Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who is also taking it easy today. Post-holiday light blogging. But scroll down he’s got some interesting stuff there — Where is the Daddy War? caught my attention. I’ll come back to serious topics a different week.
1.
This morning I emerged from the bedroom, and found an assortment of children in PJ’s huddled around Sesame Street. Not surprising. An odd collection of blankets and pillows and trash paper spread about the coffee table. Not surprising. My five-year-old sitting there with paper in her mouth. *That* I had never seen before.
2.
“Why do you have paper in your mouth?” I inquired.
“We’re beavers.”
Ah. Beaver teeth. I had heard rumors of bunny teeth being made last week; after a weekend playing at the river, beaver teeth is the next logical thing.
I looked again at the coffee table. Everything covering the table was brown. Around it on the floor? Blue. And the bits of crumpled up tissue paper were either rocks or whitewater, depending on who you ask. The kindergartener crawled over to a length of 4″ PVC pipe with a green t-shirt top, made a buzzing noise as she chewed with her paper beaver teeth, and felled the tree. They only have one tree to chew, so they re-erect it after each meal.
3.
This is why I homeschool*. Because every now and then I can borrow Rocky Mountain Beaver Pond from the library, and all the kids abandon their regular school work in order to watch, even though they saw it already when they were in K5 or 1st or 2nd grade and in theory the big guys should find it boring by now, but they don’t.
And then instead of telling thirty kids, “Make a diorama about Beavers,” my kids build a live-action diorama in the living room when I thought they were just goofing off being edu-tained.
3.5
What is the proper place for the pink bunny and the purple hippos and the real live family cat, in a living room Beaver pond? The negotiations are fascinating.
***
Well that’s all for today. I’m catching up on the plugged-in life after the long weekend, so be patient with me as I work through the inbox. I noticed over at CWG there’s a nice set of Memorial Day posts from today on back through Saturday, go take a look.
Tuesday is Link Day for all topics, not beavers only. Help yourself if you are so inclined. Post as many as you want, but only one per comment or the spam dragon will eat you up and I’ll never even know. Have a great week!
*Other people have more impressive reasons for their educational choices. But seriously. I’m in it for the beaver pond.
Today’s link: Trolling In The Everyday…
Happy post-holiday light blogging!
Those are good. So true.
Believe it or not, my husband, FIL and kids saw two beavers just yesterday, in Rocky Mtn NP. I know, I know. Now just rub it in my face when you see crabs on the seashore.
My MIL and I were in the other car, and didn’t know they had stopped. We were all stopped when we saw the mother elk and nursing baby, though. So precious.
Anyway, yes- the objectives that are met without a lesson plan are a big benefit of homeschooling.
Hehe. I count my blessing every time I don’t have to do the fake tidal pool experiment. But I could settle for Rockies instead. Especially right now with the giant sauna in the sky getting cranked up for the Suffering Season.
The thing that strikes me so often lately is that my overgrown, crazy back yard has so much more wildlife than I grew up with. So even without going anywhere, my kids are already out seeing and interacting with stuff that was completely foreign to me as a kid.
I gained a lot of appreciation for nature when I married into this family. Birds, animals, trees, flowers, mountains, everything. Just the idea of wanting to know was foreign to me, and that doesn’t even begin to address having accessibility to it.
It’s all a different kind of nature, though, between where each of us grew up and where we’re both at now. My oldest will not forget fire ants, that’s for sure.
I used to love ants. As a child in Maryland I’d play with black ants — adopt one, skate around the cul-de-sac with it, yeah, okay, strange, but what did you except from your hostess here. Friends for the introvert’s introvert.
But now, having reared four toddlers in fire ant territory? Amdro. Amdro amdro amdro.
Carol is a big ant fan, too. I’m glad she can enjoy them safely.
I really need to re-learn how to identify different types of ants. We’re starting to get non-fire ants here, I think.
The other two types I saw in Florida were carpenter ants (BAD!) and sugar ants. We left a pb&j on the table one night…. we had thousands of ants. I’d never seen anything like it.
In order to not stir them up very much, we dumped the whole sandwich off the plate into a ziploc and sealed it. Then I let the ziploc sit. The ants ate themselves into a sugar drunken stupor, no kidding. They were all asleep. Very interesting.
Anna, that is cool. I tried to find an ant book at the library yesterday, but no luck. I got one on butterflies instead. I’ll check a bigger branch next week.
Other bug excitement: I was cleaning yesterday and found a spider who had died a natural death. I put it over by the microscope in our specimin pile.
Distressing news: A salamandar was trapped on our porch yesterday, and when I tried to rescue it, it hit. I hope it comes out and is liberated before it perishes. I like my salamandars not dead.