Glow Water

*There are pictures of Samantha in the bath tub on here, but you can't see anything inappropriate.*

Glow water...IS AWESOME!!! I found out how to make it off this site. It was super cheap to do, and easy set up and clean up! All I had to buy was a black light, which is $10.00 at WalMart and can be used for SO many other ideas-I got lots of other ideas off this ladies blog! And a pack of highlighters. It was $1.00 for two of them at Dollar General. (After doing this, I recommended getting two packs, so you can have four highlighters. That way you can fill the bath up more and it will glow more. But it works with one pack.) I had to use a knife to cut open the highlighters, which took quite a bit of cutting, but I got it. I didn't realize the highlighter fluid was in bags in the highlighter. (Sometimes it is a felt strip, and you have to run it under water.) But with the bags, all we had to do was squeeze them into the water. (I also put a few drops in shaving cream, mixed it up, and voila! We had glowing shaving cream.) Anyway, it is a simple as that, put the fluid in the water or shaving cream. 

We had TONS of fun! Samantha splashed and played and she was in awe over how the highlighter could do that to the water. We wrote words in the shaving cream and played math games. And we put some of her glow in the dark stars and planets and moon in there, and we played pretend. We threw asteroids at the moon and talked about how the asteroid made craters on the moon.

It was a little hard for me to completely relax because I could see spots of glow on the walls where I accidentally flunk the highlighter ink. I was restraining myself from clean up! But all I had to do was use a towel and wipe everything down, and put up the light. That was pretty much it. Nothing stained. Super easy! This is by far ONE of my favorite activities we have done, right after raising butterflies, which I apparently never posted about, so I just posted about it, and our recent space exploration.

 

This is what the water actually looked like. 

She was stoked!

"Washing Up" With Shaving Cream

She was being silly and putting shaving cream on her toys.

Shaving Cream Beard

Sorry for the chest shot. We had a blast!

Butterfly Garden

How did I not post about our big butterfly activity! We raised butterflies last Spring! We bought the Insect Lore Butterfly Garden to put in Sam's Easter basket that year. All we had to do was order the eggs. When they came in the mail, unfortunately, they already hatched, which is understandable since it doesn't take long for them to hatch.

They started out so little! Then they grew and they shed their skin several times, which was pretty neat to see the little fuzzy balls everywhere in the cup, along with the frass-waste. They made this cool silk stuff and they ate a TON! Then, one day, they went and hung upside down. They slowly, very slowly, formed their chrysalis. We were even able to watch them as they did it! And we got to see the shaking that it did when it was scared. We transferred them to the pavilion for them to hatch there. We watched the chrysalis darken until they broke free and sat still to let their wings expand, and the red juices that they secreted. We finally released them a few days after they became butterflies, and never saw them again. Bitter sweet. I have bought her several kits since then, like Lady Bug Land and the Ant Hill. I am waiting until she shows interest and one or the other, but I am sure they will be just as fun!

 

Today's Learning Library

Today was awesome! Wednesday-Library Day, as usual. But Samantha does not want to go to storytime anymore. Too many people and she can't hear. (She doesn't remember that SHE used to young like the other kids that talked, and she talked through storytime too back then!) Anyway, I have not posted any recent pictures or given updates about Sam in the library, so here it is.

She is familiar with all the librarians, and she loves to talk with them when we come in now. She knows where most of the books are that she reads on a regular basis. She also recognizes a lot of the books we have already checked out, and if she remembers liking them, she will get them again. And she really loves when she finds out we have books on hold for her. (I try to reserve books that relate to Samantha's current interest and have them shipped between the interloan library system, so she knows it will always be something good.)

But this week, she learned something new. Every week we get on the computer to look up a book on whatever it is she picks. The first few weeks she started with sitting in the seat with me. Then she wanted to sit in the seat by herself. Then she wanted to type the words. NOW she types the word, sounding out as much as she can and asking me for the rest. (For things I know she does not know the rules for, like "cess" in princess.") And, I have shown her what she needs to write down so that she can look for the book, so she does that-ALL BY HERSELF. I don't even read it off to her. She looks and writes the title, the author, the section it is in, and, if it is in the Junior section, she writes the number. GO SAM!!!

