Last day of swimming lessons

Yesterday was Sophie's last day of Swim Lessons. For six weeks we have been going to the YMCA twice a week to swim during the rec. swim which is followed by Sophie's swim lesson. Six weeks ago Sophie wouldn't even put her head under the water or let go of the wall without water wings or some other float. Major progress has taken place during these last few weeks. Sophie is now a very good swimmer.Monkey, airplane, soldier are the arm movements for the basic back stroke. YEAH! Sophie can do it all by herself.
Her instructor said she was no longer being challenged in that class level and that we should sign her up for the Youth Swimming class next time rather than beginning swimming. Wow what a change!
Henry likes to be in the pool. He usually likes to have a grip on either the side of the pool or Mom's fingers. He is experimenting with floating on his back as well.
With the floats (power pack as Sophie calls it) strapped on, Ian can tootle around the pool quite well. Here he is still testing the water. He isn't quite sure about getting in. We have certainly been using the pool at the YMCA!

Our Nature Walk

We take nature walks all the time (Very Charlotte Mason of us). This isn't always easy. We live in the city so we don't have big open places to roam around in. We have to be creative and drive a little to get to nature sometimes. We often go to the park but even that doesn't feel like nature sometimes. Yesterday my daughter decided we needed to just walk around the block. She also wanted to bring the camera so we could take pictures of what we found.



Just outside our front door the kids found a few rolly polly bugs. We called them rolly pollies or potato bugs growing up. I have no idea what the scientific name would be. Henry followed it around for awhile as it tried desperately to get away from him.



We walked around to the side of the house and there we found a Mosquito eater. Another bug for which I use the term I grew up using.



Just over the fence in our neighbor's yard there are some beautiful roses.




I hope the neighbors on our block don't mind if we touch all their plants. Children just don't understand the idea of look but do not touch. Besides that is the best part of exploring nature. Feeling the different textures.





I did know these two trees. Apple (don't ask me which kind) and a Magnolia tree.

My daughter informed that the palm tree is her favorite tree. She loves that they are so tall.


One of the things my kids noticed this time on our nature walk was all the spider webs in the bushes. They pointed them out everywhere. Maybe this is because we just read a Magic School bus book about spiders so it was on the mind.

Great walk! And didn't have to go more then half a block.

Doodlebug

Last week a old neighbor of ours gave my animal loving Sophie a large giraffe. Sophie is so excited to have this permanant guest in her room.She tried to come up with a name for her giraffe. She at first called it giraffie but that was just wasn't right yet. So one day she found a book on the shelf about a horse called Doodlebug and decided that that was the name for her giraffe. So Doodlebug it is for now. I am sure she will change it again.
It is amazing how much play time Doodlebug has gotten over the last week. She is always given a pillow and a blanket at night. And Doodlebug has a lot of babies to take care of. Soph and Ian gather up all the other giraffes in our house (which is actually more than I would have thought) and Doodlebug takes care of them. Soph was never a girl to play with dolls but her animals sure know how to take care of their babies.

Henry doesn't need a chair

I used to hear the scraping sound of the chair being pushed around in the kitchen. I haven't been hearing that sound recently. Henry has decided he doesn't need the chair anymore. He just pulls himself up to the sink to play in the water.What is a mom supposed to do whith a 2 year old that can climb anything.

Park Day Trip to See Tortoises

Every Wednesday we get together with a group from church and go to the park. But one week in May we went to see some large tortoises that a family keeps as pets.
The kids had a great time feeding all those Tortoises.
Riding them was even more fun!

We all really enjoyed this outing. We are going to have to do this again.

Starting

Since we have to officially start our private school in the Fall, I thought it would be a good idea to pick a name for our school and start a blog to post the exciting things that we are doing. As we debated different names my kids wanted to pick out a mascot first. Soph is very into sea creatures at the moment. She loves dolphins and whales. So we decided to go with an ocean name. Sea Star Academy is the name we liked the best.