We had a fun, creative, and productive day at home today. While I caught up on my many responsibilities, Indigo practiced a bit of writing, drew some pictures, and worked on some of his many masks. He is really enjoying playing dress-up lately, and I love how he is taking his costuming needs into his own hands.

He also pulled out the roll-end that I got from the Olympian a while back, and we made a huge map together. It is fun to draw on such a big scale. One of these days, I need to pull out the paints too, but I wasn't brave enough for that yesterday.

We have been watching a PBS documentary DVD on the history of Ireland. He liked the first episode the best, so far, about the prehistoric days, and the beautiful art & structures that the ancient people made. Last night went into the post St. Patrick era, with much talk about saints & monks. That kind of lost him, but he was very impressed to watch calligraphers practicing their art. We talked about what literacy & books meant in the ancient times, before printers, and publishers & bookstores and whatnot. When every book had to be written by hand, they were extremely precious. I think he resonated with this, as practicing his writing is something he has been struggling with lately. 

Sand in the City is going on this weekend, and we just had to go down & check it out. There were a ton of activities hosted by the Hands On Children's Museum, many with a Japanese theme. The Sunchild got to do a variety of craft projects, got his face painted, dug for treasure, played in a mamoth sandbox, and had a great time. It was a hot sunny day, and perfect for checking out the sand sculptures. His favorite ones were a great big pyramid and and a lion faced sphinx. Not surprising, really, as we have been on an Egyptian kick recently.

In other news, we had great tag sale luck yesterday too. We scored some new bookshelves (finally, a place to put library books that isn't on the floor!), a comfy new chair, and a hoard of good homeschooling games from another homeschooling family that is moving to Alaska. Included in these games was something called 'Mummy Rummy' which is a pictoral mummy game featuring ancient Egyptian artifacts. Since we have been reading and watching videos about King Tutankamun, this was a nicely timed find. Sun also bought a working electric train set, with the parts still in the boxes, and I found some Ravensburger puzzles, a partial advanced Chemistry set, Life, and the Worst Case Scenario board game. I think we will plenty to do once the rainy season kicks in. 

We finally made it back down to the 5th Avenue Bridge to watch the salmon, and this time, we remembered to bring the camera.

We saw a few salmon brave the torrent coming out from the dam, and we weren't the only ones who noticed. We were able to get a bit of video of a seal hunting in the rapids. This was especially neat, because it had been very hard to catch a good close up view of the seals, as they usually move rather fast.

We also had the good fortune to see a river otter up close. He was a cute little critter, and reminded me a lot of my old ferret Finneagan, who also is in the Mustelidae family. But this guy was no domesicated animal. He played in the water, hunting small fish & scratching his back on the open barnacles that adorn the concrete walls of the channel there. Eventually, we lost sight of him as he went upstream towards Capital Lake.

The seals had caught a salmon as we arrived. It took about 10 minutes for all the hubbub to die down between the 4 seals who were sharing the meal. Then they joined the others to hunt closer to the bridge. They are hard to see from above the water, but you can tell where they are by the patterns the fish make as they flee. Many of the salmon bear bright pink spots where they must have narrowly escaped becomes a seals meal.

The Sunchild had fun throwing pebbles into the water, and watching how the fish responded. If there were fish near the impact, the fish would scatter, but if they were far away, they were come closer to investigate. The smaller the pebble, the less effect it had.

 

We pulled the Sunchild's compound bow out of the garage the other day. On our way up the pennisula last week, we had stopped at our friends house out in Mud Bay, and he had an archery target set up. He also had a rope swing, which was great fun too, but the archery target was pretty inspiring.

When we dug out the bow, the Sunchild had difficulty drawing it. He has been pretty persistant, though, and has been getting stronger every day.

There is a local archery place with beginner's shooting clinics. We hope to visit there real soon. 