Today we checked almost 30 books today! And we have gone through about 1/3 of them! She just eats up those books. We read until we fell asleep this afternoon! Wednesdays are one of my favorite days...Hm. I think I say that about every day. :)

Choosing Her own Books 

Awesome Book-She has checked it out several times.  

Space Exploration

We have done so many space activities! It has been an amazing learning experience. I am going to post about some of the activities we have already done and then later I will have more to add. 

We started out with a few simple activities, mostly books. Here are the ones we have read so far-that I can remember: There's No Place Like Space God Made Outer Space Every Planet Has A Place The Magic School Bus Gets Lost In Space. Then we did some coloring sheets and Samantha has painted some pictures of space in her free time. She played some online space games. And I let her watch tons of space video clips and solar system songs (Our Favorite) and episodes of the Magic School Bus that had to do with space.

As time went on, I saw her interest in space was growing and it was going to be a long term thing, so I ordered The Magic School Bus: The Secrets of Space Experiment Kit. It has definitely been worth the money and we have not even done all the activities included in it. It came with a book of experiments and everything we would need to do each one, except a battery for the small flash light. We have made a planet mobile, a telescope, a constellation box, and done some smaller things like looking at constellation cards. We also bought her a small children's telescope awhile back, which I posted about here.

Today we did a big activity. Samantha asked to go on a treasure hunt. Well...I thought about it, and I thought, "Why not a SPACE treasure hunt?!" She couldn't wait! I stayed up all night trying to find ideas on the Internet and fill in the holes where I couldn't find any ideas.

To start out our hunt, we decorated a box to be our space ship. We looked at Samantha's globe and pinpointed where we were on Earth. I gave Samantha a map I drew, and we had a paper with a clue to our first planet on it. (On the back was the answer and some facts about each one.) Instead of reading the facts off to her, we acted each one out. If it said something like, "Pluto's surface is made of ice," I would say, "It sure is COLD and slippery here! Must because of all this ice on the ground!" Etc. Sometimes we used the telescope to see things like the 31 moons on Saturn! and several other things. Samantha was able to figure each of the clues on the front of the card. I put things like, "This planet has 7 rings." or "This is the 3rd gas giant from the sun." She used a combination of her knowledge, her map, and her space poster on the back of her bedroom door. We also ran into some shootings stars, a smiley face constellation, and we had to cross over the asteroid belt a few times too! She found her treasure on the planet Mars, which was the bathroom. :) I hid it in the bath tub. Inside the box was a place mat with the solar system on it, planet stickers, one of those velvet posters to color, moon dough, and pop rocks which we called "moon rocks." It has been over and hour and she is still talking about it and playing with her moon dough on her space place mat. I definitely think that was a good idea, something fun we can do during the days with cold weather. (Although, it is pretty outside today.) I think we will continue to do things like that for other topics. (By the way, all that only cost me $5.00 and that was because I bought the prizes for the chest. Everything else was stuff around the house.)

We have so much more planned to do for this topic! Tomorrow night we are going to do GLOW WATER. We are also going to do GLOW SHAVING CREAM! I bought the highlighters and black light today. I am stoked!

We are still hoping to get to go to the newly built planetarium in our area, once they call us back with show times. They have shows specifically meant for preschoolers, and we would love to take her to one. That is something Jessie could get into with her. 

And then a few other small activities, like a sticker space poster and some flash light experiments. Some more space books. Here are a few we have on reserve at the library: Me and My Place In Space Galaxies, Galaxies! The Stars: A New Way To See Them and The Magic School Bus Sees Stars

Samantha has picked up so much so quick, and she truly understands what she is learning! I have learned a lot too! It started out with her being familiar with what planets and stars were. Then she was able to name a few planets and a few facts about them. Now she knows all their planets in their order from the sun. She can tell you a lot about each planet. She understands things like why Pluto is so cold. (Yes, we taught her about Pluto. We told her it was considered a planet, and now it is not.) She can tell you why the moon has craters, and what the asteroid belt is, what it is made of, and what it divides! She knows what the difference between the inner and outer planets is. She understands they are all different. Some have atmospheres, some don't. Some have several moons. Others have one. She just...gets it. It is in her play, and that is when I know it has become a part of her. She told me the other day that she is the sun and the cat is a planet orbiting around her. (She was standing still and the cat was walking in circles around her.) This unit has been a blast! I can't wait to see what we do next!

