Desert Dwellers

We started our study of native americans before Easter and taking a couple of weeks off to learn about birds before it got too hot.  We are now taking that up again as our weather heats up.

Since the boys are so young, I decided to start local and spread out from there.  They were having a hard time grasping geographical regions and it was easier to start with the tribes here in Arizona since the boys can already relate to the desert, climate, geology, plants, etc. 

There is a reason why most preschool-early elementary curriculum focuses on local - my house, my family, my neighborhood, the doctor, grocer, policeman, etc...   It gives the kids a way to relate and categorize what they are learning.  Getting to experience a taste of early american indian life here is far more interesting to them than just reading about foreign climates in books without having an immediate way to relate.

We enjoyed learning about the Tohono O'odham (Pima) and Akimel O'odham (Papago) tribes.  There really aren't any children's books that I could find that focused on these two tribes, but our study of the Arizona desert did include elements of the O'odham tribes.  The boys favorite was Desert Giant.  They are now obsessed with looking for saguaro fruit and making plans to knock it down with poles like the O'odham people do.

To find out more about these tribes and how they survived here in the harsh desert, we made a trip to the Arizona Botanical Gardens and their Plants and People trail.  Making learning hands-on is so helpful for these little 'concrete' thinkers!

The boys loved grinding mesquite pods.  Watching them grind made me incredibly curious what food with these ground seed pods taste like.  Maybe one of these days we'll have to experiment...

Xander hanging out in an Akimel/Pima roundhouse. 

And pretending to cook in an Akimel outdoor kitchen area. 

And seeking shelter from the sun under one of these.  They would use these shaded pavilions when going out to harvest and cook the saguaro fruit!

Unexpected Places

Potty-training is my nemesis.  It is my least favorite part of parenting, bar none.  

Even just the thought of urine or poo in my carpet or even worse someone else's floor leaves me feeling panicky.  Some mothers seem so relaxed and nonchalant about it.  I envy them. 

I was with a friend once and her daughter had an accident all over the floor in Pottery Barn Kids.  We were there "playing" with all of the cool toys.  My friend was so calm as she took her daughter to the back of the store to change her.  Meanwhile I'm mortified, panicking inside and so thankful that I wasn't in her shoes...

Instead of the long-drawn out process, my solution was to wait until the older two boys could pretty much potty train themselves in a matter of days.  This didn't occur until they were close to three.  But I was only in agony for a few days and it was over.

And now I have Treyton, who is ever so eager to catch up with his brothers... 

My mom and sister have been telling me for months that he was probably ready to potty train.  He would pull himself up on the potty to practice and took great pride in "going" on command into a cloth diaper while he stood in the bathtub before his nightly bath.  He loved the stop and go that he had control over... 

But I just couldn't get over my fears...

That all changed this weekend.  We stayed home on Saturday and Sunday morning while Rich took the older boys out. 

I was surprised to find a weekend full of so many gifts, in the most unlikely situation.

• The weekend was so special because I had hours to spend completely focused on my youngest.  He's usually the one who tags along.  This weekend he was the star!
• The joy of reading book after book to him, with no arguing over who gets to pick the next book!
• Getting down at his level and getting perspective, his perspective.
• Seeing his soft tooshie run around bare.
• Baking cookies with Treyton, so he'd have a reward for #2 going where it should.  I've never cooked with just him before.
• Catches in his breath and wide eyes as he races for his potty.
• Watching his brothers gather around him in the afternoons, cheering him on!
• Seeing phenomenal progress on the #1 front - only one accident on Saturday...
• Seeing personal growth.  I'm more relaxed and patient.  (God is at work and ever so faithful in my life because this is not the natural, old me.)  I was calm and didn't 'give up' even after cleaning up #2 that was smeared all over the carpet this morning.  (Although I'll take any and all hints on helping him conquer this obstacle.)
• As I mop up poo, the reminder that I get to do that because I have this son of mine.  I'm thankful for him, despite the messes.
• Instead of pure dread, I am actually relaxed and embracing this (hopefully short) season in Treyton's life.

