Well the first thing we were supposed to do today was go to a friend's house to have a Wii party, but they were sick, so we couldn't go. This was emotionally devastating to Lucy, so I offered to play Mario Kart with her, which I don't normally do because I don't really like it. Then she also raced by herself.
She spilled her cereal on the floor, so she got to practice using her little brush and dustpan.
She spent some time in the backyard. Not sure doing what, besides getting muddy.
We went to the library, and today was a special summer reading, eat ice cream, and watch Frozen party. Then at the end there was a lady giving out balloon sculptures (I mean, none of them were animals, so...), including Elsas. It was all super cool.
She watched Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood (one about sharing).
She decided she wanted to (finally) treat our USA magnets like a puzzle, so I put it together while she consulted an atlas and her placemat map. We figured out which ones were missing. I told her I had to learn all the capitals in school, so she asked me a bunch of them (which I mostly knew). She wanted to know what else I had to learn about them, so I sang her the song, which is why I know all the states in alphabetical order. (Although now that I'm sitting here thinking about it, I don't think she knows what "alphabetical" means, and she didn't ask.)
Then she wanted to borrow my calculator, and she wants one of her own. She asked Norman something about dividing? so he showed her 10 divided by 5 with some of her beads.
I read her a Doc McStuffins book before bed. (The problem with the toy is that she needed to be in the sunlight so her solar panel could charge.)
Unschooling myself and the 6-year-old
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Yesterday: Mario Kart. She spent like 20 minutes or half an hour just reading the Mario Kart manual.
Costco was one of our grocery shopping stops. In addition to sampling various convenience foods that I never buy, she noticed that Costco "looks like a warehouse" (which she learned about in that book we read about grocery stores a couple days ago). Then she wanted to know how they get stuff down from the high shelves, so I explained forklifts. With my entire body. That was fun.
Duplos for hours. Yeah, probably hours.
Before bed I read her a Cat in the Hat (knows a lot about that) book about camouflage in animals.
Today: VeggieTales, mostly the DVD extras, which included a maze game. She was then seized with the sudden need to build Duplo maze.
Spent some time on the computer watching Hour of Code videos and using the Sheppard Software site.
Had some sort of drama playing out with her dolls. (She was in a pretty grouchy mood all day.)
Mario Kart with Norman.
Letter writing practice on a new dry erase workbook.
Legos.
Oh, and she's been poring over this Sesame Street cookbook she has for like 3 days. She just reads and reads.
I read her a book about the postal service before bed. (And I just need to point out that the one and only review of this book at the link is pretty much the height of irony.)
Costco was one of our grocery shopping stops. In addition to sampling various convenience foods that I never buy, she noticed that Costco "looks like a warehouse" (which she learned about in that book we read about grocery stores a couple days ago). Then she wanted to know how they get stuff down from the high shelves, so I explained forklifts. With my entire body. That was fun.
Duplos for hours. Yeah, probably hours.
Before bed I read her a Cat in the Hat (knows a lot about that) book about camouflage in animals.
Today: VeggieTales, mostly the DVD extras, which included a maze game. She was then seized with the sudden need to build Duplo maze.
[That gray circle is a little guy at the starting line. I'm going to call him Lestrade because I can.]
Spent some time on the computer watching Hour of Code videos and using the Sheppard Software site.
Had some sort of drama playing out with her dolls. (She was in a pretty grouchy mood all day.)
Mario Kart with Norman.
Letter writing practice on a new dry erase workbook.
Legos.
Oh, and she's been poring over this Sesame Street cookbook she has for like 3 days. She just reads and reads.
I read her a book about the postal service before bed. (And I just need to point out that the one and only review of this book at the link is pretty much the height of irony.)
Sunday, July 27, 2014
Sunday, July 27, 2014
MARIO KART. Playing Mario Kart, by herself, or against Norman. Getting better at Mario Kart. Figuring out how to do things in Mario Kart. Reading the Mario Kart manual to herself.
Church. Children's chapel (essentially mini-Sunday School) covered where your treasure is, there shall your heart be also. This resulted in her drawing a map of where she was going to hide treasure when we got home and what kind of things we could use for treasure.
