More pictures from March

We took a "field trip" to Quarry Hill one day. A friend from highschool had contacted me and would be visiting the area with her little girl so we arranged to meet for a hike and a picnic. Norrie is a fan of the big fish inside the nature center.

We've also enjoyed lots of time outside at home.

Norrie...practicing her pouting face. Funny thing is, she wasn't really pouty. Just putting on a show. These pictures were taken early one day when Norrie and I went out in our pjs to watch CW fly his kite. Yes, those are boxers she is wearing. They are Conrad's boxers (that gma Mary made him!) She's taken a liking to these for some reason and loves to sleep in them. Funny girl.

We're going to miss the open fields after planting - it makes for a great place to fly kites!

We are still working on all the spaghetti squash harvested last fall. Here, Norrie is helping mix some with cottage cheese that will go into a casserole for dinner that night.

Conrad - folding planes. He is totally into folding planes this month. He's figured out how to fold every plane in that book. (thanks Aunt Tammy!)

Homeschooling - March

Conrad on occasion now is asked about school. Usually the first question is if he's in school (he'll answer yes). Then he's asked if he likes his teacher (to him, that's an odd question). If he simply replies yes, then the next question may be what he's learning or where he goes to school.

Somedays, like a typical child, he responds "nothing". Other days he'll volunteer information about math, or reading, or science. And sometimes he refers to his letter tower. He's quite proud of this. We put it up before our road trip and he is still very interested in learning and practicing cursive handwriting. (all the writing is his, I just helped tape the paper up)

This month I've focused more on the handwriting (since the interest is there) and on math. He's learned about making and reading charts, pennies and nickels, odd and even, adding (easy peesy he says), partitioning 10, and some other math words like 'symmetry',' plus', 'equals'. Our challenge in math is FOCUSING. I don't know if it's because I'm trying to follow a curriculum or if he's simply not as interested in it.

He is still really interested in science. Last week we made butter using marbles and cream. Yum - we like science we can eat. :)

This month he got his first taste of Shakespeare too. The Children's Dance Theatre performed A Midsummer's Night Dream here in Rochester.

http://postbulletin.com/news/stories/display.php?id=1489782

After seeing the ballet, we picked up an audio recording of the children's version of the story (from the library) and enjoyed listening to that for several days. Over, and over, and over again. That's his style though. Before this, it was Merlin and the Dragons we were listening too. For three weeks. Every day in the car.

Two years old

This month we celebrated Norrie's birthday. "I two!" she'll tell you. She's been hearing her cousin Connor say this since October, so she picked it up pretty quick when we told her she was two now.

We started the morning with a birthday breakfast, singing Happy Birthday and candles. :)

It was a beautiful day so we spent lots of time outside. First we played at Prairie Park. (norrie picked out her own clothes that morning - I love her crazy style!)

Then we went to Oxbow, visited the zoo and hiked before having a small picnic.

I had taken the day off so after Oxbow we went home for naps and quiet time, and waited for daddy to get home from work.

Dinner was a toddler's dream. Hot dogs and mac n cheese! We also had Hansen's soda (something fizzy and yummy to put in wine glasses :)

After dinner we took a hike around the prairie

And played with a gift received earlier in the week from gma Brenda and papa Ray.

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And ended the evening with another round of Happy Birthday and more candles.