Thursday, September 30, 2010

Soccer with CAYS

Spring and Fall Soccer with the Carlisle Area Youth Soccer (CAYS).

Jose had a fantastic coach in the Spring, Brandon (Red Dragons), and now, this fall, has another fine coach, Jason (Orange Tigers). The kids get to name the teams. Jose is having so much fun and has improved a lot. There are fewer fall pictures in the video - as we are in the midst of the season.

Enjoy!



Music by Santana, "Adouma", from Shaman.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

School on the Weekends


This Saturday our son, who is in Kindergarten, asked me "Why do we have two days off from school?"  "When?"  I asked.  "Why don't we go to school everyday of the week?"  Whaaaat!
My heart started pounding faster, not because I was thinking with a teacher's mind of "are you kidding me?"  Rather, I was amazed and shot with joy that the learning bug has fully caught hold of my little boy! 

I remember playing school with my neices when they were just older than Jose.  They wanted to have all the beanie babies set up at block desks and go through lessons with them using the owl or another chosen one as the teacher, and recruiting our dog Abbey in the school as well.  And now my son has done the same, setting up his own classroom!  Heart be still!!  All of this was Jose's doing.  He used all his "guys" (lovey buddies) including his blankie.  He set them up with bowls for desks (or chair combo) and they each had a Star Wars book to read from.  At the white board we have (for all those early Mommy lessons and Holiday notes), Jose wrote down his lesson on figuring out which groups had "more than" the other.  Jose did just review this last week at school, but it was a good place to start with his new recruits!  Yes, Daddy and Abbey joined in, as Mommy was attempting to finish her Spanish Potato Tortilla for dinner (more on that later), and take school photos.

My jaw literally dropped open as he began talking and explaining to his class what they were looking for and answering their questions and patiently explaining what he was doing.  He even corrected Daddy who mistakenly called the last figures "squares" when they were obviously "trapezoids", as the teacher nicely pointed out!  And here Dad thought they were just sloppy squares!  Almost peed a little when I witnessed that exchange.

Jose has been voluntarily going through practice workbooks, wanting to finish as many pages as possible (until another interest creeps in).  Jose loved what he was doing with "his class", and at night while saying his "I'm thankful for . . . ", he said " . . . having such a nice teacher Mrs. .  . . !"  Makes me so happy and feeling blessed for having good people sharing their love with him.













Jose then wrote out a school calendar.  He knew that Sunday was the 26th (I think from their calendar at school) and he proceeded to draw the apple calendar on the board . . . backwards!  He fit in the last numbers, back to the 1st, in the last space of this "spiral" he had going.  How is that for new spacial thinking and design problem solving!  I only noticed this work as he was nearing the end (again, I was saving dinner from disaster).  Who knew he could count backwards!






Oh, and so as not to forget Stars Wars, this is his Tie fighter ship.



As I kept glowing about the Jose's school, Larry responded, "Yeah, my heart would glow too to see him examining the guts of some fish!"  Way to bring me back to reality.  We all have our special interests!

Love to all the children learning out there!  And that means you too . . . adult wonders!

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

A plant's-eye view | Video on TED.com

Michael Pollan gives a plant's-eye view Video on TED.com

Pollan references Polyface, which is an amazing family endeavor. I can't wait to go on a tour someday. We live about three hours from Staunton, Virginia.

http://www.polyfacefarms.com/default.aspx