Dotty took her to the bookstore. Apparently she picked out some Sofia the First and Doc McStuffins books to sit and read to herself. On the back of one, she saw another book that she hadn't seen, so she asked a lady if she worked there, and she did, and Lucy "knew the title and was polite and waited patiently while the lady went to do other things with the promise that she would be back (and Lucy told someone else that she was waiting for the librarian to come back)." (This according to Dotty.)
She also at one point made a trail of stuff from the back door into the playroom. It was so if there are any house lizards that collect things, they would follow the trail of poker chips thinking they were buttons, and end up in the playroom. Apparently at a house lizard restaurant? (I feel like House Lizard Schemes need their own blog tag, but I don't want to go back through the old posts to add it.) Pictures:
I think she was also reading the sign language book to herself for awhile at some point.
I read her a book about grocery stores before bed.
While Norman was putting her to bed she asked about how it is that if you put a red thing and a white thing in the laundry together, the white thing will turn pink (this thought courtesy of one of the books she read at the bookstore today), because she thought that only worked with paint (this knowledge courtesy of Blue's Clues). Norman told her that there's a thing called dye which is kind of like paint for fabric. Apparently I'll be getting quizzed about this in the morning. :-)
Church. Children's chapel (essentially mini-Sunday School) covered where your treasure is, there shall your heart be also. This resulted in her drawing a map of where she was going to hide treasure when we got home and what kind of things we could use for treasure.
Dotty took her to the bookstore. Apparently she picked out some Sofia the First and Doc McStuffins books to sit and read to herself. On the back of one, she saw another book that she hadn't seen, so she asked a lady if she worked there, and she did, and Lucy "knew the title and was polite and waited patiently while the lady went to do other things with the promise that she would be back (and Lucy told someone else that she was waiting for the librarian to come back)." (This according to Dotty.)
She also at one point made a trail of stuff from the back door into the playroom. It was so if there are any house lizards that collect things, they would follow the trail of poker chips thinking they were buttons, and end up in the playroom. Apparently at a house lizard restaurant? (I feel like House Lizard Schemes need their own blog tag, but I don't want to go back through the old posts to add it.) Pictures:
[There are tables with little cups and food, and I think maybe the books in the basket form some sort of house or trap?]
I think she was also reading the sign language book to herself for awhile at some point.
I read her a book about grocery stores before bed.
While Norman was putting her to bed she asked about how it is that if you put a red thing and a white thing in the laundry together, the white thing will turn pink (this thought courtesy of one of the books she read at the bookstore today), because she thought that only worked with paint (this knowledge courtesy of Blue's Clues). Norman told her that there's a thing called dye which is kind of like paint for fabric. Apparently I'll be getting quizzed about this in the morning. :-)
Friday, July 25, 2014
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Well, we had a pretty good chance at Learn Nothing Day -- it's cleaning day, so we weren't planning on going anywhere. Surely that limits the learning potential?
In not-strictly-learny activities, Lucy watched Frozen. Although then she also watched the music videos on the DVD, so she learned what Let It Go sounds like in Spanish.
What else? I'm actually writing this on Friday. I've already forgotten what else she did. Probably played with Legos. Oh, and she played Mario Kart with Norman and by herself. Rainbow Road. Yikes. And Dinosaur Train games on the computer.
But, I was on Tumblr, which is pretty much always detrimental to trying to Learn Nothing. And I found out about the frogmouth. Like so.
Then, in the afternoon, Lucy asked the fateful question, "How do you film something to have no sound?" It turned out she meant how do people make animated gifs. So I downloaded one and showed her each frame so she could see that when you put them all in a row really fast it looks like it's moving. And we talked about cartoons, and I showed her a flip book I made in high school. And we talked about film, and I showed her some 16mm that I had in my craft room. And we talked about cameras and watched a short YouTube video about how they work. ("Old-fashioned" ones, of course.) Dang it. We were doing so well.
We learned a little more sign language before bed, and today she actually remembered one of the ones we went over -- "learn" (because it looks like picking something up from a book and putting it in your head).
