October. How can it already be the middle of October? The first week was spent getting into the groove of our finalized schedule which we then threw out the window the second week. Here in Hawaii school is year round so the kids get a fall break. Since we have many dear friends in school this year we decided to skip our regular activities in order to have playdates!


The next week we managed to attend all our activities and even some extras. The School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at University of Hawaii held an incredible 2 day open house. http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/openhouse/

Watching a dry ice volcano and finding out what happens when the tube gets replaced with smaller and smaller tubes. You need to stand further and further away!

Learning how to take a core sample from the Earth (using playdough) .

Painting a Large Mouth Bass and then covering it with paper towel and using a roller to transfer the paint from the fish to the paper towel to get a print of the fish and all is scales.

Counting fish scales under a microscope to determine the fish's age.

Playing a fishing game, she had to look at the size of her fish in order to decide whether she could keep it or if it had to be released back into the ocean. He got to go free, 7 inches too small!

It included tons of hands on activities for the little people but also some amazing displays and presentations for older kids. They got to see a decapitated sword fish, use their voices to try and match the sound waves of a humpback whale and create their own earthquakes. It is only held every two years but it was an amazing day!

We have finally started looking at some curriculum. I've decided to use Saxon math so I dug out the box of manipulitives and decided I'd better let the girls play with them before I start doing some kind of lesson. So the girls dig them out and scatter them all over the table and floor and start creating stories. I decide to read ahead and see what the first lesson is; give kids manipulitives, let them explore them, put them back in the box for the next lesson. The first lesson is for the kids to play? Score, I picked the right curriculum! Hopefully this will keep up, small successes are important.

First Visitor
"Mom, come see we've got our first visitor to the Butterfly Garden!" And sure enough there is a little tiny creature chowing down on our flowers. He stayed for 3 days eating everything in sight but he hasn't been spotted lately. We'll keep our eyes peeled. We've also found a list of native flowers that will attract butterflies so we're going to add some of those to our garden.

This week has been about getting organized. I'm still wading through different curriculum and project ideas trying to find some kind of direction. Its been a wet week, we thought Hurricane Felicia was coming our way but luckily the cool water slowed her down into nothing more than wet weather. Our indoor activities have included banging on the piano, making play dough, reading books and emptying out the coin jar, a favorite activity.

We have a lot of coins in our house and I have placed plastic jars all over the house in an effort to contain them but whenever one of the girls spy the jar the hands go in and the coins go everywhere. We're working on coin names and values but it is not nearly as entertaining as simply grabbing a hand full and dumping them on the floor and watching them scatter.

When the rain really starts to pour and we can no longer see the mountains out of our windows due to all the clouds its time to throw on the swimsuits and go dance in the rain. We get out our inflatable toys and boats and head up the driveway to send them afloat down the incline towards the storm drain. We race the boats and check to see if the water is deep or fast moving enough to support a little person riding a boogie board but so far no luck. We try and figure out where our river is deepest due to the shape of the driveway and where the current is strongest due to the merging of streams from all our neighbors' rain gutters. We usually finish with Mom vs. the girls races up and down the driveway and splash fights. Then its time for baths and snacks.

So this week's focus is creating a Butterfly Garden. We recently met Janice Crowl the author and Harinani Orme the illustrator of the book "Pulelehua and Mamaki" at a book signing at the Bishop Museum. The book tells the story of Pulelehua (a Kamehameha Butterfly) and the wise mamaki tree where she grew up and returned to lay her egg. We decided we'd like to see more butterflies. This winter we had a large caterpillar visit us one afternoon and since we couldn't figure out what kind of caterpillar he was, and what kind of food he would need we released him from our terrarium. We believe he returned later as a huge moth so our interest was stoked.

There was also an article in my Canadian Living this month about how to create a butterfly garden and what flowers and trees work best. I'm not sure how this will translate in Hawaii but its worth a go. Yesterday we went to the Garden Shop and picked out some colorful plants. Next we need to find a Crown Flower cutting and start growing our own Crown Flower. Hannah enjoyed painting a pot for our garden.

So the focus this week was reading. We have a list of kindergarten books from a local school and have been visiting multiple libraries hunting down these books and have been introduced to an array of new authors and wonderful books. We've been reading books at breakfast, in the bathtub, in the park and on the coach, anywhere we can find a moment. The focus has been on reading for pleasure and fun, the only way my daughter responds to anything these days. My youngest daughter is quite taken with David Shannon and his book, "No, David!", especially the illustration of David running down the sidewalk naked and another with his finger firmly wedged up his nose. My older daughter enjoyed "When I was Five" by Arthur Howard since, as she explains to everyone she meets these days, "I am five!"

As with most kids, ours learn best by hands on activities. Luckily we have a worm "farm" in our backyard. This worm is named Guana, I'm not sure how she can tell them apart, they all look the same to me but she enjoys giving them names and explaining their relationships to each other. We manage to sneak in some discussion regarding composting and how good the worm fertilizer is for our backyard garden. She's quite content to pick them up and let them crawl all over her. I have to admit Mom is a little less enthusiastic about holding the worms, but I still play along.

So we're beginning a new chapter in our household, homeschooling! I thought by blogging about it, I'd be forced to be more consistent and creative. We've had some good days, the giant hopscotch alphabet in the driveway was a big hit, however anything that involves sitting at the kitchen table is immediately dismissed as "homework, yuck". Tomorrow we're off to story time at the library which will be busy and noisy and then a very active swim lesson. Hopefully during baby sister's nap, we'll manage to mess around with some papier mache. Messy is also well received!