Nodin's Nest

Fun Ways to Inspire Your Child to Write

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:43:00 +0000

I don't know about your children but getting my almost five year old son to write anything is like pulling teeth. It takes him forever to finish one sentence and then if it looks scribbled to him, he will have a fit and start over. Yet when he wants to write something on his own, no problem.

After days of nagging him to finish one page of copy work, I essentially gave up. The next morning (just to show me he could do it), he got a pencil a paper and wrote me this note. I almost fell over!
I know he can write if he wants too, so I'm going to try some sneaky ways to encourage him.

Have him help make the shopping list.
Write notes to Grandma, Santa, etc.
Make an ingredient list before cooking.
Make a list of clues to investigate.
Write measurements before starting a project.
Filling out checks in an old checkbook.
Write down speaking lines to learn for a play.
Help me label anything (files, drawers, storage boxes)
Make an address list of who to send Christmas cards to.
Fill out a blank calendar with important family dates.
Write a song.

This way it won't feel like handwriting practice and he will learn about planning for things as well. If you can think of any more creative ways to inspire the pencil muse, please share!

Where do Old Jack O' Lanterns go to Die?

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:23:00 +0000

Why out under the trees for Mother Nature
to give back to the earth of course!

Do you believe this jack-o-lantern hasn't rotted away yet? I mean, this is Florida, it's still 80 degrees out. I put him out under the tree for the wild creatures to nibble on, the day after Halloween.

I guess the animals in my neighborhood aren't interested in pumpkin.
Although I did see this guy eyeing it today. Maybe I should fill it with peanuts and make it a serving dish!

Nothing Went Bump in the Night.

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:44:00 +0000

Well he did it! My son went trick-or-treating for the first time. He had no hesitation this year. In fact he considers himself an expert on the matter now. He put on his magician costume (without the long pants, too hot here) and went out into the driveway to wait for Grandma. She was nice enough to come over and hand out our candy while we went around the neighborhood.

He got so involved in looking at everyone's decorations, he almost forgot to go up to the doors.

I was frequently reminded of the rules, "No houses with the lights out" and "No eating until we get home mom!"

When his bag was full (I purposely gave him a very small one), we headed home. Grandma brought cupcakes with her so he opted for one of those rather than candy. He already knows we are not keeping most of the candy.

I had as much fun as he did! Some of the costumes we passed were very elaborate and of course I forgot my camera. When I was tucking him into bed he told me that next year he wanted to be something really scary. He said that everyone told him he was cute this year and he didn't want to be cute because he's a big boy now! Does that mean "cute" is now a bad word? I hope not, because he will always be adorable to me.

Happy Halloween!

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:42:00 +0000

We have a busy day tomorrow, but I wanted to wish everyone a very

Happy and safe Halloween!

The Pumpkin Hawk!

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:41:00 +0000

My son wanted me to carve a hawk's face, so I did my best.

I'm very pleased with the result. It's a Nodin's Nest original!

Pumpkin Picking in South Florida

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:06:00 +0000

This week we went to the pumpkin patch. The South Florida version that is. This amounts to a vacant lot next to the highway, between a gas station and a fast food restaurant. As far as my son is concerned though, it's a little piece of country heaven. He had a blast running between the rows of trucked in pumpkins and touching the prickly hay bales.

They had Indian corn and mini pumpkins for sale as well. I loved the antique items they used to display old Halloween decorations and of course the scarecrows they made. We picked up a couple of pumpkins and one bunch of Indian corn for our front porch. I realized while trying to take pictures that he really needed a haircut and that was our next stop.

Abracadabra!

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:59:00 +0000

Look what we got in the mail today!

My son decided to be a Magicianthis year for Halloween.

The costume arrived today and he is thrilled!

He likes this one because there is nothing on his face, he is afraid of masks. The hat is a little smashed, but I think if I place it on a form of some kind, it will regain it's shape before Halloween. I was glad he chose something that could be used year round for dress up play as well.

I thought about making him a costume this year but after spending a huge amount of time on previous years costumes, only to have him refuse to go, my heart wasn't in it this year.

He seems very excited to go this time and hopefully won't chicken out. If not, we will have fun handing out candy together anyway.

Once he actually goes and enjoys dressing up, I'm sure I'll go back to making a costume for him.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will finally be his first year trick-or-treating!

Our School Corner

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:08:00 +0000

Happy Wordless Wednesday!
This used to be our dining room, now it's our school corner. There is also a bookcase on another wall and a dresser full of supplies.