In not-strictly-learny activities, Lucy watched Frozen. Although then she also watched the music videos on the DVD, so she learned what Let It Go sounds like in Spanish.
What else? I'm actually writing this on Friday. I've already forgotten what else she did. Probably played with Legos. Oh, and she played Mario Kart with Norman and by herself. Rainbow Road. Yikes. And Dinosaur Train games on the computer.
But, I was on Tumblr, which is pretty much always detrimental to trying to Learn Nothing. And I found out about the frogmouth. Like so.
Then, in the afternoon, Lucy asked the fateful question, "How do you film something to have no sound?" It turned out she meant how do people make animated gifs. So I downloaded one and showed her each frame so she could see that when you put them all in a row really fast it looks like it's moving. And we talked about cartoons, and I showed her a flip book I made in high school. And we talked about film, and I showed her some 16mm that I had in my craft room. And we talked about cameras and watched a short YouTube video about how they work. ("Old-fashioned" ones, of course.) Dang it. We were doing so well.
We learned a little more sign language before bed, and today she actually remembered one of the ones we went over -- "learn" (because it looks like picking something up from a book and putting it in your head).
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Today we went to the library and saw a two-person play about King Arthur. Pretty impressive British accents on the actors, actually. When they talked about the round table, Lucy pointed out to me that, hey, they have one of those on Peg + Cat!! And during the Q&A after the play, some other kid was like, "Hey, those people were on Magic School Bus!" So Lucy and I got to talk about how the story is a legend, and lots of people have been telling it and talking about the characters for hundreds and hundreds of years, for so long that no one is sure if it's true or made up. And that people study to try to find out if it's true, but no one's really sure.
She had been playing a bunch of Mario Kart, but she's pretty much laid off the TV and video games for the last couple days. It goes in cycles like that.
Lots of playing with Duplos, and her beads. They kind of get mixed up together. The beads are food a lot. Actually so are the Duplos. She's been making some very abstract menu items out of plain Duplo blocks.
Before the library this morning, Norman took her to the comic book store, because it's Batman Day. She got a Batman mask and he bought her a Mickey Mouse comic or some such (which she was reading at dinner, because she wanted more summer reading points). Then when they got home, she decided she needed to dress up like Word Girl. Norman made her a star emblem for her shirt. Word Girl's sidekick is a monkey, and when he's incognito as just a regular pet monkey (?) he wears a diaper, so that's why she's got a monkey puppet in a diaper.
She went to the library this way. I'm so proud.
She's done some writing lately. She insists we spell for her.
This afternoon she spent some time with a kid's road atlas workbook thingy.
We've spent some more time with that sign language book. Making the "Y" for her name is giving her some trouble, but she managed to do it tonight.
Tomorrow is Learn Nothing Day, so I'll be sure to report back on our utter failure! :-)
She had been playing a bunch of Mario Kart, but she's pretty much laid off the TV and video games for the last couple days. It goes in cycles like that.
Lots of playing with Duplos, and her beads. They kind of get mixed up together. The beads are food a lot. Actually so are the Duplos. She's been making some very abstract menu items out of plain Duplo blocks.
Before the library this morning, Norman took her to the comic book store, because it's Batman Day. She got a Batman mask and he bought her a Mickey Mouse comic or some such (which she was reading at dinner, because she wanted more summer reading points). Then when they got home, she decided she needed to dress up like Word Girl. Norman made her a star emblem for her shirt. Word Girl's sidekick is a monkey, and when he's incognito as just a regular pet monkey (?) he wears a diaper, so that's why she's got a monkey puppet in a diaper.
She went to the library this way. I'm so proud.
She's done some writing lately. She insists we spell for her.
This afternoon she spent some time with a kid's road atlas workbook thingy.
We've spent some more time with that sign language book. Making the "Y" for her name is giving her some trouble, but she managed to do it tonight.
Tomorrow is Learn Nothing Day, so I'll be sure to report back on our utter failure! :-)
Monday, July 21, 2014
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Pretty much the first thing she did was crawl into my bed and ask if trees still clean the air when they've lost all their leaves. I... wasn't sure because I've never thought about it before. We looked it up on my phone right there, and sure enough, deciduous trees do not make oxygen without their leaves!
