Walking hummingbirds are nuts ;-)

We do a phonics lesson everyday and we use these letters from a leapfrog game. Having these helps a lot. He now knows without counting (although sometimes he likes to count) that there are 26 letters in the alphabet, that the red letters are vowels, and there are 5 of them, and the blue letters are consonants. We have a number of words he can read, although he forgets most of them and has to sound them out. He knows LOG really well (but that was his first word he learned.) I wonder if I'm starting phonics too early, but he knows all his letters and the sounds that they make, so I am telling myself it's the natural progression to start. If we need to, we'll go over it again next year since I'm starting a year early anyways. As time goes on, he will sound out a word without me prompting him (sometimes). We have started to decipher what consonants are in a blending sound (like B & L in blend). We have gone over the letters L, O, G, P, T, H & A. We got A last week, so now we have a lot more words we can make out of the letters we have.



Here is a close up picture of the leaves of the nut tree I am having a hard time identifying.













We had a hummingbird in our house. Chris had the 2 doors open in the living room and it flew in. A hummingbird gets in our garage every so often. In the last 2 months, I think there have been 3 - which is high. They always go to the ceiling and can't figure out how to get down. We have a butterfly net I got at the Dollar Tree and Chris caught the bird with that and let it go.




WALKING STICKS - OH MY! Peyton had a walking stick on his window one day last week. We observed it for quite some time, and I googled up some information about it to let him learn a little about what they eat (and I wanted to know if they would bite). I actually would have liked to keep the walking stick, but it said you need something 2 1/2 times taller than the bug, and I couldn't think of anything that tall to keep it in. I guess they shed, and females can reproduce without a male counterpart. They like to eat bramble, ivy, privet and lettuce - and you need to spray it with a little water - as that is how they like to eat it. They don't take much care. And they move their legs a little to make it look like they are moving in the wind like a real limb. Amazingly, there wre 3 dead walking sticks on our front porch (they walked past the spray - unfortunately). I haven't seen a walking stick in over a year, and found 4 in one day. I thought that was interesting.

Little Trees

When I mowed I would always run over these - which I thought were weeds. Then one day I looked at them and thought that maybe they were trees, but still 'trimmed them' - now I KNOW these are all trees...but they are Sweetgum trees, which produce these little round balls with spokes on them - not fun to step on. I don't mind having trees in this part of the yard since nothing will grow there - but I would prefer anything but a sweetgum tree. There are a lot of sweetgum trees in our yard.
Here is the start of a pine tree. I tell Chris he should dig up some of these trees and plant them in the front yard. He has told me that the trees are connected to a big root system and if he digs it up, it may not survive. I cannot verify this as I do not know how transplanting trees works - but I do know we have a pine tree in front of a window that we moved and it has survived - Chris says that one was all by its lonesome.








I know it's hard to see in this picture, but this was an ant hill - you can see by the little holes in some of the dirt. We 'died' the ant hill (as Peyton would say) and when they left, we went back to look at it so Peyton could see some of the tunnels and inside of an ant hill.










I have been trying to figure out what tree this is, but without seeing the fruit of the tree, I am having a hard time identifying it. I do know it's a nut tree of some sort - hickory, beech - I just do not know the exact one. There are between 5-9 leaves on each little stem, opposite each other.

I know the homeschool journey is about Peyton, but I need to learn what is around us so I can teach him. I'm so proud that he can identify a few trees by looking at the leaves. He asks me quite often when walking on campus 'What's that tree, mom?' - right now I don't know since I'm just learning, but one day I hope he can ask that and I can give the right answer. ;-)

Dogwood's & Sugar Maple's

(This is a picture of a Sugar Maple tree)

Today Peyton & I were looking at all the trees along our back yard. The majority of them are Sweetgum trees & Sugar Maple trees. There are a lot of Sweetgum trees sprouting up all over the place. Especially in our dirt area where nothing grows...we mow over them every time we mow. I always thought they were probably trees that were sprouting, and they definitely are. If we want trees somewhere else in our yard, we have plenty that are small enough to uproot and place somewhere else.