Road Trip! And it was about time. We were all going a bit crazy here in town, so a drive up the penninsula was in order. We drove up to Hoodsport, and then headed inland towards Lake Cushman. It was a lovely drive, and we made it into the national forest lands too. After driving, and stopping countless times, we finally had to park Dora, because we could see that the road was collapsing up ahead, and chancing it seemed like a bad idea.

As it turned out, there was a lovely waterfall a little ways away from where we parked. The guys climbed around and I took pictures, and we enjoyed the refreshing mountain air. We made it up to 3000ft before time constraints determined that we had to head back to Olympia. It was a beautiful day, and we are excited for our next journey to the mountains. 

We scored a great deal at the Goodwill yesterday: an almost complete DK Robotics set. The previous owner had cracked the battery housing on their first model, and must have given up at that point. With a little ingenuity, and a nice wide rubber band, we figured out how to get it working again.

We spent the afternoon working on the half completed car robot. It was pretty neat. It used string with knots in it as it's program, with which it steered itself around the room. It was a bit difficult to control though. We are looking forward to working on some more robotics soon. 

We went on a long awaited trip to the State Capitol today. The Sunchild has been fascinated with the structure since we first moved to Olympia, and has often asked when we could make a trip. So today we did.

The Legislative Building is the cool one with the dome. It has fabulous steps out front, like something out of a law movie. The inside is done in several different kinds of marble, and it has that grand, echoing sound that you only find in large enclosures made of polished stone. We wandering upstairs, and saw the State Seal on the floor of the Rotunda. Indigo had hoped to be able to get a view from up inside the dome, but we were out of luck on that part.

We did visit the Senate Gallery, where I got to rest my weary feet on century old wooden benches with comfy leather cushions. We talked about laws, and how democracy works, and how we could come and watch the proceedings at some point when the state congress is in session.

We visited the State Receiving Room, too, and saw some more gorgeous marble. There was even some with patches in it the color of garnet. It was really quite beautiful.

We toured around the campus for a bit longer, but our bellies began to rumble, and we cut our tour short. But we did accomplish what we set out to do: visit the cool building with the big dome on it! 

We have been on a theatrical theme lately. All day today we, worked on masks. It was good fun. I had checked out a variety of drama books out of the library, and the Sunchild immediately wanted to make a robot mask. I set him up with some materials, cut the eyeholes, and he was off. We spray painted it too- he can only wear it for a few minutes at a time because it is still a bit stinky, but he is pretty pleased with the result.

We also worked on bird masks, which involved pulling out the acrylic paints and painting sheets of paper which we then cut into the shapes of feathers and glued onto a domino mask. We have plans to do even more of this sort of thing. The Sunchild thought it would be neat to make a crane mask out of plain white paper. It will be interesting to see what we come up with.

Earlier this week, we made it out to McClane Forest, and walked the long loop. Indigo brought a slingshot, and had fun teasing the ducks. He would shoot in a direction that they weren't, and then would rush to the spot, hoping to find bread or some other delectable. The lady Wood Ducks fell for it for much longer than the Mallards did.

I am reading a new homeschooling book "Homeschooling Our Children, Unschooling Ourselves" which is a autobiographical account of one families journey through homeschooling. Reading it has helped me to remove myself somewhat from the paper chase, and focus more on the learning that is already happening. We had a great time yesterday talking about scientific notation, after he picked up a calculator and started playing around with it. Our talk branched out into how one computes 10 to the 9th power. Then we started working with 2s, and he got that pattern as well. I don't expect him to remember it at a moments notice, but he was fascinated by the way the numbers were interacting in a way that just doesn't happen with worksheets. We talked about 9s, too, and they make pretty neat patterns as well.

Of course, as soon as I let go of the need to pressure him about paperwork, he announced "I think I want to start doing worksheets on Monday." The trick, for me, is to not nag him about it on Monday- because then it becomes about my need, not his. 

The Sunchild is working hard on his Lego fortress. He is intending to enter in their current contest, which is to design & build a fortress for the new Toa Inika.

It is rather intricate, and has lots of moving parts. Capturing it digitally is proving to be somewhat problematic.