Had a bit of stomach problems this morning, so I got her to settle down and watch Tangled.
Mario Kart with Norman.
Played outside. Tried to climb a tree. Mushed around barefoot in some mud. Ya know.
Norman accidentally stepped on one of her toys and broke it, so Lucy drew a plan to fix it. For some reason in involves a shopping mall map, a leaf, and a sock, in addition to glue and the actual toy. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I read her a Sesame Street book before bed.
Had a bit of stomach problems this morning, so I got her to settle down and watch Tangled.
Mario Kart with Norman.
Played outside. Tried to climb a tree. Mushed around barefoot in some mud. Ya know.
Norman accidentally stepped on one of her toys and broke it, so Lucy drew a plan to fix it. For some reason in involves a shopping mall map, a leaf, and a sock, in addition to glue and the actual toy. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I read her a Sesame Street book before bed.
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Saturday, July 19, 2014
First thing when she got up (apparently), she played some Mario Kart because Norman had unlocked a thing for her last night after she went to bed.
Legos.
Got another new idea for how to trap and/or befriend the lizards in our backyard. This one involved building a lizard out of Duplos, so they would think it was a normal lizard like them, but she was stuck on how to "control the Duplos lizard without them noticing me". This Duplo lizard was so involved that it had a small bee charm on it's big red Duplo tongue. (Because they eat bugs, ya know.) She later took it outside and taped some leaves to it "so it will look even greener."
Played some more Mario Kart.
Invented a dance and a song to go with it where the lyrics are the instructions for the dance. It was quite vigorous.
Went to the park with Norman. There's this spinny thing there that is like the best cooperative play and negotiation teaching tool ever. Only two kids and get on it at once, and then they have to decide who's going to spin and how fast.
Played some Dinosaur Train games on her computer, but that was after trying to log into the Disney World website and set up dining reservations, during which this conversation happened:
More Mario Kart. So much. She's in that sweet spot where it's not too frustrating to play, but she doesn't care so much about the results, so she isn't upset that she always comes in last place.
We went through some more of that sign language book before bed.
Legos.
Got another new idea for how to trap and/or befriend the lizards in our backyard. This one involved building a lizard out of Duplos, so they would think it was a normal lizard like them, but she was stuck on how to "control the Duplos lizard without them noticing me". This Duplo lizard was so involved that it had a small bee charm on it's big red Duplo tongue. (Because they eat bugs, ya know.) She later took it outside and taped some leaves to it "so it will look even greener."
Played some more Mario Kart.
Invented a dance and a song to go with it where the lyrics are the instructions for the dance. It was quite vigorous.
Went to the park with Norman. There's this spinny thing there that is like the best cooperative play and negotiation teaching tool ever. Only two kids and get on it at once, and then they have to decide who's going to spin and how fast.
Played some Dinosaur Train games on her computer, but that was after trying to log into the Disney World website and set up dining reservations, during which this conversation happened:
More Mario Kart. So much. She's in that sweet spot where it's not too frustrating to play, but she doesn't care so much about the results, so she isn't upset that she always comes in last place.
We went through some more of that sign language book before bed.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
I woke up this morning to find that Lucy had migrated from her bed to the couch in the middle of the night, and (as a result?) was still sleeping soundly about 2.5 hours after she normally wakes up. What?
She got the urge to dust things this morning. That happens every so often. Obviously I allow it.
Played with Duplos.
She has informed me that some of those beads that she's constantly sorting are vegetables.
She spent some more time on that Hour of Code website. Played some games and watched some videos about STEM-type stuff, I think.
