project day...a tree fort!

if you have been following our blog for any amount of time, you know that aydin is our resident creator/constructor/builder/architect and/or whatever other name you can come up for it. his favorite medium is by far legos, but he does love building forts of all types, shapes & sizes....both inside & out. the mastermind...

i cannot count the times i have walked into the living room only to discover every pillow/cushion in the house has migrated into a corner with play silks & building cloths draped over for a roof & doors, etc. he even builds forts for bebe...which she, being only 14 month, tends to dismantle in 1/4 the time it took him to construct it. but...he is patient, for the most part, and rebuilds...

yesterday he called us all outside to see his latest creations...a tree fort. he did a good job, really...how he got a pallet up in the pine tree (a good 6' off the ground) by himself...i have no idea.

at any rate, he had both a platform & the supports...it was relatively well constructed. however, being the mother of 4 children i have learned a few things along the way...so, today we spent out "project day" hour upping the safety of his design.

"in progress"

worker bees...orin...

and ehren...

we dug holes for the support beams, added screws & roofing nails...we added a few more beams & replaced the tin roofing with some scrap plywood. everyone helped with the digging, sawing, hammering, etc...even ehren. it was truly a group effort.

poo on me for not getting "before" pictures...aydin & orin did take a few "in progress", but they don't really show the "big picture".

they boys also walled in the lower lever with the tin roofing, for a bunker.

the end result?? a super cool tree fort/bunker, that mom has no issue with. :)

grade 1, block VI word families

monday, march 1st
*workbook
*read aloud 15 min w/mama, "days with frog & toad"

main lesson:
*nature study/outdoor hour:
we set up our spring nature table!

lesson b:

form drawing, p. 10, fig 17 (f)

read the tiny seed, eric carle

tuesday, march 2nd

*workbook

*read aloud 15 minutes w/mama, "days with frog & toad"

main lesson:

*being working with word families...

-we made cards our of card stock (12/sheet) & made sets for the first 3 family that we'll be 'meeting' this week (-AT, -AP, -AR).

-we also made a set of alphabet cards so that we could discover the various members of each family.

*project/game;

play math memory (today we did subtraction)

lesson b:

handwork, carding wool

aydin wanted a break from knitting and asked to card wool...he carded nearly and ingles bag full!

wednesday, march 3rd

*workbook

*15 min read aloud with mama, "days with frog & toad"

main lesson:

*today we recalled the words that we made yesterday with a little memory game...

we set out all the cards for each family and he tried to remember all the words that we made yesterday.

we made it sort of like a game show, as he was give three strikes.

*when he had made the words for each family, he picked his favorite from each for us to draw in our main lesson books

lesson b:

baking; zucchini bread, from the"more-with-less" cookbook

thursday, march 4th

*workbook

*read aloud 15 min with mama, "days with frog & toad"

main lesson:

*introduction to second group of word families (-AW, -AY, -ED)

*we, again, made cards...aydin has chosen to color code each word family & have the alphabet be rainbow...they really are beautiful cards.

lesson b:

painting, "spring"

aydin's patingin of us all working in the garden (see the tiller??)...i love it!)

the chickens! (hooray!...33 days & counting!)

i don't know about you, but here we are very ready for spring & flowers & gardening & COLOR!

*BONUS:

aydin found a little spice jar filled with magnetic words & spent quite awhile playing with them on the fridge. i heard him sounding out quite a few (bonus!)...he also built various towers & castles with them.

ahhhh...imagination & simple pleasures....

the new fort...

aydin is especially proud of the floor...he did it all by himself...:)