I am sorry for the long absence.  As you all know, life just gets busy sometimes.  We have not done a ton of structured activities in the classroom lately.  We did get up to the letter S in the Veritas curriculum.  Both boys now know all of the letters and their sounds, so doing the work doesn't seem to be as much fun as it once did.  Since we are way ahead of schedule, I have decided to back off a bit for now. 

     We did get some books at the library to explore.  Randy has not developed a taste for any particular type of book as of yet, so I picked out three to try.  They are... "Bridge to Terebithia," "Little House in the Big Woods," and, "The Box Car Children."  My hopes were that he would fall in love with at least one of these, but he has actually got me reading to him from all three!  Being an avid reader myself I find great joy in this.  It will be interesting to see how long it takes for us to get through them.

     Another thing we have been doing lately, mainly to fight the winter blues and cabin fever, is going to the museum.  Our museum has a wonderful children's museum as well.  We can spend hours there at our visits and the boys never seem to get bored!  I have gone ahead and purchased a membership.  I am certain that the museum will prove to be a big part of our learning journey.

     I wish I had more to write about at the moment.  I am sure that if I had more time to sit here and write that I could indeed come up with more.  Hopefully the upcoming weeks will prove to be less busy and that will be the case later.  Thank you for not giving up on me!

I will let the pictures speak for themselves...

     This past Friday night little Randy and I had the opportunity to visit a highschool basketball game.  During half time, my seven year old nephew got to play a short game on the "big" court. 

     While sitting in the bleachers, little Randy got to meet a fellow alum that I grew up going to school with.  This poor fellow always seemed to have a rough time growing up, and I never learned of the true cause.  Anyway, the unfortunate first thing anyone could notice about this nice man was that he had very rotten teeth!

     The next day, little Randy asked me about the man and why his teeth were so rotten.  I decided to use it to my advantage and I explained to Randy that it would happen if a person failed to take care of their teeth, including brushing on a regular basis.

     Last night, as I was just getting home from a book club meeting, I heard little Randy upstairs with his dad talking about something tooth related.  I went up to tell him goodnight, and he started bombarding me with more questions about poor Tony.  Our dialogue is as follows:

Randy: "I told dad about your friend Tony."

Me: "Oh yeah?  What did you tell him?"

Randy: "That he has rotten teeth.  I almost went to bed without brushing my teeth, but I  told dad about Tony and he said okay."

Me: "So, you are still thinking about Tony?"

Randy: "Yeah, why doesn't he brush his teeth?"

Me: "Well, like I told you before, maybe his parents didn't teach him to brush when he was a kid."

Randy: "The next time I see him I am going to teach him about brushing.  Maybe you could buy him a tooth brush and tell him how to use it."

Me: "Well, that is very thoughtful of you.  But, it might not be polite to tell him about how rotten his teeth are.  It might hurt his feelings."

Randy:  "Maybe we could just tell him about going to the dentist then."

Me: "Not everyone has enough money to go to the dentist."

Randy: "Well, you and dad do!  You should give him some of your money to go to the dentist."

     Luckily this is when my dear husband walked in......  I filled him in on what we were talking about and he said...

dad: "Why don't we just pray for Tony?  Would that make you feel better?"

Randy: "Okay."

so we said a prayer for Tony.

Me: "Does that make you feel better Randy?"

Randy: "Not quite.  I think we need to pray every night."

Me and dad: "Okay!"

     Yesterday while driving in our van, Randy and I drove past a local park and saw a display of little white crosses with the American flag on top.  There is a large army helicopter at this park that stands as a memorial for all of the war veterns.  I guess because of Vetern's day, this display was put together.  It was quite a sight to see.

     Randy asked me why all of those crosses were in the grass.  I tried to keep in simple, and I told him that there were there to represent soldiers that died while fighting for the freedom of our country.  Of course, each of my answers led to more questions.  He wanted to know why soldiers had to fight for our freedom.  I told him that there were other people in the world who didn't like the things we believe in, therefore choose to fight us sometimes.  

     Randy got very quiet at this time.  I would love to know what he was thinking about at that moment.  I am sure that he will surprise me out of the blue one day with more questions when something else reminds him of it.

     I have been reading a lot about history (ancient and modern), therefore it has been on my mind more than usual.  I know there are story books out there for his level of understanding that could get us started.  Does anyone have any advice?  (Remember, he isn't quite five yet.)

     The Mantis has perished.  No, he didn't live very long in our house.  It was our first "pet," so I don't know if we did something wrong or if this is normal.  We were sad to no longer have our cute little friend (yes, I got over the feasting on live crickets...yuck!).  But, alas!  The very next day we happened upon a cute spider walking around in our family room!

     Normally we would squash these eight-legged creatures and flush them down the commode.  But, as interesting as it is, this time I had a change of heart!  My first thought was to get the terrarium and scoop him up so we could have him for observation.  (I know, everything is a he....  I think it is because all we have here are boys.)  This learning at home business has really started to change my perspective on things...lol!

     Anyway, we think it is a nursery spider.   He has made some sort of webbing in the terrarium.  We have not witnessed him doing a capture yet.  We hope to see that today!

     Oh, I almost forgot to add this little tidbit that I found as a cute coincidence.  Each weekend, we have movie night.  And it just happened that our movie for this weekend was "Charlotte's Web!"  As you can imagine, our spider is now named Charlotte.

     Do you ever do something and then ask yourself why?  Well, on this one I need some reinforcement that I did a good thing; in the name of learning.

     The other day while I was sitting with Randy watching him work on his "Get Ready For The Code," I spotted a Praying Mantis outside on the picnic table.  I immediately jumped out the door and made the capture.  My intentions were to bring it in and let him take a look (all the other kids were sleeping) and then, of course, LET IT GO!

     I am sure you can see where this is going.  Yep, he got attached to the silly thing.  Right away he named it Alex Ander (no, not Alexander.....don't ask?!), and cried when I said Alex Ander had to go.  I felt bad, so I got online to find information about the Praying Mantis to see if it could indeed be kept as a pet.  I learned that they are carnivores.  They only eat other insects, but what is worse is that they prefer them alive!!!!  UGGH!!  What have I gotten myself into?

     So, I made little Randy a deal.  I told him that if his daddy would go to the pet store and buy a terrarium and agree to do the hunting for the food, well, then Alex Ander could stay.

     At first I thought this little creature was cute, but after my first witness of "dinner" I think I might get sick.  I don't think I will ever look at the Praying Mantis the same way again!