Gifts: 221-231

I'm so thankful for my gratitude community because it is helping me to consistently look for God's blessings in my life and find them in the most surprising places. 

"Professional" Help

I've talked about inspiration coming from different sources: another blog or a spontaneous idea popping up from a child-selected book.

I'm also enjoying finding directed inspiration from curriculum.  Sometimes it's nice to just open up the book and do what it says to do!

I grew up using KONOS (from 3rd grade-highschool) and LOVED it.  It was such a fun, natural way to learn and really helped prepare me not only for college, but also life-long learning. 

Much of what we've done over the last several years has been inspired by the hands-on unit-study based approach in KONOS.  But we "officially" dug in this last January. 

I have to say that it is so nice to have a game-plan that I didn't have to create.  As we wrapped up our study of birds last week, it was so nice to just open up the book and collect materials for an incredible beak experiement!

Check out our 'beak' specimens!

We had been reading about different kinds of birds and what they eat.  I first set out sunflower seeds and had them select which style of beak would be best for eating seeds!

The small, but precise beak proved easiest for obtaining seeds!

Next, the boys imagined they were birds who ate water-borne insects...

Xander's little 'tweezer' beak just didn't quite cut it.  Keegan had the bright idea to try the sieve.  It was fun to review what we knew about flamingo beaks and marvel at how wonderfully each bird is designed!

As we continued with our experiment, they learned a lot about the importance of specialized beak structure.

A staw-like beak just doesn't cut it when trying to capture a snake.

And of course, one of their favorites: plucking worms out of the mud.

ewwww....

Yum.

...and Xander learned a hard lesson about incorrect beak structures, when Keegan landed more flying insects (aka marshmellows) with his 'scoop' beak.

He quickly remedied the lapse.

It's a good thing hummingbirds don't have strong, heavy beaks...

And so our super-easy, no thinking required, experiment came to an end.  I'm sold.  Curriculum is a wonderful thing!

And Counting...

I'm learning that God not only gives us gifts, but he gives them at just the right time.

So I take time again to celebrate all of the wonderful gifts in my life - big and small!

196. A mother duck, taking care of her young.

197. little boys who were as mesmerized by the sight as I was and sat a while just watching...

198. homemade hot pink lemonade (aka. blueberry lemonade)

199. homemade strawberry lemonade

200. and of course our standard vanilla lemonade!

201. a hubby who likes to juice lemons and try new recipes!

202. squeals of delight over shared lemonade!

203. make-believe play with my boys.  Playing the villian is pretty fun!  (I can better understand my mom's enjoyment of playing the evil stepmother when we were growing up, except I didn't get clean floors out of it...)

204. a little boy's faith for his cousin as he prepared her birthday card.  Here she is, loving Jesus with her mommy while God pours his love out on them.

205. the sight of all three boys playing together.

206. high pain tolerance - especially when paired with an accident prone little boy. 

207. sleepy boy cuddle time

208. early mountain biking trek with hubby.

209. jello muscles, scrape free body and that great feeling in your lungs after a hard work-out.

210. experiencing unique personalities in each of my boys

211. getting to hear my 5.5 year old 'drama king' sing louder than 30 other kids at the end of year Bible study program.

212. watching my 'avoid the spotlight' 3.5 year old stare out at the audience at his Cubbies program- silent, mouth agape.

213. getting my sister's old cell phone to replace mine.

214. Having more than 8.5 minutes of talk time before the phone dies!

215. getting ready to go fishing...

216. boys and their creative bird beaks, looking for fish.

217. an invite to a wonderful group of women who want to draw closer to Jesus! 

218. time to seek God in solitude.

219. God speaking to me through scripture and giving me a peace and contentment only He can give.

220. A gratitude community that encourages me to keep counting...

Vintage Farm Fun

I love the cute way kids mess up words.  My 5 year old doesn't do it very often anymore, but when it happens I just want to scoop him up and kiss him...

Overheard today while he was practicing his glockenspiel for music class-

"Look, I'm a musip-tion."

Someday when I'm sitting in bed and too old to get up, I'm sure I'll remind myself of these golden days when my kids were young.

