Currituck Beach Lighthouse and the Outer Banks Center for Wildlife Education - Oct 2012

(Still catching up!)

We took a few small field trips from our beach house while we were in the Outer Banks in October.  One day we visited the Currituck Beach Lighthouse and the nearby Outer Banks Center for Wildlife Education.  The lighthouse was very cool, and a good workout too!  We climbed all 214 steps to the top... but there were a LOT of bees buzzing around up there and we chickens immediately went right back down.  I did bravely pop out and quickly snap a few shots of the view before running away, though.

A week at the beach - Outer Banks, NC - Oct. 2012

Bear with me here, I'm catching up.

My kids got to see the ocean for the first time in October.  It was wonderful.  We went to the Outer Banks with my parents and my aunt, and we shared a house right on the oceanfront that would have cost $3800 a week if we'd have gone in the middle of summer during the busy season... but which only cost $1200 a week (which we then split three ways) during the off season.  Boom, suddenly a beach trip became feasible!  The weather was a bit chilly and rainy the first two days, but it was absolutely perfect for the rest of the week, with temps in the upper 70's/low 80's. 

Home sweet home for a week

Text from my mom:  "I am Sheldon and have picked my spot.  The yellow chair is mine."

Our room.  Aaaaahhh, I LOVE sleeping to the sound of the ocean!

The top deck offered lovely views.

Our view...

 

A little confirmation that something is working here... and some thoughts on technology.

Just a small, special moment that I want to remember:  last night at bedtime, as we sat down for storytime and I started to read, Monkey took the book from my hands and took over.  He read The. Whole. Thing.  That's right, my boy read his little brother a bedtime story last night, while I just sat back and watched with a glowing heart.

This was especially exciting to me because lately, Monkey has been very reluctant to do any reading. I have backed off and waited for him to be ready, because my goal for my kids is that I want them to love reading as much as I do, and I don't want it to ever feel like a painful chore.  He was very excited about sounding out words and learning to read for a while, but then he suddenly began resisting.  Maybe I started putting too much pressure on him, or perhaps I was correcting him too quickly when he would made a mistake, instead of giving him time to figure it out on his own.  Occasionally over the past few weeks though, he has been jumping in and reading a few lines of whatever I'm reading aloud - and he is constantly surprising me by knowing many words (and some are big words!) that I didn't think he knew.

I think some combination of watching/listening as I read aloud, and also playing video games has sparked this seemingly spontaneous learning.  After much internal struggle in trying to decide how technology should be handled in our home, right now I do not put limits on screen time, but I DO limit what he *does* with his screen time.  Meaning, I monitor what tv shows and movies he watches and what kind of games he plays, but he is free to choose what to play or watch within the approved selections, and how long to do so.  Some days he spends a lot of time playing on the computer, and some days he doesn't.  But on those days that he does, I do not think it's wasted time.  This is just a format that "toys" have evolved into, IMO, and I think there is a great deal of learning happening during this kind of play.  He often chooses educational games - for example, those on www.pbskids.org and www.coolmath.org.  But even in games that are not specifically educational in purpose, there is still value.  Besides motivating learning to read in order to navigate menus and learn intructions for how to play a game, he is also learning basic logic - what steps need to be taken to solve a certain problem (i.e. get past a difficult level) and the satisfaction one gets for solving a tough problem on their own.  He learns how to deal with frustration when he doesn't succeed right away, and he definitely practices persistence and keeps trying over and over until he figures out the solution.

I am constantly reading conflicting articles about this subject, and you can find many on both sides of it.  So far, I have found the pro-technology side of the argument to be more compelling.  I think technology gives us amazing tools to make learning interactive and FUN, and I think people fear it unnecessarily.  Just because it's relatively "new" to the educational scene doesn't make it a bad thing.

Here's a list of links I've bookmarked over the past year or so, that I've found particularly thought-provoking:

No Thank You, We'll Stay Plugged

TED Talk - Jane McGonigal: Gaming Can Make A Better World

TED Talk - Gabe Zichermann:  How Games Make Kids Smarter

Limiting Video Games is Delusional

Video Games:  An Hour a Day is Key to Success at Life

Surprising Things Parents Should Know About Video Games

The Many Benefits for Children Playing Video Games

Value and Uses of TV for Unschoolers

Benefits of Video Games

A final thought, which came to me as I was thinking about this one day:  I wouldn't buy a kid a toy car and then say, "Ok, you can only play with this toy for one hour a day, and then I'm going to take it away."  That seems silly, right?  Well, I think the same thing applies to technology-based "toys" too.

I welcome any thoughts from anyone on both sides of this issue.  How do you handle technology use in your home?

Real conversation I had today + Happy New Year!