Today I identified a Sugar Maple (Acer saccarum) & a Dogwood (Cornus florida) tree. I had to come in and do a search online for the Dogwood tree, although it is in my field guide book.

After seeing enough sugar maples & sweetgum trees, Peyton even identified them. ;-)

After we came in, I cut a hole in a paper plate and Peyton made a wreath out of some of the leaves and yellow flowers we collected outside. I got a war wound from it as a 'lovely' fire ant was on a leaf when I got it out of the bag. We did disturb another ant pile today...Peyton drew a mad ant (because they are mad we disturbed them). HA!

We went over the letter "H" again. Peyton read the word HOG today, although he had issues with it - I think he was just 'done' by the time I asked him to read the word. He can read NO & LOG really well...and of course his name.

Peyton is very excited to turn 5. He asks everyday how many days until he is 5 and says he will so be 5, then 6, then 7, then 8. I asked him today if he would change Ashley's dirty diaper for me...he said
"Nooooo, I'm too little for that."
I said "Well, I thought you were a big boy"
P: I am a big boy. I'm just not big enough to change her diaper. That's silly.
V: Well how old do you have to be to be big enough?
P: 16 I guess.
V: Oh, good, then that means Alex can change her diaper then since he's 17. ;-)

We are on page 166 of Tom Sawyer. I really don't know if listens or not...but he likes me to read it to him...and at some point he usually says "That's enough mom. I'm done. " Meaning, we don't need to read anymore today. ;-)

States: We have gone over identifying states on the map. He knows:
California
Oregon
Washington
Idaho
Utah
Nevada
Arizona (sometimes misses this)
Ohio
New York
Florida
Texas
Louisiana

I will post a picture of his art project (as well as other pictures) when it dries...he used a lot of glue on it, so it may take a few hours...;-)

Southern Red Oak

9/25/2008
We have to go on campus twice a week for Ryne's speech. His speech is for 2 hours each day...I watch him in his class for a little bit and then we go for a walk around campus and I do some of his lessons there. Here Peyton is on the patio area outside the Union/Student Center at SFA doing some math. He can now count to 100 by 10's perfectly...and 100 by 1's - he can only do that if he counts the rollover 10 number by 10's...like if he is at 39, he has to go 10, 20, 30, 40...then he goes to 41, 42, etc. He knows 89 to 90 and 99 to 100 - and 29, 30...but gets stumped at 40. He does some addition and subtraction on it. I do subtraction by 'take away', and he does it no problem.

I got a magnifying glass for Peyton so he could observe things up closer and with a better view. This has come in handy looking at things we observe outside on our daily walks. Here Peyton is observing a yellow flower we came across









This is a picture of the roots of a tree that fell down...Peyton wanted to go look at it today. I didn't see any bugs to observe under there. Ryne goes on our walks with us sometimes...but I do try to do the walk when the 2 young ones are sleeping sometimes. It's easier if he wants to go 'into' the woods. Catdog followed us again today...







I figured out another leaf...it's a Souther Red Oak. It's right by our sand pile. The leaves on the tree did have a few different shapes. So now I'm up to knowing 4 trees in our yard...;-)

And for phonics...Peyton is on his 4th letter. He has done O, L, G & is now on H. He can read the word LOG & HOG - he also knows "NO" on his own. He wrote the word on the dry erase board yesterday and I asked him what that was and he said "NO, N-O, NO" So he can read "No LOG". We also got him to read "DOG & FROG". Peyton actually really likes phonics...and he says he likes doing lessons. So I'm thankful for that. We are still reading Tom Sawyer. We are more than 1/2 way done. We switch between a few other learning science books "Sun Up, Sun Down", "All About Ants" and a butterfly book. Spanish...I need to find a way to get him excited about it. He did a little today since I used a more exciting voice, but he gives me this glazed over look when we start Spanish...he really likes learning new signs for sign language though. He knows his alphabet, 1-10 and probably 20 other words right now. I'm so proud.

Can you see a bird in here? I drew a few of them to help him because he wanted to draw something he HEARD today...which was a bird. He drew the bird after he doodled a few numbers and letters...his #7 is backwards and 9 isn't right...but he was running out of room. ;-)

Gecko's & the catdog...

