So these are our Earth Scouts. http://www.earthscouts.org/.
Our first assignment was a project called, Urban birds
we met a nearby park and we had some books read by other members about birds and then we went on our excursion to site some urban birds. We had our lists and our binoculars.

Ok bird lookers let's go!!
Well first let's cross the bridge. Ok ok climb on the bridge, Oh that is cool waterfall. Yup it certainly is a good place to play pooh sticks.
Wait wait..no no no swimming. Please don't climb down so close.

Come on Earth scouters we have birds to find!

We do finally get the kids away from the bridge and off into the trail

Ooo look horses.
Oh wow look a ciccada
Watch the poison ivy
Is that snake?
Oh little pond.
whoops! Ok Michael take your wet shoes off. It was slippery I know.


wow another creek.
Not so far in
Not sooo
too far!

Wow did you see that caterpillar??
he was munching away on his leaf.


we had wet muddy kids. we had tired kids, thirsty kids, kids still ready to climb more trees.
Did we see any birds?
um I think 2.

The reason 5 year olds shouldn't learn about Helen Keller Part 2

They think the movie is funny.

I showed Johanna and Michael a couple clips on youtube. They were both rolling with laughter at Helen's poor table manners and you just know they were rooting her on.
"Yeah Helen..no don't sit. don't listen. Hooray she wins!!"
Helen the unlikely hero to the wannabe unruly masses!!
Oh well. this still counts as learning history right?

Go for the Gold!!

The Olympics are upon us. While I know many are boycotting watching for humanitarian reasons (and I totally respect that) we are not. I want my kids to see the athletes through their young innocent eyes. I don't want to tell them about human rights violations or the murder of the coach or even steroids or impartial judges.
They are too young to be bogged down by the politicalness of it all. We watch for the sheer excitement that the Olympics should be but really never are...or ever were as far as I can I tell.

I wasn't home to see the openning ceremonies but I asked Mike to put it on for the kids. The next morning i asked Johanna if she watched the show.
She told me she saw the fireworks.
I asked, "did you see the athletes walk in?"
"What are athletes?" she asked.

So in my home my kids are gymnasts today. They are leaping off the couch, turning cartwheels and wearing leotards. We made paper medals and they wore them proudly claiming they won the Olympics.
Michael was watching and waiting for a gymnast to spin in the air during her floor number. "fly fly!!" he cheered. Finally she did and he said, "yeah good job!!" clapping.

I guess they are learning what athletes are.


Johanna made a banner with " GO USA" (only her "S" is kind of backwards and looks more like snake facing the opposite way) and she drew a picture of the balance beam on it.

I want them to have the feel of an exciting game. Will they be looking up on Youtube, years from now, the USA team winning the swimming relay the way I was showing them Nadia, win the perfect score?
Who knows? I know I just don't want them miss out while they can still watch and believe the world is one.

The reason 5 year olds should not learn about Helen Keller....

When I was a kid I really loved the book, "Helen Keller". I read it over and over. I was in the fifth grade when we were going to act out characters from books we liked. I told my mom I was going to be Helen Keller.
My lovely mother explained to me that while it was great I took a such an interest in her life that acting out her life but come off as, "making fun" of handicapped people.
So I moved on to something else. I don't remember what else I was but I learned a little about tact.
Helen Keller however, is becoming a bit of a common thread for me.
Last year when we arrived, for the first time at our new Unitarian Universalist church we saw a banner that read, "Life is either and adventure or nothing" a quote by Helen Keller.
I read the banner to Johanna and told her who Helen Keller was. Just a bit about her being deaf and blind and than learning how to communicate.

So each week Johanna would ask me to tell her about Helen Keller.

So I thought it would be a good idea to get a Helen Keller book out of the library.
please remember that I also thought it was good idea to teach my daughter the song, White Rabbit and I also thought reading the real version of the Little mermaid was good idea. so you know my track record is sort of marred.

Well I take out the easy reader version. We read it several times..and my daughter now pretends to be Helen Keller. At 5 I don't think she would understand how this might appear as "making fun"
I don't think 5 year olds fully comprehend, "tact"

She isn't trying to hurt anyone's feelings by closing her eyes and feeling around to be blind. She's just doing what she does with all her favorite stories. She acts them out. It's just when she announces in public, "I'm Helen Keller" that certain uneasiness fills me.

When someone commented on her "Alice in wonderland" dress in Stop N shop Johanna asked me, "why didn't you tell them I was Helen Keller ?"

I just said, "well with the dress I didn't feel like getting into a whole conversation. "

So for us dear Helen, these are the adventures!

Hooray it's back to school time...

Why am I cheering you ask? Is it because all the kids will be off the playground during the day? No! Is it because I am looking forward to more questions about why Johanna isn't in school during the day? No!
Crayons folks..It's all about the crayons. 4 packs of Crayola crayons for ONE dollar. That's right the medium size box of 24 beautiful perfectly tipped waxy rainbowness on sale for ONE dollar.
Oh and let's forget notebooks, marble notebooks, looseleaf paper, folders..oh the joy that is Staples back to school sale.
I know my kids have very little use for notebooks and paper b/c they are so young but some day they will. Ok Ok it's for me. I love the perfection of new paper..new marble notebooks..did I tell you that you can TWO not one but TWO notebooks this week for 25 cents????
Ooo now..what should write in them???
Decisions decisions....