The Simple Things....

I am amazed by how much the boys learn just by being outside on our walks. They are very familiar with pine cones, baby pine cones (what we call the really small ones), and twin pine cones (two attached together). They know what pine straw is and what acorns (and twin acorns)are. They know all the types of construction trucks and buses. They regularly see fighter planes and helicopters. In fact, last week they each brought a hot wheels helicopter with us on our walk. So we talked about helicopters and they both made their "wubba wubba and dududududud" sounds. As we walked into our driveway a real helicopter flew nice and slow over our house so the boys got a close up view. It was perfect-I couldn't have PLANNED that!

They know what a water tower is, what the US flag looks like, where the hospital is and that doctors and nurses work there. We live under a mile from a hospital so whenever we walk past, I tell them who works there. The last time we had a doctor's appointment at the hospital, we were walking out of the peds clinic and I told the boys to say bye bye to the tech...W yelled "bye bye doctor!"

They know where the water is and we have stopped to listen to fish jumping in the water. They know what a palm tree is and what a sidewalk is. Not to mention all of the wildlife and insects we have seen. I am so happy we purchased that double jogger. I think our dogs are too.

Onto something different...but still "simple". This morning the boys got a hold of their beach shovels and started to throw them around. I was trying to think what they could use them indoors for. I always hear about people using dry pasta or beans for projects so I pulled out a bag of dry black beans and dumped them into a big bowl. I gave them each a smaller bowl and told them to scoop out the beans and pour them into their bowls. We moved down to measuring cups (bc the shovels were too awkward) and eventually moved down to their fingers.

I was impressed how long they spent doing this and how focused they were. Then I told them to pour their bowls back into the big bowl. Then we went out for a walk-success. HOWEVER, when we came back into the house we were distracted doing other things and I ended up in their bedroom doing puzzles with J. Then I heard the beans.

Uh oh.

Little stinker. I guess the bean project was a success until I left them out!