Teeth, Cable Cars, and Feeling Music

We have been busy traveling, so I have not updated this blog recently.  Anyhoo, Sathya has returned from a trip to Colorado having completed his first scavenger hunt!  Yay!  His prize?  A strawberry milkshake from The Malt Shoppe in Pagosa Springs.

Sathya has been getting his hands dirty these last couple weeks with some hands-on projects.  We learned the answer to the question: why are our teeth shaped differently?  I had Sathya take a bite from an apple, and chew the piece with his front teeth first, and then his back teeth.  Then I had him try to take a bite using his back teeth.  Which worked best and why?

We learned that our back teeth are flat, which make them easier for chewing, and our front teeth are best for biting.

I picked up some neat ideas from one of the parenting magazines we get, which talks about ways in which to reuse items to create new items.  One of the ideas was taking an old milk carton and cutting out a window, decorating it, and then hanging it on a string.  Wa la!  You have a cable car.  We worked on making two, and they are now hanging in Sathya's room:

He likes to make them go up and down, and he has filled them with some of his favorite stuffed animals.

Lastly, an idea that I came up with, which revolves around the question: how do you express music in words?   I have started a new music/emotion project with Sathya, which I will eventually carry over to Anand too.  Today we listened to five very different pieces of music (Fela Kuti, Miles Davis, Christmas music, Yo Yo Ma, Mandarin nursery rhymes), which I wrote on colored pieces of paper:

and then I asked Sathya to describe in one word how he felt when he listened to them.  His responses were amazing.  Fela Kuti made him sad (he didn't like the song), and Yo Yo Ma made him "really happy."  "Oh Christmas Tree" made him feel "loved" and the Mandarin nursery rhyme made him feel like "giving flowers."

I let him write his emotions and then decorate them:

I am going to date them and keep them in a binder, so he can look back and see all of the different kinds of music he has listened to and how each one made him feel.  I am also teaching him how to express himself.  This is a valuable lesson for all of us.

Last but not least, my husband sent me a link about banned books (since we are getting into banned books week), and one of the most banned books of 2012 was?  You guessed it.  Captain Underpants.  Haha!

Montana and Safety

For our geography lesson, we learned about the state of Montana.  It is such a beautiful state.  Sathya said he wanted to go there on a roadtrip.  Soon, I hope!

I contacted the state's tourism department for more information on visiting, so Sathya should be receiving a packet (including a MT sticker!) in the mail soon.

We also learned about safety.  I started with a simple book, told in the POV of dinosaurs (which of course every little kid can relate to!).  It is called Dinosaurs, Beware!  by Mark Brown and Stephen Krensky.

We are going to work on putting a family evacuation plan together, and then we will review it once more.

Last but not least, we are taking a roadtrip for Anand's first birthday.  I have made Sathya a scavenger list.  If he can find all of the things on his list, he will earn a special prize!

A Story, A Heart, and Invisible Guests-- Oh My!

So last week I told you about the milk-o-lanterns we made for Halloween.  They don't look like much on their own, but check them out when lit up. Spooky!

This week, Sathya got to write a story-- all on his own.  I didn't help him with sentence structure or word choice or how he wanted it formatted.  The kid's learning!  (I like how he is subconsciously getting grammar; look at those quotation marks!)

For our human anatomy lesson, we added onto the body and drew a heart.  We watched a short video about how the heart works and discussed its importance:

Caveat: placement may not be accurate!

We also conducted an experiment.  Does the heart work faster when we are resting or when we are moving/exercising?  We each took turns taking an old paper towel roll and listening to our hearts at rest.  Lub-dub.  Lub-dub.  Then we each ran for one minute at a time and then listened again.  We compared.  Indeed our heart works faster and quicker when we are in need of more oxygen/nutrients!

Lastly, in honor of Labor Day, we talked about what it means to work, what kinds of jobs people have, and how working enables people to earn money, which enables us to do things with it (AND how important it is to save and not waste).  To celebrate, we had a party made up of invisible guests.  We all took turns running upstairs, grabbing a costume from the costume bin, and coming down in character.  Sathya was Captain Underpants, Alex was Abiyoyo (a giant from an old African folktale), and I was a variety of things (a cow, a blonde woman named Betsy, etc.)

Whenever I get the chance, I like to encourage my children to use their imaginations.  Most of the costumes we put together are made from things around the house.  I have never bought a costume for the children.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's so much fun making them (and my sewing machine gets good use at least once a year).

This year, Sathya wants to be a robot. Anand is going to be Super Diaper Baby.