What a lovely day! ;D

We had a lovely day today! It started out a bit rocky... I yelled so loud my head started throbbing and I was worried I might blow a vein, but hey, after that everything went MUCH better!! ;D

Things started to smooth out as soon as I decided that we would not be watching any more Saturday morning TV. Man what a load of LOUD, visually exhausting, commercially oriented, badly drawn, awfully written and did I say LOUD CRAP there is on television for kids on a Saturday morning. Just horrible. In the past I've let them watch it if only for the chance of a lie in but I've always inevitably paid the price by having a pair of hopped up crackpots for children the rest of the day.

I expected there to be wailing and screaming when I turned off the television, but, tellingly, there was no complaining at all. I think they both realise that it's junk, though they'd be loathe to admit it! ;D

I'd showed the children the video of the crazy machine to open the curtains and Jack was fascinated and watched it over and over again. They were very inspired to make a machine of some sort so I had them thinking about that for a while. Jessie worked on her marble run some more whilst Jack played in his room with his castle and I had a shower. Once I was showered and felt a little more normal I found a website online about the six different types of simple machines and we did some experiments to learn about some of them.

Here the kiddies are using a lever to lift a heavy book.



Here they are noting the difference in energy required to pull a small bag of rice straight up a pile and using an inclined plane.



I took Jack upstairs to get him dressed and Jessie got back to work on her marble run....









Jackster and I took the dogs for a walk in the coooold. Actually, really, it wasn't too bad and it was lovely to get out in the fresh air. I've been rereading some of Charlotte Mason's writing recently and it reminded me to make our walks more of a Nature Walk. I tend to let Jack's involvement in our day to day stuff slide somewhat. I don't expect too much of him which is a failing on my part. I need to expect MORE of him, then he will strive to learn more, won't he!

Anyway, he and I walked, hand in hand. We stopped and listened for birds. I taught him what a Cardinal sounds and looks like, we heard a Woodpecker and a Blue Jay. We observed some fungus on a tree trunk and noticed a tree had fallen down. We talked about the seasons and why there were no leaves on the trees, what happens in the summer time and why the water in the streams was frozen. We picked up sticks and locust tree seed pods, we collected icicles and noticed the patterns within them formed by the freezing, thawing and refreezing of the water. We noticed a small bush under which was masses of rabbit droppings and we decided that the rabbits must like to shelter around there. We scared up a large rabbit in our backyard on the way home and Jack carried in a big chunk of snow which had melted and frozen over and over again and was now almost solid. We looked at the icicles again indoors and noticed how rapidly they began to melt once they got inside. It was all fascinating to him and it made me so aware of how little one on one stuff I do with him. I used to do that sort of thing with Jessie all the time when she was small but never really considered that Jack would benefit from it. Also we usually all walk together and when Jessie comes too they usually run off and play. I enjoyed it today and felt good about the use of our 20 minutes outdoors!

Once home again we thought it was a great plan to make some cookies! Jessie had picked out a Vegan Snickerdoodle recipe



and we all got to work on making some tout suite!

We first had to wash hands of course! ;D








Once we'd made up the dough we had to roll it into balls and then roll them in a cinnamon sugar mixture and place them on a cookie sheet.. Jack rolled HIS into sausage shapes.... they tasted JUST as good! ;D






The cinnamon sugar DID make your hands a bit sticky though....!! ;D










After the cookies, why it was on to more machines! ;D We made a small little machine where a wind up toy pushed a marble down an inclined plane, the marble rolled along a little track made by some books on the table and then it fell off the table landing in a cup on the chair!! It delighted the heck out of Jack that the ball fell in the cup every single time!! ;D




Yup! It's in there!







We played around with more ideas, using steam from the kettle, using string to open kitchen drawers, sending something down a string to turn on the TV remote... and we played and played with it. I decided I'd like to move the furniture around in the living room so I did that, and vacuumed, and folded a basket of laundry... and made dinner...( Vegan Sloppy Joes... Yummy!) after dinner a quick bath for Jackster and then bedtime! He would not go to sleep tonight without having pretend ice cream. The kids LOVE pretend ice cream! They tell me what flavors and toppings they would like and they end up with towering cones of ice cream that I have to carefully deliver to them and they devour in no time flat!! Lots of fun!!!

All in all a really nice day. I realise how, in order to have a nice day, I have to spend all my time with the children, or most of it anyway. They really seem to enjoy it and maybe even thrive on it. Whilst I'm working from home it is just not possible for me to spend the time with them I'd like to, but hopefully, someday soon, I will get a grip on my work and it will not take so much time...and, since I enjoyed spending so much time with them today, the sooner the better..!!