Week 3 and Off Track...or are we?

 This week we tackled Daddy's Birthday.  I give that a huge font and emphasis because this is Daddy's Special Day and we must make it super specials for him.  If he had his druthers he'd get the entire Month of September to celebrate, but since he's in Crunch Mode, had to settle for his Special Day as 24 hours.  To add insult to injury, his Special Day is September 11.
So we do our best to make it Big and Important regardless of that sad fact.  I gave the boys some butcher paper and asked them to make some wrapping paper for presents.  As you can see by this picture, it evolved into something much bigger and important:  a Happy Birthday Banner.  Minecraft-style.  Daddy was pretty darned impressed!

On a trip to our favorite store, Barnes & Noble, to find a treat for dad, the kids each wanted to pick out a book for themselves.  I think we already own Splat the Cat, so I asked PJ to read this one at the store, out loud to me.  This is PJ's reaction.  LMAO

Monday we did our usual studies and then spent the afternoon at the park with a lovely homeschooling family of 3 little boys.  The older boys tromped around the park in full discovery-mode, into the nooks and crannys of a dried "creek" and up to it's pond.  I looked at my fellow mama and told her I gave the TMan 10 minutes before he was up to his knees in that murky water.  20 minutes later he approached in sloshing tennis shoes.  Haha.  It's what boys do. Snakes and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails! 

After removing the offending pond fifth, the boys went after some climbing trees and and found a huge patch of mushrooms.  T explained the "gills" of the mushroom and disected it and named it's type.  (I still need to go look it up, but I'm looking forward to getting an iphone just for an app I heard about that does object recognition) I can't locate anything about it on the Web except back to 2009.  But gosh, I need it so I can take a picture of something and give it a name. 

Speaking of apps, look at this one!  It's Geocache Navigator and it's directly linked to the Geocaching.com website.  It's amaaahzing and I can't wait to use it.  
Wednesday we met up with our GHF friends, Amy, Liam and Sutton for a geocaching expedition at the South Coast Botanic Garden.  Mission: FAIL.  All 4 of the boys were either hot, bored or obsessing about Minecraft.  I stupidly left my phone (with previously mentioned awesome app) at home.  We are going try that again next Tuesday.  We went home and let the boys have some quiet play time.  Much more relaxing.. 

I had a wonderful Aha moment this week with little PJ.  He has been practicing writing the alphabet in a little Lakeshore Learning writing book.  For some reason, he wants to always start at the bottom of the line and move upwards, so I have sat down and review each letter, explaining to start at the top line and moved downwards, then add the other features of the letters.  While at the park the other day, he got too hot and decided to rest across my lap.  So I began to trace letters on his back.  He guessed every single letter correctly!  I am thinking this whole teaching thing might just be working out.

We had a playdate on Friday and got to go to their pool.  Many thanks to them, as it was 104 degrees in the harbor area of Los Angeles.  Holy Cow.  It must have been a record.  Before we could go outside, however, the boys had to be shown their friend's latest interest: www.coolmath-games.com  There are some excellent brain games on this website, perfect for 5-7 year olds.  PJ is positively obsessed now and has been playing since we got home yesterday.

With this summer heat, we are getting lots of bugs.  We had to pick bees and termites out of the pool yesterday.  We also got a strange little visitor that we couldn't identify.  I called over to T to have him check it out and see if he knew the name.  "Ah! It's a Weevil!" he exclaimed.  Having never seen a weevil in my life, I just didn't believe him and pulled up the trusty browser on my phone.  WHY did I question this kid?  It was a weevil.  When I asked him how he knew this, he credited "Ugly Bugs" one of the Horrible Science books.  Ah, it really IS working!

So I am okay today with a morning of cartoons and relaxation.  It's gonna be another hot one!  Next week we get to visit the San Bernardino Mountains with my sister.  We have planned some community gardening and a little history of the area.  Should be lots of fun.  And Educational.