Play Ball

My son is a member of our local little league. As part of the end of the year festivities, the league is invited to Turner Field in Atlanta to parade around the field before the big league game begins. We have waited until this moment to take our son to a baseball game (our eight year old daughter has been several times), and we are so glad we did wait. The anticipation, excitement, and finally the thrill of seeing that huge field was WORTH IT! Here all of the teams are, standing in the Hank Aaron ramp, waiting to enter the field:

As they looked out of the tunnel, this is what they saw:

And finally, on the way around to exit the field, I got a smile and wave from my husband and son. Wow - what an awesome thing for a father and son to share.

While some people would just look at this as a fun family outing, I, on the other hand, looked at it as a homeschool adventure. I am learning to see everything in this light - and it's pretty cool. As we were driving downtown to the field, and also to dad's office to pick him up, we had lots of discussions about freeways and signs. My son has recently completed a lapbook about roadsigns, so this was a great review! My daughter has been working on making change. If we gave the parking attendant $20 and the fee for parking was $12, how much change do we get? (and yes, it is a rip off!)

At the stadium we saw lots of statues for baseball greats - Warren Spahn and Hank Aaron to name a few. My husband had talked to both of the kids the night before and shown them his baseball cards - another mini-lesson in history and sports.

Right now my son is obsessed with numbers. He has recently really gotten the concepts of addition and subtraction. The scoreboard was a perfect way to talk about some of these things with him - how many runs ahead were the Braves? How many innings did we have left? How many more balls until the player could walk to first base? If you are buying bags of cotton candy at $3 each, how much does that cost? And if you give the man $10, how much change should you get? In addition to the numbers, there was so much READING to be done at the game - reading all of the players' names on the jumbotron, all of the advertising, etc...

After the first inning a rain delayed had to be called -- but it was very interesting to watch how the workers on the field covered it so quickly and how the constantly tended to the field to keep it in the best condition. My daughter noted there were 24 people working on the crew, and my son noted the rain delay was 45 minutes, with an extra 15 minutes to prepare the field again -- all amounting to a one hour delay. Wow! That's a lot for a five and eight year old to process. I am willing to bet they didn't look at this outing as "school", but it sure provided them with a day's worth of education.

At 10:30 p.m. we decided it was time to go home, even though it was only the bottom of the 6th. Both my husband and I noted how impressed we were with how closely the kids followed the game and what FUN we had with them. We have two very great children.

Getting the hang of it

I think it is safe to say that after 5 months we are getting the "hang" of homeschooling. Here is a picture of my sweet girl working on her history timeline. So far we have worked our way from the Incas, Atzecs and Mayans up to the Revolutionary War. I can honestly tell you that I am learning much of this history for the first time. Oh, I learned the facts and a few important dates, but I never really internalized it and understood the real motivations behind many pivotal events in American History. I'm laughing at the pictures of the tv character, Arthur, in the background. My son is obsessed with drawing and he loves to watch Marc Brown draw Arthur. My five year old's rendition is pretty good, don't you think?

I am learning to relax and let learning be our guide. I am also finding that lapbooks are a great way to commit a lot of information to memory. In a previous post I mentioned a shark lapbook from a Magic School Bus chapter book. Here is the finished product:

I'm also very proud of the fact that even though I do not like math, my daughter has been progressing well with third grade math. We have all of our multiplication facts committed to memory, and we are doing well with division. She is most proud of her knowledge of Roman Numerals and a mastery of money -- we like to play store to learn how to make change!

Now, all of this has come with a "price" to our family.... our home is markedly messier, the laundry piles up a little more, and the kitchen table has been permanently transformed to a work table (we would like to convert our playroom to a school room this summer, but no time for that now), and I have less time for myself. But the peace I have from knowing my child is in a loving environment all day where she is learning at her own pace and loving most days makes it all worth it.

It is also amazing to me the people and opportunities God places in our lives to carry us through any season of life. I have a dear friend from church who invited us on a nature walk today. She is quite knowledgeable about the outdoors and had wonderful things to share with us. I have lived in this particular area of Georgia for five years and had never been to this nature area. She provided a scavenger hunt for the walk, and my daughter promptly pulled out her camera to take photographs of all the things we found. Nature is really full of some wonderfully amazing things if you take the time to look around you.

More importantly, it was a time for us to spend time with a good friend, and also time for us to enjoy the mother-daughter relationship and appreciate everything God has given us.

So, here it is 5:15 p.m. and I am hoping the dinner I set out to thaw is actually thawed, the children are playing outside pressing leaves for daddy, and I can barely keep my eyes open because I'm so tired. But, I can honestly say that for now - life is good!

Beanie Baby Math

Technically, we are not having "school" this week, due to my son's spring break from preschool. I have, however, been gathering materials in anticipation for him being at home with us in the fall. One of the books I got for him through a Scholastic flyer was "If You Were a Plus Sign". This book is one is a series of books about addition, multiplication, division, etc....

I read him the book this morning and he really liked it. He was clutching some Beanie Babies while I was reading him the book, so to reinforce the concept of addition we got out 10 Beanie Babies. (We must have at least 100 Beanie Babies - my mom and dad collected them for the grandchildren!) He started making up his own word problems with the Beanie Babies. "If two Beanie Babies, Bongo and Flash, were sitting in mom's lap, and then mom took two away there would be none!" This was after we had read the Minus Sign book. Who says we need to have a math textbook/workbook for him to grasp these concepts?

I think Kindergarten at home next year is going to be loads of fun!