From 2 Weeks Ago

No, I haven't dropped off the face of the Earth right after turning 32. It's just now that I'm older and wiser and more responsible, I decided to devote more time to work and less time to frivolous activities such as blogging. Wait 'til next year, when I turn 33 (although I just might win lottery by then and get filthy rich).

So anyway, where was I? Ah, right, 2 weeks ago, right after turning 32, I decided to be a bit more diligent in homeschooling M (you see, I get these moods now and again). So I drew up a very flexible plan for the following week that included all sorts of activities for gross and fine motor development, arts and crafts, pre-reading and pre-math, etc. The theme was supposed to be SPACE. Yes, we were even going to build a rocket out of cardboard boxes. And I was going to finally make use of my land-water globe that I recently made.

Except, of course, M didn't care for any such thing. We still ended up doing lots of stuff, but if I was to try to pull it together under one theme, it'd be something like Farm-Kitchen-Anatomy (which, come to think of it, is weirdly logical).

Here is M playing with the shaving cream "snow" and making a fine mess out of it. The nice thing is he actually helped me to clean up by washing all the toys and utensils he used in the process (and that was lots and lots of stuff).

We also drew this cheerful dude. Yeah, body tracing seems to be catching on since M also did lots of chalk drawing and hand- and foot-tracing. You see, I was thinking that we'd do body tracing and then M would draw an astronaut (remember - SPACE). Instead, he wanted me to draw all the internal organs and various body parts. We split the work with me taking care of the heart, veins, lungs and digestive system and M drawing the brain (most important), facial features, arteries, hair, and muscles.

In case you don't know - ever since last winter M's been fascinated with various body parts and internal organs. It started of right after the Halloween (think - skeletons) and blossomed after we got him "Uncover the Human Body" book (he really-really wanted it). Since then we've read it to him countless times (we have to skip some of the longer explanations since the book is for ages 9-12). So he knows all his organs and "systems" by now with digestive system being his favorite (poop - funny).

Moving on now... After the body trace was thus decorated and labeled, including the content of the stomach, it was time for the kitchen play. Yes, he still plays with his toy kitchen that Chris made a while ago (truth be told, the blasted thing has never been finished which doesn't seem to deter M). He also did some art work, finger painting and using different size bottle caps to make prints.

I also gave him a new open-ended activity that I read about in one of the Mary Ann Khol's books. Mine consisted of a large piece of florist foam, 3 wooden BBQ sticks, a bunch of wooden spools, and a handful of fuzzy sticks (have no idea of what they are really called). I put the BBQ sticks into the foam and then let M invent. He came up with a structure that he called a Big Birthday Cake for Eeyor. And we had to sing the birthday song too.

Oh, and we've been reading tons and tons of books - Tales from Fern Hollow, Жили-были кролики, Именинный пирог Финдуса, The Big Pumpkin, Cloudy with Chance of Meatballs, the already-mentioned Uncover the Human Body book, Кит и Кот, and a couple of others.