It was library day. Luckily this summer, our branch has been doing special programs on the day we normally go to the library anyway. Today it was "Sciencetellers". This involved a female scientist in a tie-dyed lab coat, dry ice, fire, instruction on the states of matter, and lots of corny jokes. It was awesome. :-) The lady did a card trick, which prompted Lucy to ask me on the way home how people do card tricks. I pretty much told her that the magician practices a long time to get really good at distracting you so they can hide the card where you weren't looking, and that I never know exactly how they do it, and it's really cool. When we got home, she decided she would try it, but with leaves instead of cards. (?) At one point she told me there were four leaves under a throw cushion, and when she lifted it up there were only three. Then she opened her laptop that was sitting on the coffee table and pulled out the fourth one. :-)
She asked for the second volume of Pixar shorts on DVD from the library. She spent several hours watching the same three or four shorts over and over. Possibly she was trying to suck every detail from them. It is Pixar, after all. There's a lot there.
Unfortunately for us parental units, Lucy seems to be the most prolifically creative in the hour around and past her bed time. Tonight is was constructing this Lego motel.
[Believe it or not, it involves a pool (with three slides and a diving board), hot tub, front desk, continental breakfast area, 2 beds, a TV, a lamp, a couch, a chair, a sink, a fridge, and a closet with hangers. She was very thorough.]
At her request, we also picked up several books about sign language today. We spent the time before bed reading one of them and practicing some of the signs. [As a linguist, I must say, I am fascinated by the gender markers on family member terms!]
She got the urge to dust things this morning. That happens every so often. Obviously I allow it.
Played with Duplos.
She has informed me that some of those beads that she's constantly sorting are vegetables.
She spent some more time on that Hour of Code website. Played some games and watched some videos about STEM-type stuff, I think.
It was library day. Luckily this summer, our branch has been doing special programs on the day we normally go to the library anyway. Today it was "Sciencetellers". This involved a female scientist in a tie-dyed lab coat, dry ice, fire, instruction on the states of matter, and lots of corny jokes. It was awesome. :-) The lady did a card trick, which prompted Lucy to ask me on the way home how people do card tricks. I pretty much told her that the magician practices a long time to get really good at distracting you so they can hide the card where you weren't looking, and that I never know exactly how they do it, and it's really cool. When we got home, she decided she would try it, but with leaves instead of cards. (?) At one point she told me there were four leaves under a throw cushion, and when she lifted it up there were only three. Then she opened her laptop that was sitting on the coffee table and pulled out the fourth one. :-)
[Tie-dye scientist with bucket of dry ice]
She asked for the second volume of Pixar shorts on DVD from the library. She spent several hours watching the same three or four shorts over and over. Possibly she was trying to suck every detail from them. It is Pixar, after all. There's a lot there.
Unfortunately for us parental units, Lucy seems to be the most prolifically creative in the hour around and past her bed time. Tonight is was constructing this Lego motel.
At her request, we also picked up several books about sign language today. We spent the time before bed reading one of them and practicing some of the signs. [As a linguist, I must say, I am fascinated by the gender markers on family member terms!]
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
The big thing today was going ice skating. She asked on Friday if she could take lessons. I told her we should go sometime to see if she liked it enough to sign up for lessons in August. (I take lessons, which is why she talks about taking lessons sometimes.) She had much more stamina and determination than she did the last time I tried to get her to skate over a year ago. We also got her a little PVC pipe walker thingy -- that helped a lot. Her spirits kept up and she kept at it even though she couldn't go very fast. This is seriously a major improvement -- not sure if that's apparent!
She's really into puns lately, and explaining why they're funny. On the way out of the ice rink, there's a sign that says "Have an ice day!" (::groan::) She read it and was like, "Have an ice day! Haha! It's like have a nice day, but it's have an ice day instead!" She did this the other day with something on Jake and the Neverland Pirates, too. Something about a bird's birthday (bird-day)?
What else what else? I think she did in fact work on the house lizard house outside a little more.
She played Mario Kart with Norman.
She sat with Norman and read through that Batman book from last night again to herself.
She spent some time on her computer on a coding website, which is actually really cool. I found it for her after she asked me one day about making her own website. (I suggested a blog -- turned out she meant from scratch.)
She seems to spend a lot of time sorting her beads? Every now and then she'll make something with them, but mostly she sorts them into categories and sees where certain kinds of beads will fit on other toys she has.
