, description

Paper chromatography

We used coffee filters to do a basic chromatography experiment at a previous Science Club gathering, and the boy was so excited about it that he set up his own replica of the experiment at home. After colouring a picture with markers, he set it in a bowl of water and watched the ink separate as the water rose up the paper.

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Science: Observation

Grape construction

This week's Science Club adventure was a simple combination of grapes and toothpicks. The kids used them to create various shapes and objects, including pyramids, houses, tiaras, and even sea urchins!

Little brother snacks while big brother begins creating.

Making a grape-kabob fence.

His final creation!

Bonus? Instant snack time afterwards!

We will definitely repeat this activity with a more focused look at both two- and three-dimensional geometric shapes in the future.

(Thank you, Pinterest, for the inspiration!)

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Science: Observation
Mathematics: Shape and space

H_ngm_n

We went out to eat last week, a rare treat, and the boys were given magna doodles to play with while we waited for our food (thank you, child-friendly food establishment!). The boy wanted me to draw something, so I drew a pole, a few blank lines, and introduced him to the exciting game of hangman. It immediately became one of his favourite games, right up there with Uno and Lego Creationary.

Gotta love the classics!

His word was Fatburger. Don't judge. Their food is yummy.

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Language Arts: Reading, writing