This is the Facebook status I posted this morning.  I wanted to share it here as well, for your amusement:

Conversation that actually happened this morning, as I was making sangria for tonight:
Me (calling Shane at work):  It has come to my attention that I have never actually opened a bottle of wine by myself before.  I sat on the floor with the bottle between my knees and pulled on the corkscrew with all my might, but I can't get that thing to budge.  Any advice?
Shane:  Pulled?!  No, you put the little teeth against the bottle and pry with the other side of the corkscrew.
Me: ... OHHH!  Yeah, that was WAY easier!
Shane:  Are you SERIOUS?!  You didn't know that?
Me:  No I really didn't.  I hardly ever drink wine, and on the rare occasions when I did, someone else always opened it!  Totally LMAO at myself!

Yeah, so that's my TIL for today.  Just wanted to wish everyone out there a Happy New Year!  The one thing I resolve to do is get back into writing regularly.  Apologies for the sporadic-ness of the past couple months.

New Year's is not my favorite holiday - in fact it usually depresses me.  I may have even written about this before, but I am acutely aware that *these* are the best days of my life - right now - while my kids are small and every day is an adventure.  When New Year's Eve comes, I feel sad knowing that another whole year has slipped by already.  I guess this is a good thing; that I'm so lucky to have a good year worthy of missing as it passes.  Today I am focusing on feeling grateful about that and am in better spirits than I normally am on this holiday.

I hope everyone reading this has also had a year wonderful enough to miss as it becomes history, and that 2013 is full of goodness for you as well.

Snow Play!

If my kids were in public school, they would not have had the opportunity to drop everything to go outside and play in today's first stick-to-the-ground snow, which both arrived and melted within about 2 hours.  I did have to cut their snow play short, though, because we had to leave for a playdate with my friend and her 5-year-old twins... but if they were in public school they would not have had that opportunity either because in school 6-year-olds only spend time with other 6-year-olds and 3-year-olds only spend time with other 3-year-olds.  So ages 6, 5, and 3 would not have been permitted to mix and have three and a half hours of free play together.  That would be anarchy, right?  :)

PS.  Sorry again that I haven't written much lately!  My hard drive is full and I can't fit any new pics onto it to put onto the blog until I back up some crap and delete it to make room.  I've also reached my limit on free online photo storage for the blog, so I am going to either have to pay a small monthly fee to be able to add more, OR find time to learn how to somehow host images elsewhere for free.  So I have been procrastinating on dealing with that.  Sorry!

Road trip Oct 2012

Finally catching up on vacation pics from our trip to the Outer Banks back in October...  here are some highlights from the road trip.  I joined AAA the day before we left and got a triptych for navigation - first time I'd ever used one and it was super helpful - I totally recommend it.  (Side note:  The AAA store has TONS of great FREE travel info for members - maps, brochures, etc.  I came out of there with a big pile of stuff with future field trips in mind!)  I really love road trips - in my opinion they are half the fun of going on vacation.  I love being "stuck" together in the car and getting to enjoy each other's company, while watching interesting new sights pass by our windows.

On the trip, I decided to make it "my thing" to take a picture of every state welcome sign we passed.  I got all except the elusive West Virginia.  Somehow I missed it both on the way down and on the way back.  My OCD was really itching.  Grrr.   

The DS kept Monkey pretty happily occupied...

While Bug found other ways to entertain himself.  (Whoopie cushions are SO hilarious to a 2yr old!)

This cool toy that I picked up on Amazon also helped keep him busy.

I love driving through the mountains.

Tunnels are exciting!

A scenic group of windmills.  We passed several of these clusters.

The boys snuggled into their bed in the hotel room (where we stopped halfway overnight), watching cartoons on CABLE - what a treat!  (We do not have cable at home, which makes us pretty much Amish, I know.)

Next post:  Our arrival at the beach!

Just some thoughts I wanted to record...

Ok, I have tons of homeschooling-related stuff to post, but I just wanted to quickly record some thoughts that came to me today...

Bug's birthday is coming up, and this evening I started to reminisce about my pregnancy with him... which eventually led me to think about my uncle who passed away about 6 weeks before he was born.  Not only is it amazing that Bug has been here 3 years already, but I can't believe Uncle Kim (Bug's middle name comes from his middle name) has been gone for 3 years either.  I was remembering being very pregnant at his funeral - the only occasion I had to wear "dressy" maternity clothes during either of my pregnancies - and having my distant relatives fawning over me and asking "Boy or girl, when are you due, do you have a name picked out?" type questions, which was actually kind of a helpful distraction since I detest funerals.  Different memories and images of him are flashing through my mind.  I remember his voice, the distinct way he talked, his laugh - and how he always seemed to be laughing.  I remember running into him at work one night, when I was pregnant with Monkey, and I remember him timidly asking if he could feel the baby kick... and I remember him standing with me, smiling, in the middle of my store, with his hands on my belly.  (Side note: strangely, I normally do not like other people touching me or being in my personal space, but when I was pregnant I actually liked letting people feel my belly, sharing that.)

I still feel a twinge of anger that he's gone whenever I think about it.  Just not fair that this world had to lose someone so smart and fun and full of life, so early.  So, that's all.  Just missing you, Uncle Kim, and don't really have anywhere else to address that feeling so it's going here.