Public School Started Today so we Honored the Occasion by Having School Outdoors :)

 Our holiday weekend was cold, rainy and windy.  This morning of course was beautiful and sunny.  And it was coincidentally the first day for public schoolers.  (We started a couple weeks ago).  So, in honor of the occasion, we had our school outside today, at the big picnic table on the deck, with an amazing clear-sky view of the mountains.  Life is good :)

 Our very artistic ten year old is working his way through an in-depth art curriculum this year.  He's working on Nature Journaling by Barry Stebbing at the moment.  There are 47 lessons in this one, and then we will begin working on the more in-depth drawing course which is intended to be a 3-year curriculum.  He was working on drawing trees this morning, learning about shadows and shading techniques.  How can you draw a tree inside?  Ha.  Good excuse to go out and observe the real thing after watching the video.

 The five year old is working on writing his letters.

The three year old is doing the same thing as his 5 year old brother.  I will try to keep them together for as much stuff as I can (obviously making adjustments wherever needed).  The five year old has autism and is considerably behind, and the three year old is sharp as a tack, so for the most part, they are able to work pretty well together.

 I mean seriously people, How can you not take school outside when you have a view like this???

 I found these handwriting sheets on Pinterest.  They go along with the story David Goes to School by David Shannon.  He also wrote No, David! which happens to be one of my five year old's favorite books. He was thrilled to see the pages with David on them, and it helped hold his interest.

 The sun was getting pretty intense, so we had to pull out the sunglasses.  Who says you can't look cool while doing school? :)

 Now this part absolutely kills me, but we have agreed to let our five year old attend public school for a couple hours four afternoons a week.  I know this doesn't seem like much to most of you, but this is our 17th year of homeschooling, and this just goes against everything about who we are.  But the five year old has autism, and we live in a very small town with no other options for therapeutic services.  So to the school it is.  This is actually less time each week than we sent him to his specialized preschool last year, so I think we'll be okay.

 Apparently the most interesting part of his day was getting to ride the bus home.  It's the only thing he would even talk about.

 No offense to teachers or public school people.  My sister in law is a teacher and I respect her greatly.  It's just that it's not for us.  So, we'll give this a try for now, but if it's not what we want, I'm confident I can do as good a job at home.  (Again, no disrespect intended.)

 Later this afternoon the ten year old had a football scrimmage.  I had to laugh - the high school team was just finishing their practice, and the whole sideline of the track was lined with computers.  The school district supplies them for every student.  And there they all were, just lined up...

 The kids do some interesting stretches before the game.  It's good, but it sure looks funny.

 Our son is the second tallest on the team.  Not sure what happened to the tall one.  The kids on the team range from 3rd grade through 5th grade, and ours (#75) is a 5th grader.  He's not tall, but he's not short either... until he stands next to the center :)

 Most of the boys wear long socks.  It didn't occur to me that he didn't really have any until I saw him on the field ... in ski socks... as in super-cold-weather-keep-your-feet-from-getting-frostbite-socks.  Yeah.  Those are gonna smell amazing after the game.  But hey, they are long, and they do have a bit of orange on them, so I see his logic...

 This is his assistant coach.  This guy is one of the most encouraging people I've ever seen in kids sports.  He had the same coach and assistant coach last year, and we were thrilled to see him with them again.  I love the shirt. It says, "Here I am.  What are your other 2 wishes?"  LOL

 The team did really well.  There are four teams all together - orange, green, black and white.  They played a series of plays against each team, taking turns on offense and defense, and starting at the 30 yard line.  The coaches would come in and scoot kids over, move them where they wanted and run the play.  It was a great way for the kids to see their plays in action.

 The three year old thought it was too hot and wanted to get out of the sun.  So I told him to sit still and I would shade him.  And believe it or not, he DID have a nap today.  But all the same, he nearly fell asleep on the ground.

 Toward the end I caught him sitting here spitting - as in making car noises.  Whatever you call that.  But basically, he was over it and really tired.

 The five year old on the other hand, wouldn't even come out to the field.  He just stayed by the gate.  Too many people, and too much out of the ordinary.  He stayed right there for over an hour.

 The head coach is on the left in the green shirt.

He came up with some great plays.  It should be a good year.  They beat all the teams in the scrimmage, and look promising.  There is only one team I'm really worried about, but it's mostly because of one player.  And when they switch to 11-man ball at the end of the season (where the 4th and 5th graders play against a couple of other towns) that kid will make a great impact.  It's gonna be a good season :)

 Not to be outdone, the three year old found himself a helmet when we got home. It's a little worse for the wear - missing the face mask, and also on backwards, but it was a football kind of night. :)  He was riding his bike while I finished up dinner.

Labor Day at the Lake

 Our weekend was cold and rainy. We wanted to get out and fish, but it was windy and chilly and rainy.  Finally on Monday we decided it was better than it had been all weekend and we were going regardless of the temperature.

Honestly, for the first part of the afternoon, it was pretty nice.  We were in a sheltered spot and the sun was shining.

 The only problem was that the fish weren't biting.  That, and the wind kept blowing our lines back to shore.

 The boys gave up fishing before long and were watching some minnows by the edge of the lake.

When it was time to go, we started packing up and realized the five year old's line was reeled in, but the hook was hanging in the water ... and there was a minnow attached.

 He had told us he wanted to catch a baby fish, so I guess he got what he asked for :)

 It was awfully slippery though :)

 Some people walked by on the path next to us and asked if we were having any luck.  My husband told them that we had only caught this one "monster."  And ever since then the five year old has said he caught a monster fish.  It seems that boys learn young when it comes to fish stories...

 The little guy had fun picking flowers and he and the five year old continually brought me flowers through the day.  I brought my book along and enjoyed the sunshine.

 Since the big fish weren't biting, we packed up and headed to the bigger lake nearby.

 The boys and I stayed on the beach and played in the sand.

 We were in more wind over here, but the sun was still out for most of the time.  I did end up putting on my jacket though, and anyone who knows me knows that means it was chilly.  Very chilly.

 The lake has an amazing view.

 The crazy 10 year old thought he would swim.

 And of course the brothers do what he does - monkey see, monkey do.  He was grabbing wet sand, running back to me...

 ...and throwing it down right by me.  Then he would squat down and try to make it into a castle.  I got pretty sandy in the process.

 As soon as we got to the beach, my husband wandered off in search of dinner.  Unfortunately there weren't any fishy volunteers.

  

 I love the blues and greens of the water ,and the way the shadows fell on hill on the other side.  It was very relaxing.

 We had a couple bottles of bubbles in the car.  It was windy enough that they didn't even have to blow them.  They just held the wand up and let the wind do it.

 The ten year old was trying to catch the bubbles.  That should give you an idea of how windy it was.  It was blowing them to him a good 20 feet away and they were going fast enough he couldn't catch them all.

 The five year old decided he wanted to go "swimming" so I rolled up his pant legs.  He quickly pulled off his shirt - which I thought was funny given that I knew even his knees wouldn't get wet.  And it was cold.  I couldn't get him to put his shirt back on for a long time.

 He was standing on the dry sand, and when the waves came within a foot or two, he would run away.

 Someone had dug a trench, which the boys thought was fun to play in.

 The three year old just kept running back and forth along the edge of the water.  He actually got in clear up to his back end.  And he never complained about being cold.

 

When we were heading to the car, after the shoes were back on, we came across this big puddle.  It took a lot of talking to convince him not to walk into it.

It was a fun day, but our hoped-for fish dinner didn't get to happen.  We went home empty-handed and had tacos for dinner :)