Here's what we've been doing lately.

We took some pictures of an inchworm that hopped a ride on my shirt while I was working in the yard.

We took a road trip on Mother's Day to a reptile zoo.

Pythons.

The Alligator Snapping Turtle.

A very cute tortoise.

Another one.

Emerald Tree Boa, I think.

The very friendly and mischievous albino corn snake. It eventually slithered into Sean's sleeve and wouldn't come out. When we would finally get it's upper body out, it would try to get into his pants pocket.

We also took a trip to our local zoo recently with another homeschool family. We've been to the library stocking up on his latest interest--ships. Last week we worked quite a bit with the stamp game, and he has been doing great with his new watch. He's always done things in his own time (no pun intended there) and the whole clock concept finally clicked. He likes looking at his watch to tell me what time it is. He works on cursive letters and we've made it to D so far. 

Today we signed up for some great summer camps at his old Montessori school and we both are excited about that.

birds, solar system and Europe

One of Sean's Easter gifts was "Birds of Washington Field Guide," by Stan Tekiela.
This book is the perfect size. It's filled with beautiful pictures of birds, both male and female, and it is organized by color of the birds so it's easy to find what you're looking for when you see a bird and want to identify it.
Sean loves this book. Absolutely loves it.
We also have a map for bird watching in Washington.
Today I set out some geography and solar system work, but Sean wanted to study birds first. So we got out the map and he had his book. I suggested that I look for a bird pictured on the map, and he could look in the book to find a real photograph.
This work required him to locate the index, find the entry in alphabetical order, and then find the corresponding page. He did this over and over.
I got interrupted, which meant he got interrupted. When I looked up again I saw he was pulling out the huge puzzle of the solar system. While he has already studied this for three years, it doesn't hurt to keep going with it. It's a cool floor puzzle, and he enjoyed it. I found it on sale at Border's.
I had some three part cards of the solar system and he put those in order, then we moved on to some geography work. We have a really big control map for Europe, so he matched flags with the countries of Europe.
Tomorrow I'll show him some pictures a friend took on her trip to Moldova, her home country.
He also worked on music today. He tried to replicate a drum riff from one of his favorite songs while I made lunch.
For bed we read a Langston Hughes poetry book, then he wanted to look at the bird book again. We noticed there are other books like this one by the same author on reptiles and amphibians, trees, wildflowers, and mammals.
We'll probably be looking for the reptile book very soon.
I've started to wonder about spelling. I don't really believe in tests, but wondered how to be sure he's learning to spell words correctly. He seems good at memorizing things quickly. I hate to admit it, but I think Google has helped with spelling, LOL! He types in something to search, and if he spells it wrong it comes up with the suggested spelling. It's how he has learned to spell some of the words for things he is so interested in researching.
He has been drawn back to writing through our interstate postcard project, though he doesn't like to write more than one or two postcards at a time. (We're very slow on this project, so if you're reading this and are expecting a postcard from us, please be patient. This is a child led project for us.)
For a long time he wouldn't write at all. I encouraged, but tried not to push, and some days just didn't ask him to write anything at all. But on any piece of paper that he draws or does any work I have him write the date and his name at the top.
His handwriting was not good. Inside I worried, thinking I should do something to help his penmanship. Instead I waited.
His letters aren't always perfectly straight, but they are much better than before. It is proof for me that Maria Montessori was right about sensitive periods and trusting the child to learn.
Imagine what kind of world we would live in if everyone were allowed to become the person they were intended to become, free to learn at their own pace, rewarded by the feeling of accomplishment, of learning to do things on their own, instead of some outside, artificial token, trophy, or authoritative praise. Imagine what kind of world we would live in if we focused out, on the big picture, then incrementally focused smaller so that we had a better understanding of the whole universe first, then our own tiny world, country, state.

Schoolhouse Rock

I used to look forward to the Schoolhouse Rock episodes on Saturday mornings. I loved those songs and I really did learn a lot from the episodes. I recently rented Schoolhouse Rock from Netflix in preparation for some language work for Sean this week. He liked it, but not as much as I did. Too old school, I guess.
Today I presented some simple sentences and asked Sean to identify the noun and verb. We have been working on those off and on all school year. We used the grammar symbols and he placed those above the words.
Then I introduced the article symbol and explained what an article is.
He is very curious about the other symbols, but I'm going slow with it. I gave him the names for each of the symbols, but didn't want to introduce more than one today. The verb was a review for him, and the article was brand new.
I noticed he isn't wanting to write lately. When I pulled out the material to present it, he said, "I don't want to write." He was relieved when I said this work didn't require writing.
I expect he'll come around to another writing phase later on.