 

 

Clue Cards-Front

Clue Cards-Back

Each room was a planet.

Samantha's Map

Asteroid Belt

Shooting Stars

Constellation

Planet Earth

Watching "Magic School Bus Sees Stars" Together

Samantha's Rocket Ship

So Excited For Blast Off!!!

Searching For Planet Jupiter

Playing With Moon Dough

Treasure Chest

Everyday Learning

Everyday learning is my favorite stuff! Today, while I was cooking dinner, Samantha decided to get her letter magnets down. (She usually helps me cook, but just then I was using a knife to cute raw meat chicken.) She spelled a few words that she knows and then made up some of the rest. "Happy Birthday" was spelled QRUTVHEN...You get the picture. But she can spell simple words like Sami, Cat, Bat, Dog, Car, Pig, pretty much any three letter word that does not have a ridiculous rule to it like "Dye". She knows "ch" and "ar" and "er," etc. She asked me to quiz her on some words, and though she has been able to sound out 3 letter words since a little before she turned three, she was super quick about it today and didn't require any assistance. If it was a word she had never seen before, she was able to say, "Hug? Hm...H and U and G..." She really thought it out and then spelled it. I told her it won't be long before she can read big books by herself. That really motivated her. She did that for about 30 minutes and then decided she was done. (Unfortunately that was my fault. I got wrapped up in cooking and washing dishes, so she lost interest.) She was so much more interested because she initiated the learning herself. If I try to initiate it, more often than not, she just acts super silly and like she can't do it.

Some other things she likes to do quite often is one of the games we play at night where Daddy draws a picture on her marker board and write a message. Sometimes the message goes with it and sometimes it doesn't. I let her know either way. The nights that the message goes with it, she tries to decipher what it says. And if it doesn't, I will read it to her. It might say something like, "Good Night, Samantha. You are very loved." And then she will pick out the words that she knows. Sometimes she tries to copy a picture Jessie has drawn or re-write my message. Sometimes she will write her own message. We give her the freedom to chose. She is learning and getting in family time and that is what is important. Plus she is free to be creative in the way she chooses.

Sometimes she likes to look at the space poster we got her for Christmas. I put it on the back of her bedroom door, and each day she will pick a planet and ask me to read her a little about it from the poster. (Other days we will do some more extensive research online.) We name all the planets off of it before bed, and before I knew it she could name each planet in order away from the sun! We didn't even really go over that. I never said, "Here is the order. Let's remember it." She also learns some of the simpler facts about how the planets orbit the sun. She told me today that she was the sun and the cat was running in circles around her because she is the planet orbiting her. :)

There is so much more that we do day to day, things that aren't planned really, but just happen, like reading and writing, drawing and coloring, playing with playdough or making "ooze." We like to watch the Magic School Bus and use their science kits for learning! We will be making a sticker space poster tomorrow. (I will be posting our space activities as soon as that unit is over.) I miss our outside exploration. It is few and far between in the winter. We talk about the trees loosing their leaves and look at the dead grass, sometimes collect acorns in the back yard left from Fall, but that is about it. 

Our "School Week"

With the New Year ringing in, we are thinking more about homeschooling. Samantha will be officially registered with the schoolboard this August as a HOMESCHOOLER! I would say we have a pretty good routine going that we are going to stick with. (Now that we are leaning not to lolly gag all the time.) Our week starts on Tuesday and ends Friday. DH works Tuesday through Saturday, but DD and I like to treat Saturday as a weekend.) 

Tuesday is the beginning of our week. We usually relax, draw, play games, watch an episode or two of the Magic School Bus, do an activity or craft, something pertaining to her current interest. One of my favorite days of the week because we can do whatever we want. It is a new adventure every day. And in the warmer months, we go outside a lot to explore! Go to the beach. Walk a train. Go down to the local playground and creek to find new habitats. The colder weather brings preparation for the holidays, lots of baking and decorating, visiting family, and spending time reading books and such.

Wednesdays we go to storytime and get new books from the library. I try to reserve books on the topics she is interested in. (Currently that is the solar system, cats, sign language, and spanish. We are still really focused on the solar system.) And then I let her pick out whatever books off the shelves that strike her interest. I also get my own reading materials. :) She learns a lot just through reading and she has learned a lot about using the computer to find books and she also knows her way around the library pretty well. We have been attending storytime for over a year now, so the librarians are familiar with her and she is comfortable with them. It is also our errand day. I play all the bills online, but I still have to grocery shop once a month or if go to the store for something else I need, I try to do that on Wednesday since we are already out. I Afterwards, we usually go over to fmy friend, Christina's house, and Sam plays with her friend, Grace. We generally don't leave until it is time for me to go home and cook dinner.

