Birdie See Birdie Doh

One of the great things about being a professional geek is that I get to work from home a couple of days a week (assuming the internet connection is fast enough). I was sitting on the couch working through coding logic when Ethan came bounding in from the dining room holding something in his hands.

"Look, Daddy! I made a bird!"

He was clearly quite pleased with his accomplishment. I asked him where he figured out how to make it. He responded that he had seen someone do it on a video about modeling clay and decided to try making something similar from Play-Doh.

I took a picture of it and he ran off to make more animals including a pleasant-looking snake and equally gregarious lion. I asked about the smiles and was informed that they were happy animals.

Toys According to Daddy

My kids are either fortunate, or will grow up learning many different ways to groan. They have a geek for a dad. So what does a technology-loving dad do with his kids before they are old enough to understand class inheritance and polymorphism? He makes them toys that allow them to pretend that they do, of course!

I was at work late a couple of weeks ago waiting for a customer to be ready for me to work on a new international site and stumbled across printable templates for nifty Apple hardware. A few sheets of glossy photo paper, some ink, scissors, glue, tape, and wood inserts for weight later, and my kids became the proud owners of their own iPhones and shared iPad!

Now, they too have very important "customer calls" and ask Jennifer and I not to be so noisy while they're on the phone.

Here are links in case you'd like to print your very own cutting edge technology:

• Basic iPad
• Advanced iPad
• Basic iPhone

... and for the record, I'm a PC guy. ;)

Congratulations, Ethan!

Ethan has earned his watch.  It still takes him a little bit of manual calculation to tell us the time, but he's doing really well at it and rarely needs a reminder, so we decided an analog watch would now be a help/tool rather than just a toy.  We had one very excited little boy this evening.  He kept saying over and over, "Thank you, Mommy and Daddy, for my new watch!"

Ho Hum...

Not much new or exciting happening our way...

Today marked day 21 of "school."  We have a lot more days than that in, but I'm counting "textbook" days, where we actually sit down and work on bookwork.  Twenty-one school days ago we started Math.  A week later, Handwriting joined the mix, and now about 2 weeks ago we started into Phonics.

As any typical 5 year old boy is, I'm struggling with Ethan on concentration.  I find it's much easier if I leave the room.  When he has no distractions he whizzes through his assignments in no time. The problem is that then I'm not there to check that he's forming his letters and numbers correctly.  We're still in the critical stage.

What I find funny is that while he may be so distracted in the midst of it that I think he needs is a break and decide to lay off for a day he gets very worried and keeps harping, "Mommy, we haven't done school yet today!"  Funny boy!

Katie absolutely loves her Kumon tracing and cutting books.  She's on the last page of the tracing one.  I guess I need to come up with a replacement!

Here are a couple pictures of this afternoon.

Math Time - adding by 100s today.

Katie showing off her cutting skills.

Did I mention she loves to cut?!

Carbon Dioxide Experiment

The kids were bored this evening, so I suggested David should find an experiment to do with them.  He remembered something he had seen as a child but had never actually done.  It turned out really well!

This experiment shows in a tangible way that carbon dioxide is heavier than air.

Materials List:

Baking Soda
Vinegar
Large Pitcher
Dowel
String
Paper Clips (2)
Paper Lunch Bags (2)
Weight

Directions:

Make a balance by using any objects you have that will work (David used a screwdriver with a square shaft as the fulcrum and our blender base as a weight to hold it in place).  Tie two lengths of approximately 6 inch string to the ends of your dowel and attach a paper clip to each string.  Attach paper bags to the paper clips.

Pour some vinegar into your pitcher (No measurements were made, sorry!) and then pour in a generous amount of baking soda.  Let the solution foam for a bit.  Once the foam has gone back down, carefully pour the carbon dioxide (not the liquid!) into one of the bags and watch what happens!

Happenings

I just realized it's been almost two weeks since my last post (oops!).  Can I claim the excuse that we took a bit of a break?  People have asked why we're choosing to do an nontraditional year, well here's a prime example.  We want to be able to live a flexible family life.  Last week we spent over in Ohio with David on a "workation."  David went to work at a customer site and the rest of us enjoyed the benefits of free hotel and per diem. Mommy gets a break and we get to see Daddy a bit more.  How better could it get?!

We still had learning activities, but didn't take any textbooks.  This normally TV-free family spent a bit of time each day watching the Olympics on a 32-inch screen.  Katie absolutely loved the swimming and diving. Ethan wasn't quite as interested in the whole thing, but he enjoyed it, probably more than he cared to admit.  Since coming back home I've caught them pretending to run races and dive and then give each other "medals" (a golden chain that came from I-don't-know-where) for finishing the race.

We also got our fair share of swim time in.  During the last 5 minutes of our last pool time Katie decided she was ready to purposely put her face under the water.  Major milestone!  So we dunked and dunked and dunked until we couldn't dunk any more.

Oh, and I guess I should mention that Ethan is reading an analog clock!  The evening before we left David decided to work with him a little bit.  He showed him the basics, and he caught on very quickly.  Why am I surprised?  We've been doing little bits each day, and he's to the point of needing very few reminders and can read to the minute.  That means in another week or so he gets his first watch - something he's been looking forward to for quite some time.

Unfortunately I have no pictures of our adventures.  I'm tired of posting semi-blurry photos.  Hopefully that will all change soon, as David's camera shopping.  Then maybe you'll get inundated as I have fun learning new technology!