And her favorite hobby at the moment seems to be talking about Disney World every waking moment. This is my fault for letting it slip so far in advance of our trip (months and months) that we will be going there this fall. And then giving her the Disney World vacation planning DVD to watch to her heart's content. Oops. There was also a point today where she decided to be a travel agent. I was supposed to tell her what kind of stuff I like, and she would suggest a vacation. (I lobbed her the easy "I like Disney movies and camping." She was all over that.)
She's really into puns lately, and explaining why they're funny. On the way out of the ice rink, there's a sign that says "Have an ice day!" (::groan::) She read it and was like, "Have an ice day! Haha! It's like have a nice day, but it's have an ice day instead!" She did this the other day with something on Jake and the Neverland Pirates, too. Something about a bird's birthday (bird-day)?
What else what else? I think she did in fact work on the house lizard house outside a little more.
She played Mario Kart with Norman.
She sat with Norman and read through that Batman book from last night again to herself.
She spent some time on her computer on a coding website, which is actually really cool. I found it for her after she asked me one day about making her own website. (I suggested a blog -- turned out she meant from scratch.)
She seems to spend a lot of time sorting her beads? Every now and then she'll make something with them, but mostly she sorts them into categories and sees where certain kinds of beads will fit on other toys she has.
And her favorite hobby at the moment seems to be talking about Disney World every waking moment. This is my fault for letting it slip so far in advance of our trip (months and months) that we will be going there this fall. And then giving her the Disney World vacation planning DVD to watch to her heart's content. Oops. There was also a point today where she decided to be a travel agent. I was supposed to tell her what kind of stuff I like, and she would suggest a vacation. (I lobbed her the easy "I like Disney movies and camping." She was all over that.)
Monday, July 14, 2014
Monday, July 14, 2014
Grocery shopping day. We saw a kid-friend-type person at one of the shops. We also got some store-brand stickers, which inspired Lucy to play grocery store when we got home, which we did. We switched off playing customer and cashier. She also decided that she just really, really wanted to try the kind of cheese you see on cartoons -- the one with holes. I found some sliced swiss, but she insisted that it had to be in a triangle. So I found her some baby swiss sliced off a round at the cheese counter at the next shop. She tried it later; didn't like it. I'm gonna eat it 'cause it's really good!
But actually the first thing she did this morning was to work on her Lakitu costume that she devised a day or two ago. She's been playing a lot of Mario Kart on the Wii (did so this morning before we went shopping, in fact), and she just decided she wanted to dress up as "the guy who holds the sign that tells you you're going the wrong way" (as you can imagine, this happens to her a lot when she plays). Today she finished it up when I helped her pin the paper plate/turtle shell to her yellow shirt.
We also spent some time today playing with watercolor pencils. I finally bought some proper watercolor paper today. It was fun!
She spent some time playing games on a Disney website.
She watched an episode of Jake and the Neverland Pirates. (Not my favorite, but oh well.)
She apparently spent some time playing Duplos, and also trying to bundle some popsicle sticks with her hair ties? Not sure what was going on there; that's just what I found in the playroom.
Right before bed she decided she needed to go outside and start building a house lizard house. She was interrupted, but I assume she'll resume tomorrow morning.
I read her a Batman book before bed.
But actually the first thing she did this morning was to work on her Lakitu costume that she devised a day or two ago. She's been playing a lot of Mario Kart on the Wii (did so this morning before we went shopping, in fact), and she just decided she wanted to dress up as "the guy who holds the sign that tells you you're going the wrong way" (as you can imagine, this happens to her a lot when she plays). Today she finished it up when I helped her pin the paper plate/turtle shell to her yellow shirt.
We also spent some time today playing with watercolor pencils. I finally bought some proper watercolor paper today. It was fun!
She spent some time playing games on a Disney website.
She watched an episode of Jake and the Neverland Pirates. (Not my favorite, but oh well.)
She apparently spent some time playing Duplos, and also trying to bundle some popsicle sticks with her hair ties? Not sure what was going on there; that's just what I found in the playroom.
Right before bed she decided she needed to go outside and start building a house lizard house. She was interrupted, but I assume she'll resume tomorrow morning.
I read her a Batman book before bed.
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