9/24/2008
I finally got a picture of a Gecko. It's not really a gecko. I have to find out the real name of it, but we call them gecko's. We normally find them by the rain gutters, and sometimes the aloe plant. They are fast little things, so sometimes it's hard to catch them on camera. I'd like to catch one and observe it for a while. I have to get over my wussyness and catch one and let Peyton handle it. I need to have a jar ready for the next time.




Peyton by another good climbing tree. He played around on this for a while. We saw some ants carrying eggs. No nest around, but something must have disturbed their nest for them to be carrying the eggs. Maybe it got stepped on by a deer or something. We also observed a daddy long leg and a spider web (not related to the daddy long leg) and I showed him what a vine was.






So Katie likes to come with us on our walks. She somehow figures out when we are walking or doing something, and she always comes around us. She walked 1/2 way up our street the other day when we went for a family walk...so we now call her "Catdog" or "Kittydog"...since she follows us around like a dog would. The boys were throwing leaves on her...she takes quite a bit of abuse.





Peyton's drawing....the circle in a circle things are VINES...he has a spider on there...and the scribble in a circle is a spider web...but we destroyed it (or I did)...I was showing them how a spider web was strong. They threw some leaves on it, and I told them the only way to destroy a spider web is to manually do it - so I did it with a stick.

Then he drew an ant - on the bottom right - carrying an egg...and the constant "W" on the top/right is the action of the ants being mad because I died a few of them (killed) with a stick I had...I can't help myself there. I hate fire ants...he also drew a few leaves - kind of looks like an OAK leaf that I was holding trying to figure out what it was.

Cedar Elm

9/22/2008
I identified another tree in our yard. The identification book I have is not the easiest thing to use, but I was happy to figure out another tree. This is a Cedar Elm tree. It is apparently one of the more common trees in East Texas. I was able to better identify it by the way the bark on the stems look.

























Peyton likes to climb this tree when we go outside. It's our Wing Rib Sumac tree. One of 3 trees I can identify. This is one of the few trees that he can climb. Most don't have limbs low to the ground.























We disturbed this ant hill last week to watch all the ants run off with the eggs. We disturbed it again today and all the eggs are gone. Peyton was asking me where they went. I told him we disturbed them last week so they have found a new home for them...or they are in chambers deeper in the ground. Disturbing the ants is kind of fun...I just wish they didn't bite!

Last week's drawing & doodling

9/17/2008
We saw a few baby gecko's last week. They were so cute. I went to get the camera to take a picture, but are quick little things and I couldn't find it when I got back outside. We have seen them on our aloe plant a few times...there are a few spider webs on our aloe plants...and I know they like to eat spiders.

Phonics - I was having Peyton draw a line from an uppercase "O" to a lowercase "o". Then I had him write numbers from 1-9, he messed up "5", so I had him practice writing the #5 on the worksheet below.

9/18/2008

We were without power for the weekend, and we got our DSL internet back on Thursday, so I'm behind already on posting...

We went in the yard and found more trees down. We inspected the roots and other things by the trees. Peyton drew a tree down in his picture - it's on the bottom left. He drew another train track...he likes to draw them for some reason. Then I have a worksheet I printed up for him to practice writing his 9's. He drew a few backwards, but he said he was drawing "P"s. They are good P's. Then I have a few sheets of him writing his name. He's doing really well writing his name.

Now that he can write his name, I have started phonics. He's ready for it - he really knows all the sounds the letters make, but I'll go by what the curriculum does. We did "L" & "O" last week. I went through 2 weeks of lessons in 1 week. I showed my friend Heather the Phonics curriculum I got from the library...and she said her daughter is bringing home the EXACT same worksheets. I thought that was interesting. We worked on writing 5's this week too. I think he can write all the numbers now.

Peyton can count to 100 by 10's (10, 20, 30, 40...) perfectly. We are still working on counting to 100 by 1's. He can do it, but when he get's to the 9 number that rolls to the next 10, he gets confused...so I make him do the 10, 20, 30 thing and then he gets it. Soon he will have it.