Play and Learn

Yesterday Sean had a free pass from "school" work. We had someone here working on our porch, replacing rails, etc. and he wanted to watch to learn about how to do those kinds of things. I completely agreed. There was measuring, sawing, drilling, and a lot of conversation. Sean is a talker.
After public school kids got home, his friend came over to play. They are getting to that wonderful little boy stage where they want to "talk." I call it the tree house/boy's club stage. They are only a few months apart in age.
In our neighborhood it's really only the two of them because the rest are teenagers, or babies.
After a while of playing in the front yard, running around, they moved into the back yard.
I worked and watched out the window as they climbed the Cherry tree in our back yard. Sean likes to climb very high into it, but his friend is afraid of heights. They climbed down a time or two, then back up and sat on the limbs talking. They were still in the tree when I called Sean in for dinner.

Reconnecting with sounds

I am inspired by many things, and often by reading other homeschooling mommas' blogs. One of them I read said everything that I have been struggling with so far. My son and the 3-hour work period.
I've tried letting it go, and I've tried being a stickler for it, neither of which work out very well. The goal is to get the child to a point that they are so engrossed and focused on their work that they work for that time with the materials, and want to work longer. I see traces of that concentration as he works on certain materials, but not for three hours.
Neither of us enjoy my constantly saying, "You need to choose a work." I think I will stop saying it.
So today I decided we would both benefit from a totally different school environment. It was a beautiful day. The sun was out, the temperature was mild, and we went for a nature walk.
I suggested, before we headed out the door, that we listen carefully once we got outside. We weren't even out of our driveway and we both were so connected to the sounds around us. It was incredible. (It rains here a lot, so some days we just can't motivate ourselves to go out in it.)
We heard birds, then we listened closer to try to discern how many different birds we could hear. Sean decided it must be about 12. He could be right, I just know there were a lot, including a woodpecker.
We heard voices, a lawn mower, a dog barking, and traffic on the road that leads to our neighborhood.
He collected some really large fir cones and a leaf, found a spider and watched some tiny birds at a bird feeder. We also saw a bee along the way.
Then we walked to Grandma's house and watched a humming bird come to the feeder hanging outside her living room window.
We came home, ate lunch and watched a movie Sean has been wanting to share with me all week.
It was a grand day, and not once did I say, "You need to choose a work."

Spanish

I regret that I don't have a camera right now. Some of the work Sean did today was very colorful and fun. When he was in school at the Montessori school he had Spanish class twice a week. He was there for three years, so he has been exposed to Spanish for a while.
Unfortunately, I'm not fluent in Spanish and my only class was in high school. I haven't worked with him at all on Spanish this year. But we have a book that his Nanna bought for him a few years ago called, "My first 100 Spanish Words." (I also regret that I don't have experience with Mandarin, and he took that class as an extra curricular class at the school.)
Yesterday we pulled out the Spanish words book and went through each page. The words are simple, and each page has a theme, such as The Beach, The Playground, Going to the Store, My Family, etc. At the back are lists of colors, numbers, days of the week, etc.
Today I wrote up some cards with the names of the colors on them, then pulled out items that were those colors and Sean placed the cards next to the appropriate colors. I forgot white, and when I came back into the room he had found a white envelope and had the work completed.
During our exercise yesterday I would say the day of the week in Spanish and he would tell me something special we do on each day. For example, Domingo is church day, Sabado is his favorite day because he is free to watch TV or do his work, whichever he chooses.
Today I made labels with the days of the week and he matched them to the control sheet.
His friend across the street is in public school, and comes to visit after school most days. I like to watch them interact when Sean has his work out. They enjoy talking about it, and today Sean gave the boy some new Spanish words.

Little bit of Bible, little bit of Dinosaurs

Yesterday I wasn't feeling great, and though I tried to get ready in time to make it to church, we missed it. I looked at the clock and had about 2 minutes to get us ready and in the car. Yeah, it wasn't going to happen.

So instead I told Sean we would read the Bible and spend the day together doing family type things.
We snuggled on the couch and read from his Beginners Bible and he was engrossed in the Old Testament stories. He recognizes the Old Testament vs. New Testament stories, and I am so pleased with how much knowledge he has about the Bible.

Today also started with a book. Sean chose it last night, way past an acceptable time to be reading a book. He has had some insomnia lately. So I asked him to put it in the work area and we would read it today.
"Brontosaurus" is the name of the book. My mom was always picking up one thing or another at thrift stores, and I'm pretty sure this book was one of those items. She always chose educational materials instead of cartoon character books, etc.

A few months ago we went shopping at the Goodwill. We were just looking around and picked up a few books, and Sean always likes to shop in the toy section. While we were there I spied some dinosaurs. I scooped up all I could find, and they were about $1 each. Some of them seem like nice ones and have the name of the dinosaur on the bottom. When I got them home, I put them on the shelf I have for materials that aren't being used at the moment, and knew he would enjoy them with a lesson eventually.
Today was the day to bring those out. We first read the book, and talked about the different dinosaurs in the book, and the differences between them. That book was all about Brontosaurs, so we tried to figure out what the others were in the pictures.
Then I brought out the bag of dinosaurs. He LOVED them. He started to talk about which ones were meat eaters and which ones were plant eaters. As long as he's interested, I'm going to encourage him to keep researching about each one and during what period they lived.