I also had to let you all know about a fun resource this week.  The Homeschool Freebie A Day puts out free resources each day and leaves them up for that week. 

Yesterday's item takes us "off for a visit to the countryside with a stack of fun, classic children's records from yesteryear."  Since we grew up watching lots of old classic movies from the 30's, 40's and 50's, these free mp3 downloads were a trip down vintage memory lane!

Go grab them while you can and enjoy! 

Flamingo-ing

Inspiration can come from many different sources.  Recently we were inspired by another blog in our learning journey. 

Sometimes, inspiration can just jump out from the pages of a library book.

We are in the middle of learning about birds.  Keegan, my 3 year old, picked out this book on Flamingo's at the library.

It prompted some expected fun!  After discovering that Flamingo's build their nests out of mud and lay only 1 white egg in it, I asked the boys if they could build a nest like the flamingo's do...

So the boys set out to the mudpit to formulate their own nest. 

Recently there has been a resurgance of their interest in mommy's and daddy's.  They take turns pretending to be both. 

My sisters and I did this growing up and for some reason I thought this was solely a girl phenomena, but apparently not. (I'm sure they will want to kill me for writing this someday.)

So I was not surprised at how delighted they were to discover that both the mother and father flamingo take equal roles in building the nest, incubating the egg and raising the young.

When the mud nest had dried, which in our desert 'spring' heat took only a few hours, the boys set out with a leftover plastic Easter egg and set it in place.

And then took turns incubating it...

Meanwhile the two year old was content to explore the mud!

We followed this up with a trip to the zoo, to observe real flamingo's!  It was amazing to hear both boys excitedly fill me in on all they remembered from our reading.

And while it was fun to try and imitate a flamingo, we all agreed that we much prefer the human way of taking naps!

I love how learning can be so natural and just flow out of a child's interest or a book discovered.  There was no prep work involved and yet the payoff is huge.  I need to remember to be on the look-out for opportunities like these and not get too caught up in my teaching agenda all of the time...

Learning to Trust...

As I think about God's gifts and blessings for us, I've been struck lately with the packaging in which these 'gifts' arrive. 

I've been praying for the last couple of years that God would grow my trust and faith in Him.  I want to live every moment free of worry and confident in who God is and living a life led by the Holy Spirit.

So what does He do?  He gives me opportunity to trust Him.  Are these gifts easy?  NO.  But they are good.  There are many situations in my life right now that just don't make sense.  I don't see how it can or will be resolved apart from supernatural intervention.  And that is where I have the opportunity to trust God.

When I was having a particularly hard time giving up control over circumstances in my life last year, I received this video.  It was so thought provoking and gave me a better handle on what it means practically to trust God.  My thoughts return to the illustration again and again...

So I embrace the opportunities God has given me to trust him and continue to count His many gifts to me, along with others in the gratitude community...

both the joyful, pleasant, effortless, but oftentimes unassuming gifts and the challenging one's.  They are all good.  They are all from Him.

176. Opportunities to trust God.  He knows I need them...

177. Bible study.  It grows my faith to see how faithful, patient and sovereign God is over and over again.  He sees the big picture that I can't.

178. Jonah - and reminders to face what I've been called to do!

179. Family.  I can't hide or pretend to be someone I'm not and yet they still love me! :)

180. bird-watching boys.

181. holding a newborn little boy.

182. an evening conversation with this little boy's mother.

183. mud covered toddler toes.

184. excitement spilling out of little boys.

185. unexpected mornings home.

186. Holy Spirit insight into how to approach a child training situation.

187. catching sight of a baby hummingbird fluttering around my porch.

188. the sound of my 23 month old son running through the house calling for me.

189. my 5 year old negotiating being allowed to do math on a Saturday.

190. Creative, non-sensical costumes.

191. Older, wiser women in my life.

192. Songs like, Full Attention, that remind me to abide close to Jesus. (audio here)

193. getting to stroke a soft baby nephew head!

194. boyish giggles as they try taking a shower for the first time!

195. creek explorations