He’s getting it! – Presidents

Yesterday, Tyler found a penny outside. He always picks them up. Today he started looking at the penny and decided that for being so old (1994) that it was still really shiny. That lead to him looking at the pictures on it. He told me that it was Abraham Lincoln on it (YES!!! We’ve never discussed the pictures on the coins only the size/shape and amount for math.) Then he asked who was on other coins, so I showed him the other coins. He knew it was Jefferson on the nickel and Washington on the quarter, but even I didn’t know who was on the dime (though I thought it was a Roosevelt.) So we looked it up online. Sure enough it is Franklin Roosevelt. Then he says “Well, all of them are at Mt Rushmore, but I think it was a different Roosevelt there.” So we looked it up (even though I knew the answer) and sure enough, it is Teddy Roosevelt at Mt Rushmore. He told me remember because of the glasses – Teddy Roosevelt at Mt Rushmore has glasses and Franklin on the dime does not. I can only say – WOW!!! The stuff he absorbs is just amazing!!! So wish I could bottle whatever it is so that I could use some of it from time to time.

Imagination is great

Last week (before he got sick at the end of the week), Tyler had made up a code. See, he works for the Colorado State Parks with Nea (one of our cats), Elan (our other cat) & Hershey (our puppy). Elan is the head person in charge. So the code was for them to communicate with each other. It could be used in the written form or on their “phones”, which were calculators. They had to watch wildlife, which is mostly active during the night, so he had a built-in excuse for why he needed to be up at night instead of going to sleep nicely. This took up 3 days last week – not bad.

Today he is working on drawing Nascar cars on the Indy 500 track (Indianapolis Motor Speedway for all you true Nascar fans.) “Kasey Kahne #9 Dodge” (which is said in it’s entirity every time) is his favorite driver. So he’s been asking me what the cars look like and who divers what, and who sponsors what, etc. Thank you, Grandpa Randy, for introducing him to racing!! I can’t remember all this stuff. Nascar.com to the rescue! They have a listing of cars by number with the driver, type of car, sponsor, team and crew chief. It also includes links to places where we can find pictures of the drivers and the cars. Now all we have to decide is which version of the paint job to put on the pictures Tyler is drawing. Hopefully, that can be resolved easily by whichever one he likes best.

Coral Reef Co-op

Yesterday we had a co-op class on The Coral Reef. Karen did an amazing job!!! She read them a few books with great pictures and then had an “I Spy” activity that we got to bring home (along with the answer key – a big help!) Then they played a survival game trying to build a coral reef, which is very difficult because there are so many things that can spell disaster for the corals. Then it was craft time and they made their own coral reefs (see pictures.) We also brought home a partnership card game and a stained glass type project of a coral (which we didn’t get to yet.) It was a lot of fun!!!

Been home for a week now

We have been home for a week now. I can’t believe it!

We haven’t been doing any formal schooling. I’ve been sick (cold that has now gotten into my chest – really hurts so I don’t want to do much.) Tyler has been building. He started out the week by taking all his Lincoln Logs and blocks that Grandpa Randy made for him and his stuffed animals and creating his version of Bear Country USA. The animals all had their own areas and the babies were in a special area. The aquatic animals were even in the bathroom so they would be close to the lake (which was the tub – not filled with water.) Trent had to buy a baby (he decided on the zebra) and then the baby zebra had to go to day care to learn how to do tricks so that it could perform in the shows. Trent also got in trouble for buying the wrong food to feed it. One day, the robots (his Rescue Hero robots) came and guarded the door to his room so that the animals were protected against Hershey going in there. The next day some of the robots were good and some were bad, so the good robots were protecting against the bad robots trying to get in. Yesterday he built a blockade of things to block the door. Clean up time is always interesting. It takes him longer to clean up than it does for him to build this stuff because then he has to build bulldozers and trucks to haul all of the stuff that needs to be picked up.

Today he is building a home and movie theater. Then they are going to plant grass and trees and then build trails and roads. I think the “they” includes the robots who are helping him build this stuff. Right now he is using a drill to make holes to put the trees in.

And I am just glad that he has a great imagination and that he can entertain himself. He does come out frequently to give me a play-by-play, but during the building phase I’m not allowed to look. I only get to see the finished building. Here he comes with an update!