Not much structured stuff going on here. We're looking for houses, talking to lenders, blah, blah, blah. Jonathan's doing alot of reading on his own, and has spontaneously started doing division.

This box says that the food processor can make 50 cookies in just a few minutes. That means 25 per minute. That means each of us (there are five in our family) can have 10 cookies!

So lots of unstructured play (the best kind after all!), lots of snatches of reading here and there, when they drag me away from my desk, lots of bedtime reading at night, lots of helping me with lunches and dinner and clean-up, and that's about it.

I guess it's a good thing when I'm neglecting the homeschooling 'blog a bit. It usually means we're too busy doing the fun stuff to write about it.

Right now the boys are doing their morning clean-up, so I'll just update on yesterday, Chinese New Year. We watched Mulan early in the day (so historically accurate! heh.) and made some dragon and tiger stick puppets. We colored monkeys and made a chinese zodiac, talking about the symbols and what they represent. We talked about the superstitions and traditions that go along with CNY and we made moon cakes for after dinner (which was Chinese take-out, of course!). We made chinese lanterns and lit up all of the candles in the house. When Papa got home we watched The First Emperor of China (that IMAX flick) and the boys put on a show for him with their dragon and tiger.

I had loads of fun, and I'm pretty sure they did, too. We're extending the celebration a bit so that we can do some more activities that we didn't get finished yesterday.

A bit of math this morning.

Yesterday and today the boys have been doing lots of unstructured play. We played outside alot yesterday and they banged away at the big chunks of ice from yesterday's "glacier". I gave Benjamen my meat tenderizer and he used that as a pick, while Jonathan preferred to chip away at the ice using his gardening spade. Jonathan also spent at least an hour locked up in the playroom constructing a fearsome looking Bionicle and several little guys with whom the fearsome Bionicle could engage in coversation.

Today they've been playing freely all day, making forts out of the couch cushions, weaving scarves in and out of the kitchen chairs, practicing knots, playing super-heroes, dressing up in their silks, leaping from chairs and various furniture and trying out their capes, tying each other up, leading each other around by "leashes", pretending to be cats and dogs, tipping chairs upside down and practicing tumbles on them, and generally making a big, hairy, fun mess.

We've been listening to music and literature on CD all day and they've been running around in circles, dancing, and incorporating bits of Tales from Shakespeare into their play. you just haven't lived until you've seen a three-year old quoting King Lear while chasing his big brother around at (plastic) sword-point.

Monday afternoon, Jonathan and I spent about an hour, broken up into three chunks throughout the afternoon and evening, translating the first myth in Learning Latin Through Mythology, Atalanta and Hippomenes. I wrote everything down (so we can go faster!), and he did all of the translating himself. First we wrote down all of the words and then we rearranged them so that they sounded right in English. He thought they were hilarious all scrambled up, and two days later is still quoting the sentences at me in their all-jumbled-up form. Atalanta always fastest used to run! BWAH! Kids get off on the weirdest stuff. He really enjoyed it and, by the middle of the story, was remembering the repeated words without looking at the vocabulary list. It's been really hard for me not to bring it up again and see if he wants to do the next story, but I want all of this to be on his initiative, like it has been from the moment he pulled my old college Latin book down from the shelf and started asking me questions about it.

Tuesday we spent lots of time outside, playing in the woods, digging in the thawing mud. They found a bucket that had a huge chunk of ice in it and had a chain frozen through the center and they dragged that around for a long time, which was hilarious to watch. Then they got the idea to free the chain from the ice block, so they picked up a huge rock and started heaving it at the ice block. I noticed that no matter how excited they got, they both made sure the other guy was at a safe distance before hurling their "boulder" at the "glacier".

We also spent alot of time reading library books and Jonathan was reading Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats at several points throughout the day.

They helped me tidy up three or four times during the day, helped me with the laundry, and then helped me make dinner, too. We made pizza from scratch and they helped me with the dough, making the pizza sauce, shredding the cheese, and assembling it all. Then I went and let it burn. Feh. My stoopid oven is so unreliable. It was supposed to take 20 minutes, and I was going to check it at 15 minutes, but went ahead and checked it at about 12 minutes to be safe. Burned. Gah.