We got some books about ants and butterflies and have been reading them. Peyton has been interested in the ants since he saw the ants eat the cricket. We went out to the yard and disturbed a few ant piles - I wanted to show him how when you disturb them, they run for the eggs to take them off and protect them. Today (Monday 9/22) when we went to some of those same ant piles, we disturbed them again, and the eggs weren't there...a few ants were, but all the eggs were gone. He asked where they went, and I of course, don't know that. But it's fun seeing the ants go crazy...I just wish they didn't bite. I did get one bite out of disturbing them-I was using a stick and one crawled on the stick and got me.

In the one ant book, Peyton was very concerned about the carpenter ants eating the wood in a house. He was concerned that they would come eat our house. So when we get that ant book out, he turns to that page and asks lots of questions.

Itsy Bitsy Spider

9/12/2008

Today we had to clean up all the toys from outside so when the hurricane comes, it doesn't slam them against the house. So we picked up all the toys in the sand pile and rinsed them off and put them in the garage. While doing this, we saw a little hole in the sand and a spider was hiding in there...I tried to get it to come out, but I just caved it in.

I showed Peyton a spider web on our Aloe plant that we have and was explaining how spider webs work and how they are very strong. He wanted to draw the spider web on the plant, and had me draw it, but he didn't draw one himself. He drew 2 spiders...one is happy, and one is sad (he erased the sad one...he said he didn't like it because "I just like happy spiders". He gave them 8 legs, so I'm pretty impressed. He drew a couple of leaves and a tree with a lot of limbs...although I thought it was a bug we saw on the handle of a spade...but here is that bug below. I don't know what it was. It was some type of centipede, caterpillary type of thing. It was reddish, small, looked like it would bite. Had antennae's and the tail was upright in the back. So he drew antennae's on both ends...I thought one end was the tail, but he gave them both faces. ;-) Either way, it's a pretty good rendition of the bug.

Here is our aloe plant with the spider web. If I was brave, I would tear it apart in the thick looking area so he could see some cocooned bugs. I found the spider, and it looked icky (yellowish, big body - I killed it - I didn't want to because I knew it would be mushy mush - it was). I killed it because who knows if it's poisonous. If I knew it wasn't, I'd have left it alone. I showed Peyton the aloe plant and how it works. He was kind of grossed out that it was icky-gooey. He told me I had to go wash it off. Oldest child trait.

Peyton kept on drawing, which is fine, but this sketch book is really for one drawing a day, and if he wants to sketch more, I have another book for that.

The top drawing is the window - he was looking at the window and started drawing it. So first it was a window, then he drew the triangle on top of it and said it was a sailboat, then it was a window climbing sailboat, and lastly it was a Basket sailboat. ;-)

The bottom 2 drawings are a turtle...the head is at the left, the big triangle is the tail - he said he didn't have enough room for the feet. The other drawing is a rocket - it has 2 windows.
This is a blob in a frame...

We read a chapter and a half in Tom Sawyer. We are up to page 70. He likes listening to me read it. I read that you should read books above their age as it helps with imagination and helps to expand their vocabulary - and the more you read to them, the easier it will be for them to learn to read themselves. Peyton asked me what a giggle was when I came across the word. Other than that, I wonder if he's really listening. He probably likes the silly voices I do.

We did some math on the abacus. I tried a few subtraction problems on it. I must say that learning to do math on an abacus is easier than without it. He did good with his addition and subtraction. He wasn't concentrating on counting to 100, and since he was messing up so much, I went onto something else. I meant to get back to it, but we spent our 15 minutes on math.

I went over some sign language with him and then read "Things you see in the sky" and we had a lot of conversation about the weather and things you see in the sky. He was very interested in the tornado. Peyton keeps asking me where this storm is that I keep talking about - "when is the storm going to come, mom?" It should be here by tomorrow. Everything is cancelled here. Chris got out of work early today, and evacuee's are in the town. I didn't venture out today, so I don't know what it looks like out there.

Peyton's drawings

(Click on picture to see it bigger to read the detail)
Everyday we go for a walk for about 30 minutes and see what we can discover outside. On Tuesday's & Thursday's, we are on campus because Ryne has speech therapy. So we take treasures from campus and then he comes home and draws something he sees. Today he saw a bunch of dead (fallen) leaves from some trees and an acorn. So he drew those.

