Back To School

 I hope all you homeschool families had a fun "first day" of school!

 Since we mostly do "child led learning" we school all year long (since we never stop learning/ discovering, right?) but it's nice to have a first day like everyone else, to re-charge, and re-motivate. We celebrated by visiting the library & park and making root beer floats. Yay! Other than that, the beginning of the school-year consists of me writing down what we do each day in a new notebook, adding new puzzles & games to our repertoire of activities. Fynn is now in 2nd Grade and Rowan is 2 1/2, so he's not even technically in preschool yet.

 Here's a recap of some of the fun we've been having this summer:

Rowan's Beautiful Planets

Fynn's Homemade Exercise Bike

A picture of Fynn in his Den, where he says we found him.

Watch For Sants Eating Your Pants.

Rowan Being A Whale

Computer drawings of the Earth and Moon, and what their respective skies look like. Fynn made one of these of every major planet.

Rowan's Happy Sun

Painting Planets

Sheriff and Lightning McQueen drinkin' their drinks.

Rowan's Uranus

My Uranus

Two of Many Minions

Speed Limit 20 MPH

 Hope you all had a wonderful summer. Here's to a terrific new school year!
 ~Beth

Fynn Accidentally Runs in a 25 Mile Marathon!

Okay, so he didn't actually run 25 miles- he ran 3 miles. Non-stop, except to draw Jupiter, and Saturn, and to get a drink of water.

It was a beautiful Sunday a couple weeks ago, and we wanted to enjoy the sunshine, what with the weather being what it's been (nothing but rain, rain rain).

Fynn thought he wanted to make a scale model of the Solar System from our house to Old Town, and he wanted to run there, because he's been into running lately. We would stop where the orbits of the different planets would be and draw their respective pictures with sidewalk chalk. The rest of us would take bikes, and there's a seat on the back of Rico's bike that Fynn can hop on whenever he gets tired. So off we went.

Of course, the first few planets are very close to the sun, which was at our house. After Jupiter, we were in for the long haul. As we rode and ran down Vine street, we found ourselves in the middle of a marathon. It was kind of cool. Fynn was just goin' and goin' (like the Energizer Bunny) and other people were running along side of us. Someone said "All he needs is some shorts and some running shoes." (He was clad in Crocs and jeans and a florescent T-shirt.) There were people on the sidelines cheering on the runners. They were cheering Fynn on too. When they saw that kid just running and running, people got really excited. They said "Way to go buddy!" and "Awesome!" and "You're doing great!" and he got some high fives. The whole experience was so positive and uplifting, it was like walking (or running) on air! Finally the finish line was in sight and we veered off since we weren't actually in the marathon. It was very moving, though, to hear that roar of a crowd cheering for the marathoners. I can see now why people want to run ~ because it makes you feel great, like you can do anything, and because you feel so encouraged!

From the finish line we headed over to Lee Martinez Park, where we went on the swings for a long time, and then to DazBog for refreshments. After that Fynn also ran half of the way home before hopping on the bike. Way to go, kiddo!

~Beth