Today we're just getting started and I'm about to start a tidying up party as soon as I get up from here.

Jonathan got down one of his math workbooks and finished 5 pages and then asked for some dried beans for counting tens. We compromised with macaroni and he glued those by tens into ten squares while Nicholas and Benjamen poured and counted the rest of the macaroni into some bowls on the living room rug.

After they finished with that we all got bundled up and went for a nice walk to the playground, over the bridge, around the lake and then we played out back for a while until they were ready to come in. The weather is much warmer today, but still chilly. We came in and I made some tomato soup and hot chocolate for lunch while they all sat at the table and read books.

We tidied up again after lunch and then read some books that they had all checked out from the library. While we were reading, the UPS guy came with two Latin books I had bought for J for Christmas, but they never made it in time. He loves the mythology in Minimus, so I knew he'd like the Learning Latin Through Mythology book. He spent about half an hour working out the roman numerals listed in that one and another half an hour flipping through the other book. I baked some cornbread to go along with the beans that I had put on the stove this morning.

We read some more library books, sitting on the couch together, then Nicholas made it clear that he was ready for a nap so I put him down while the older boys played fetch with the cat.

Now Benjamen and Jonathan are playing pirates and knights with their Playmobil sets, and I'm going to bake some oatmeal cookies. After that, I promised Jonathan we'd look at his new Latin books together.

When I woke up this morning, Jonathan had already been awake for some time, I think. I came out to the living room and found 8 Ranger Ricks laying on the table.

While I made breakfast, and while Nicholas slept in, the older boys made Get Well cards for gramma, who is pretty ill with this flu thing. Jonathan decorated his with "chrosomomes" and wrote "Get Weel" on the front, "I love you!" on the inside. Benjamen's card was more abstract.

When they finished their oatmeal, they helped me tidy up and we finished lickety-split.

While we cleaned up, Jonathan re-discovered the lacing beads. Playing with those led to an extended dress-up session, which continues to this moment.

It's 9:45AM.

We woke up to snow and ice today. We'll be learning about Wilson Bentley, "The Snowflake Man", and making paper snowflakes, playing here (if they're not tired of doing the real thing), going into the scientific aspects of crystals, as their interest dictates.

After lunch, maybe when Nicholas goes down for his nap, we'll have cocoa and curl up with The Snowy Day.

Jonathan's still on a Ranger Rick jag this morning and has plowed through 5 of the magazines so far this morning. It's funny, I've had those for over 6 months, and he's just taking interest in them. I have a whole book shelf filled with those magazine holders, containing loads of Reader Ricks, Ladybugs, Cobblestones, Spiders, Crickets, Babybugs, etc, all scored on Ebay for next to nothing; it's interesting to see how/when their interest takes hold.

The tea party was a rousing (and rowdy) success. Benjamen insisted on using their flatware from the little wooden kitchen and he and Jonathan put out placemats, saucers, cups, and spoons. It was adorable seeing them so excited and eager to help. Despite my holding back on reading the Mad Tea Party chapter from Alice, they, especially Benjamen, decided that this wasn't to be a formal affair. I should have known by the neon place settings.

So while I breathed airily, "What lovely weather we're having!" Benjamen dived face first into his scone, spraying crumbs like a wood chipper. He didn't appreciate the black currants, of course, and those were tossed aside with not a little disdain. Jonathan was more into the spirit of formality, but couldn't resist encouraging Benjamen with barely-restrained giggles and belly laughs.

I finished first, quite on purpose, and began reading from Alice. They loved it and Benjamen brought it back to me for several more readings.

Today we've finger painted while Nicholas napped, they've been raiding the Ranger Rick collection that I scored on Ebay, we've read this one several times, they've all played with story blocks, we've done Yoga, Jonathan's done the Double Talking Helix Blues several times, Jonathan and Benjamen helped me empty the dishwasher, we did this week's Krampf's science experiment (to which J replied that he already knew that the right side of the brain controlled the left side of the body and vice versa; he read it in a book "quite a long time ago," Hmph.), Jonathan sweeped the kitchen floor, we listened to our daily dose of Blueberries for Sal, and now Jonathan's listening to Just So Stories while doing Ranger Rick mazes and reading RR articles, Benjamen's playing with the Waldorf doll I made him for his last birthday, and Nicholas is having a post-nap snack.