Then we got home, and when we got home there was a baby gecko on our door. When I opened the door, the gecko jumped off the door and hit Peyton and ran off. We watched him for a minute before disturbing him. He was mighty cute. I wish I had the camera and a jar to catch him.

So Peyton drew the Gecko (next to the Octopus...no we didn't see an octopus)...and then he drew a tree for all the Gecko's friends, and the Gecko's home is in the hole in the grass on the bottom of the page....or as Peyton said "This is the gecko's new home with grass in a hole." Peyton said the Gecko ran off quick to his new home - in a smaller tree...then changed it to "the grass is his home and the tree is his friends home. He has lots of friends."

9/10/2008

Yesterday we found a feather on the ground...I showed Peyton how to trace it...he tried, but his didn't come out too well, but he tried. He drew these little fruit things we saw on the ground - I'm not sure what it is, I have to figure that out. It was red with cream on it and kind of marbly. He did draw the feather before tracing it, he drew a leaf, and the stick he found as a treasure on campus from the day before.

I have bought a book from a local author that the college uses to identify trees. I want to find out what trees we have in our yard and teach Peyton how to identify them. I have identified 2 trees so far, a Sweet Gum tree and a Winged Sumac tree (Rhus copallina). I will be making a nature book and keeping the leaves of the trees we identify so he can look at them and see the difference and learn to identify them easier by looking at them a lot.


Rhus copallina - Winged Sumac (photo taken from VT.edu site).

We read about 3 chapters from Tom Sawyer - he actually liked it and brought the book to me to read some more. I had him listen to some classical music while he looked at some books, we read the 'Sun Up, Sun Down' book again for the 3rd or 4th day in the row. He keeps asking why the sun has black spots and about it bubbling and having explosions, so I found some videos online on the NASA website and had him watch the informative videos about sun spots and the explosions on the sun. He watched them a few times.

I bought an abacus and we do some math problems on it everyday, and count to 100. He counted to 39 perfectly using it...then he said '39, 30' - so I have to help him with the 40, 50, 60, etc, and then he counts fine after I give him the '10' number. He did know 99, 100.

I have been teaching him sign language as well. He has the alphabet down almost perfectly. He needs to master maybe 2 letters and he has got it. Then we will work on other words...although we did some last night from a book I bought at the book store.

We do a little Spanish too. I have been teaching him

Head/Cabeza
Lips/Labia or Labios
Chin/Menton
Ear/Oreja
Eye/Ojo
Eyebrow/Seja
Hair/Pelo
Nose/Nariz

I will keep using these words until he masters it. I do use some phrases with him everday, and he has come to understand them and sometimes repeats them. He does get a little restless with Spanish, but likes all the other stuff so far.

9/8/2008 - We picked some yellow flowers in our back yard, came in and put them in a cup and have them on the table. So Peyton drew his flower after I drew one. Then I had him write his name. I saw his S was written wrong, so I printed out a sheet to have him trace some and then write some more, and he did it a lot better after that. The big thing in the middle is a leaf...we see a lot of them ;-) He had me draw an arrow on where to place each letter of his name...he was spacing them too far away.













Peyton's worksheet of tracing "S" and writing some of his own.

Peyton with his flower's (a few days after) - he put the 'vase' in front of his face like this on purpose...

9/5/2008

Peyton drew an ant hill...then made it hang like an ornament (he drew it without the hanger first, but then had to make the bee hive hang, so he made the ant hill hang).

Then he drew a "stick that I found", a leaf, an ant, an ant swimming pool and a cricket (well the cricket was drawn by me). When we were coming back from our walk, we saw some ants eating and carrying off a cricket. We watched it for about 20 minutes. On Monday he wanted to watch it again, but that was chance seeing that...since we try to prevent ants from coming around. We saw it in the driveway.








9/4/2008...Peyton drew a "mountain I just saw" (in the cloud book that we have been reading)...and a train track "I just saw"...that he had made. ;-)