Playing outside.

It has been a wonderful couple of days in our neck of the woods! The birds are eating away at our feeder, the sun rays are peeping through the clouds, the spring breeze is in the air and we are finally able to spend more time outside! Enough with being hermits! Yei!..

We missed the sun so much that when we got to feel its warm caress on our backs, I literally asked the girls to roll up their sleeves and stretch their arm to get some vitamin D!

We haven't gone all outdoorsy yet, as to bring out the bikes, scooters, sand toys for the lake beach...But one thing was definitely ready to be used, the sidewalk chalk!!! And lots of it!

The girls started with drawing their houses to live in, as they had done last fall. Then I drew a hop scotch and we played a round all the way to ten! Milana was placing her requests as to what she wanted me to draw for her, and then would get carried away coloring in. This cute chubby little hands holding a big chalk, too cute, I was ready to eat her up!

Then I came up with a genius idea to play an imagination developing game. I would draw a abstract zig zag and they would have to finish it up and draw something out of that curve or a line. We got so carried away, had so much fun, that we didn't notice how far up the street we had moved on the road, away from the front yard of the house. Thank goodness, the street is a cul de sac! They kept on asking me to draw more curves for them, and then started doing it for each other.

Since the baby was sound asleep in the stroller, I just used the moment to spend some fun time with the girls and came up with a "math game", where they'd each throw 10 stones at a grid with numbers, adding them, and whoever came to the highest number was the winner. It was an instant hit! What's more, both Ivana and Leona took off to create their own math mazes , so that we can all play together.

I just love how they invent games so easily! We were outside for a little over two hours, and the time seemed just to pass as few minutes. The box with chalk was almost empty. And when Mirek was coming home after the morning shift, he could see that we had spent quite some time on the fresh air today and used the pavement as a canvass.

The baby was waking up... it was time to head back home to feed him...We are really looking forward to those real spring days! Come on phoebes! Show up! At least that what we had read in our nature book!

Morning lesson in ornithology.

It is important to have a plan for the day and know what we are doing, but being flexible is the most important thing to always remember when homeschooling.
As we woke up the other day and were getting ready to start our day the educational opportunity just presented itself, almost literally right before our eyes. The girls did their beds, had breakfast and we were just about to finish with our morning stretching exercises, as we suddenly noticed a lot of commotion going on in our front yard. There were squirrels chasing each other, the cute little chipmunk was climbing up the tree trunk and then suddenly dropping to the ground and disappearing in the hole under the rock, the birds finally showed interest in that sack with dried up bread and the bird house/feeder we had made way back in the beginning of the winter.

All three girls were instantly glued to the window watching the lively natural show. The curtains went on the sides and stayed that way for the whole day, the "Birds of Pennsylvania" guide book was pulled out from the shelf and the learning about birds was as natural and exciting as could be. We were able to identify four birds, a Black-Capped Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, American Robin and a Hairy Woodpecker. We read in the guide all the fascinating details about these birds, observed their behavior in the wild, and were just glad to see fist hand the real signs of the spring coming. Finally!

With all the family dynamics during the day, having a baby and a toddler, we didn't accomplish what I had thought we would, but this early morning lesson just reminded me yet one more time that learning is living the life and being vigilant to things around us, and sometimes instead of memorizing something irrelevant for the moment, it is wise to learn something new what is happening around you and just enjoy the moment. That is it, enjoy the moment! After all, the destination is important, but the journey is what counts the most!

And while we were all occupied with bird watching, Evan was learning his letters! :0)

Making our own flour.NOT!!!

The ad says, "Grind wheat, rice, oats, barley, non-oily seeds, and spices. Adjustable from fine to coarse texture. Great for fresh whole grain flours or cracked grain cereals. Precision stainless steel burrs for long life. A sturdy, compact mill that out performs larger, heavier hand grinders. Grinds about a 1/2 cup of fine flour or a 1 cup of coarse flour per minute."

Obviously, I wanted it! And even being priced at $69.00, which I thought was a bit high for our budget, I decided to purchase such a wonderful hand mill! NOT!!!

I had been waiting, basically counting the days, for that brown UPS truck to deliver our tool and 35 lb sack of wheat. My hands were just burning with excitement and my mouth was already watery in anticipation of those baked goodies that could come ONLY from freshly ground whole wheat flour!

And the truck came, and the sack was heavy, and the mill was attached to the counter top, and the girls were going around not wanting to wait even a second to start making the flour! All right, ready... the mill is in place ...set ...the wheat is place ...go...! In a minute we are going to have one cup of that "tan gold" to make our family a breakfast! NOT!

A minute had turned into 5, then 10... there was no 1 cup, not even a table spoon! I am calling Mirek to come downstairs to check the mill, hoping that there was something I have overlooked and it IS going to be corrected instantly and we ARE having the waffles from the freshly ground whole wheat flour for breakfast! NOT!

The good news was that there was nothing I had overlooked, so it did make me feel a bit better. The bad new was that that thing does not work! It just does not grind the grains! That little streak of flour coming down into a bowl was too much work force of the entire family participating! We had to leave the mill for the whole day and there was a new rule in the house! Every time somebody was passing by the mill to go to a bedroom or bathroom you HAD to give that mill a few rounds to make some more flour. Well, I could sense right away that with that speed we would never have that 1 cup of freshly ground whole wheat flour!

So, my hands were burning with pain now and the frustration was building up. Dangerous combination! I put such hopes into that tool, I spent my time looking it up, reading about it, ordering it and paying for it, to just get all that disappointment! It reminded me again about that pencil sharpener that I bought back in the fall, that after opening the packaging it really never worked! I was angry!

I just don't get it! With this trendy "green living" they make us feel bad and guilty for using those plastic bags in the supermarket, or for producing so much garbage when they wrap everything in million plastic layers, or for driving an SUV and wasting so much gas (what am I supposed to drive with a family of 6?), etc, when there are so many things being produced that simply DO NOT work! Talk about real waste of energy, resources and money!

I guess I will still have to keep on searching for that "perfect hand mill", since the electrical one is the least preferred by me. Oh, and another deceit! It is not stainless steel, as says on the box, it is made from aluminum. Why did they have to lie so much? I feel cheated...