I keep having urges to plant something, but it's not the right time of year. My rhythm's off or something. Maybe we'll decorate some planting pots instead.

We didn't do the tea party yesterday. The boys asked to read Blueberries for Sal about ten times and then were asking about blueberry foods, so we ended up making blueberry muffins instead. They were (are) delicious, though Benjamen picked out all of the blueberries. He can't abide food with different textures. If it's a muffin, it better be a muffin through and through, and none of this bits-of-fruit business to muck things up for him.

We did some play-along songs yesterday and the boys loved it. I'm thinking we have to look up a tape or CD at the library with lots of those types of songs for them.

This morning they helped me make some black currant scones for the tea party this afternoon. After the tea party I'm planning to read the tea party scene from Alice in Wonderland to them. I'm not foolish enough to read it to them beforehand and give them any ideas. Heh.

Jonathan's all into DNA. Last month when we took the boys to a play downtown, he saw a DNA display at the Smithsonian and was enraptured. I got him a couple of books from Amazon until we could get to the library and try to find some books on genetics directed at his age range (no small feat), and he's eating them up. He spent yesterday evening constructing an RNA copy chain onto an uzipped strand of DNA. I'm enjoying the refresher course and Jonathan is obviously loving it.

I think if you would have told me five years ago that we'd be doing cellular biology and genetics when he was five I'd have had a serious freak out. But it all seems pretty natural, now. It's all about latching onto their interests with as much enthusiasm as they themselves can muster and helping them answer their questions. I don't think anything is too complex for them when they're interested, even if it sometimes poses a challenge for me as the facilitator.

We wrote a story over the weekend with me transcribing his re-telling of a story we had checked out of the library and him illustrating. It turned out really well and he was anxious to include it in his notebook.

During Christmas, Jonathan had some questions about God, so I got him a couple of books for Christmas, and we read the first one over the weekend. I loved that book. I shelved the children's Bible on their living room shelf of books, but I haven't seen Jonathan looking at it. Benjamen did, though, and Dan sat with him and talked to him about it while he flipped through the pages. Dan and I aren't religious at all, so this should be an interesting area of learning for us.

I play number games in bed with the boys before they go to sleep at night (if they're not tired enough to drift off right away) and Jonathan's becoming really good at counting by twos and fives. He's been counting by fives for a long time, but when he checked out a videotape about telling time from the library last summer, it really clicked with him, mostly, I think, because he saw a real-life use for knowing the information we'd been "playing" with for such a long time.

Dan just commented over the weekend how accurate his time-telling has become and I guess it sort of snuck up on me. I've always made a point of asking him to tell me what time it was, before he could ever tell time, really. He'd say he didn't know or he'd make up a time at first, and then that would lead to a discussion about how to tell time, why we have clocks, AM/PM, or just time in general. The last few months, though, we haven't been having as many of those conversations. I ask him what time it is, and he tells me. And he's getting more accurate about it. Yesterday I asked him and he said it was 2:48PM. I think now we just need to bring "quarter 'til", "half past", etc into the conversation. He's got a general handle on those terms, but they confuse him a bit, once in a while.

I've got plans for they boys' piggy bank this week! I picked up a bunch of coin rolling papers from the bank and I think we're going to start doing that when Nicholas goes down for his naps in the afternoons. I think Jonathan and Benjamen will enjoy it and they'll be picking up more money experience, to boot. Jonathan knows all of the coins and dollars and how much they're worth, but Benjamen is still learning to tell them all apart. Jonathan could use some reinforcement, too, and practice counting by 1s, 5s, 10s, and 25s is always a good thing.

It's getting brrrr cold, again, so I think we're going to make scones and have a tea party this afternoon, try and warm up a bit. I'm off to look up a yummy scone recipe.