Thursdays we go to the Center. I was afraid that Samantha wasn't getting enough stimulation on those days because my mother in law keeps her on some days and I bring her with me others. It is about half and half. So I talked to my MIL and she has agreed to start doing more learning activities with her. I will either send an activity or they will play on an educational computer game. Or go outside and explore. MIL also likes to teach DD about her interests in things like crocheting. And then the Thursdays she goes with me, she learns a lot about serving and office work and being around other adults. Today she helped me count and roll change. We went over the different coins, and counted them out, used a coin sorter, rolled them, and did some simple math. We really had a fun time working and learning together. And we had lots of money to use as learning tools. She also sees me filing and using different machines like the copy machine. And as she gets older, I will teach her to use these things. When I see clients, she stays with one of the women I work with, and she is starting to get to know them better, so she talks with them and sings with them and they play games with her on the computer and whatnot. The Center is very laid back about that sort of stuff. I definitely found the right place to serve.

Fridays are another relaxed day. We sometimes have a playdate. (We prefer to set those up for Fridays rather than Tuesdays.) Other days we stay home and play on the computer, build with blocks, any of the stuff I named above that we do on Tuesdays. 

Saturday through Monday is our "weekend." Since Hubby works Saturday, if we don't have anything planned, we try to treat it like we do Tuesday-free day. Sundays we have church and we spend a majority of a day there or spending time together as a family. (It really depends on the season what we end up doing. But the summer brings loads of fishing and camping trips.) Same with Monday, minus church. 

Our learning definitely doesn't stop when our week is over. Right now Sam is doing some learning on her own. She grabbed her globe and some paper out of the closet while I was typing. It is a VTech globe and it names the oceans and continents as she stops on them. As she does that, she draws a picture of it and names it! And she just started labeling them. We have never done that before. It was completely on her own initiative. The learning never stops! Not to mention when I cook dinner and clean, she is learning measurement, science (different ingredients reacting), and life skills! Just so much to learn. I could go on all day! 

Sam Helping at the Center

Quote From John Holt

I have read many of John Holt's book, including How Children Learn and How Children Fail, and I enjoy reading about his theory's on unschooling. I agree with many of his views.

I am currently reading "Homeschooling Out Children, Unschooling Ourselves" by Alison McKee. It is a good book so far, even though I generally don't like the "autobiography-type books.

At the beginning of chapter 2 in the book, there is a quote from John Holt...There was a teacher "so obsessed with the right answer hidden in her mind, that she could not think about what (the student) was really saying and thinking, could not see that his reasoning was logical and correct." --John Holt, How Children Fail 

As many of you know, we are unschooling Samantha, and right now she has chosen to work on the solar system. We have been doing several experiments and projects, talking about the moon and the stars, the sun, and all the planets.  

This is where I am getting with all this...Wednesday, Samantha and I were in the car, and we were talking about shadows. I asked her what caused a shadow. She answered accordingly. Then she noticed there there was a big truck with a BIG shadow. And my small car had a SMALL shadow. I thought I would expand on this, so I asked Samantha, "Who do you think would make a bigger shadow? You or me?" Samantha replied without skipping a beat, "Me!" I just laughed and replied back, "Oh yah, how is that?" "Because I would be standing CLOSER to the sun." 

I never in a million years would have considered her answer correct if I didn't decide to ask her why. But she is correct. If she were standing a lot closer to the sun somehow, she would make a bigger shadow. And now I truly know that she picks up so much, not only from the world around her, but from the little experiments and activities we do. Who knows where she got that from. Did I "accidentally" teach her? Or did she figure it out on her own? We hadn't gotten to that experiment in her "kit" yet. 

Her comment really reinforced my want to unschooling. Although I started doubting it, because at one point we were not working on any current interests, I soon realized that I was the reason. I was not helping to facilitate her interests because I was wrapped up in my own little world with the house and the whole baby thing. But once I helped her find her resources...well, she hasn't stopped going since.