Hiking with Crinkleroot

The temperatures had been hovering in the low teens for what seemed like weeks. It kept our outings limited to visiting other indoor locations or exploring only as far as the yard (which has hosted the Himalayas for equally as long so it's been a good place to explore, especially for my little Panda). We've been playing a lot of games, reading a lot of books, dabbling in  art, flying around the house performing magic; Winter hibernation doesn't have to mean boring.

Now, though, the sun has been out for days, for longer than it seems we've seen it all winter in fact. The Himalayas are starting to look more like the rolling landscape of Vermont and my Panda is increasingly disappointed by his habitat loss. The best thing about this weather, aside from the warm sun flooding our front room every evening and Jon getting home before dark, is the hiking situation: with compacted snow covering what will soon be muddy fields there are animal tracks to be found everywhere, and it's warm enough to go looking for them. There's rain lurking around the corner and with rain the opportunity will be lost, so, with Crinkleroot's Book of Animal Tracking tightly in tow, we took to the fields adjacent to our neighborhood and discovered far more than just our own hearts thankful for signs of thaw.

We've been tracking before. Calvin's pretty familiar with the tracks of humans, dogs, and deer. He found lots of deer tracks today.

A deer path through the stream.

And a new treat, raccoon tracks.

And we listened for birds.

We found chickadees (and heard all three calls)

And a tufted titmouse.

When we go home he was eager for some hot tea and a chance to get it all down in his journal.

Now we're ready for the rain threatening the rest of the week, and maybe for a return of the rain boots.

I've linked up to Nature Connections, a link party for nature lovers. Come join the fun!

Chess

Speaking of games. A few days ago he asked us about the chess set sitting on our bookshelf. It's a set that Jon brought back with him from a choir trip in Budapest—a pretty set of varying woods and simple carvings. Calvin was curious but it had been years since either of his parents had played and we were both a bit shaky on the general rules. At the used book store on Saturday morning we happened across a chess book by Usborne, aimed specifically at kids (or somewhat slow adults). For $2 it turned out to be a great find, and timely, too. We've added a few new rules to our repertoire each day since and we're slowly working up to a full game, or at least to one that makes sense. I've always wanted to learn how to really play chess. I think by the end of this journey I will owe most of my knowledge to my son.

Games

There's a game craze going on in the online homeschooling world right now. By that I mean that we're all talking about games. That makes sense since many of us are experiencing winter and much (though not all) time often spent on exploring outside is now spent exploring our living rooms. Insert games, though, and the living room can be a fun activity for the whole familiy.

Every Friday night we enjoy family game night, eating a picnic-style dinner on the floor and playing a game together (We also have several afternoons that are Calvin and mom game afternoons, yadda yadda). We're still entering the real game age, but our tastes are developing and we've put together a top ten list (in no particular order) to share with our wider online community. That means you.

• Camp (this is number one with all of us)

• Go Fish

• Hi Ho Cherry-O

• Monopoly

• Memory

• Guess Who

• Connect Four

• Dominos

• Zingo

It should be noted that with this list of our "top ten" games (I know there's only nine) I have exhausted our game list. Jon and I have our own repertoir of games, like trivial pursuit, scrabble, and Boggle, that we play after Calvin goes to bed, and that a few of our "adult" games (all clean) could be adjusted to accomodate Calvin, like Facts in Five (one of our favorites). And there are a couple of games that we used to enjoy that Calvin has since outgrown, like Snail's Pace Race and Good Night Moon. For the most part, however, this is the extent of our gaming experience. Not for long, though. Thanks to other homeschooler's sites, like Ordinary Life Magic, to which I Have linked this list, I am now salivating to add a number of other games to our collection, like The Amazing Mammoth Hunt, Blokus Duo (for two), and Lost Cities (although that might be for a couple of years from now).

And thank you to all the other homeschooling moms out there who have shared their gaming preferences with us so we'd know where to go from here.

Player. Piano.

He's three pages from finishing the second book. I cannot measure in words the progress that he's made over the past almost year, so I guess we'll have to take another video soon.

The Story about Ping

The Story about Ping, by Marjorie flack, takes place in China and is a FIAR book, so we played around with it a bit over the past two weeks while we were gearing up for our Chinese New Year celebration. As a book I didn't find Ping all that exciting, but it wasn't unenjoyable, either. We spent most of our time focused on China or on art because that's what Calvin was most interested in.

Like most kids Calvin loves drawing and creating. The FIAR guidebook suggested using Ping as a springboard to discussing the representation of water in drawing, so we tried our hand at reflections and ripples.

I have a wall full of these pictures now and I love it.

My favorite of the whole bunch—Ping swimming up to the boat from behind.