We were very lucky to have a microscope to use this year,

thanks to my veterinary friend!
For more photo fun visit 5 Minutes For Mom.

Photo Contest

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 22:11:00 +0000

5 Minutes For Mom is having another terrific photo contest!

This time the prize is $1000 for your best silly kid photo.

This is my entry. Go check it out and enter your own photo.

The holidays are coming and who couldn't use $1000?

Mommy Guilt

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:29:00 +0000

Today I left my house without my son. No big deal right? Most parents do that occasionally at least. I however, rarely do. My son has been with me daily since he was born. That was the way I planned it. Being self employed, it was easy to do.

So this morning, my mother and brother came to spend time with him while I ran errands and did my pet sitting rounds. I admit that I do feel odd when I look in my rear view mirror and he's not in his car seat. For a slight second I think, where is he? Is he safe?

Add to that the questions and looks I got all day from people who are used to seeing him with me, and I came home with a huge case of "mommy guilt".

The bank teller with lollipop in hand, "Where's your son, is he not with you?", almost sounded accusatory. Then the guard at the gated community where I was walking a dog, strains his neck to peer in my back seat and scan the floor boards looking for obvious mommy violations. I just smiled and said "He's with Grandma." I don't know if he believed me.

This went on everywhere I went! I know he's a great kid, and sure everyone loves him, but give mom a break! Why can't I go out alone? It's not like I was even doing anything fun, just the same stuff I do everyday, only without him. I realize, that some of this is self-imposed guilt. I'm sure none of those people really think I did anything awful to my son, right? They were just concerned because they see him with me everyday, right? Yeah, I'm sure that's all it was...

Halloween at Etsy.com!

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:44:00 +0000

It's October and I've been over at Etsy.com peeking in the windows.

Click on the image to take you directly to their wonderful shops.

Here are a few of my favorite things for Halloween!

Storytime and Milestones

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:04:00 +0000

An amazing thing happened today! My son sat down and read his first book all the way through by himself. He is two months shy of five years old, and has known his alphabet and all the consonant sounds since he was two and half (thank you Starfall.com). We have been working on sight words and he has been able to read short sentences and books (with my finger pointing under the words) for some time now.

This was different, this was without prompting by me and he even corrected himself if he got a word wrong the first time. It was only a short early reader, ten pages of two or three sentences each, but I couldn't be more proud of him!

What started it was the new kitten. Ever since his arrival, my son has been "teaching the kitten" all his lessons. Today he decided to read the kitten a story. I'm not sure how much the kitten has learned but I now know just how much of his own lessons my son has retained!

Paper Tree

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:13:00 +0000

Because nothing says fall like a paper oak tree on the wall!

Happy Wordless Wednesday!

For more photo fun visit 5Minutes for Mom.

Hello Kitty!

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:16:00 +0000

Meet our new addition to the family! This little kitten is 9weeks old and we don't have a name yet. My veterinary friend asked if I was interested in adopting him because he was born with a birth defect and may need some extra care during his life.
It seems he was born without a patella on one knee and with a luxated patella on the other. He is able to walk and run, but with an abnormal gait.

You can see in this photo that he carries his knees close to the ground. He can climb into his litter box and his bed, but he may not ever be able to jump up high. Cats are amazing when it come to motility though, so I won't know until he is full grown whether it is going to be a long term problem.

He also does not appear to be in any pain.

He has already bonded with my son, which may not be a good thing because my plan was to have him live with my mother if he can get around well enough. She has two cats and one is very old and in the process of dying. However my mother is 81 and will not be able to handle a cat that may have problems.

Of course my son would be thrilled if he stayed with us, I just wasn't going to take on any more animals right now. Time will tell how this plays out. For now he will stay with us until he grows up a little and I can evaluate his abilities. Now we just need to find him a name.

How to Make an Easy Magic Wand

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:57:00 +0000

He asked for a magic wand. I looked around and realized

I was fresh out, so we improvised.

A cardboard star, construction paper, glitter and glue.

An old wooden spoon and two Velcro dots.

Tahdah!....instant magic wand.

Spells not included!

Changing Seasons

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 01:29:00 +0000

Officially fall doesn't begin for another two weeks. Not that it means much here in Florida anyway. The daytime temperatures will continue in the nineties well into December. Explaining to a four year old that he isn't going to have a pile of leaves to jump in like they do on television was hard enough last year. Every time we have a discussion about changing seasons and weather conditions, I have to add the comment "but that doesn't happen in Florida".

This year, he was ahead of me and suggested that we either drive to where the leaves do change or have the mail man deliver a big bag of leaves here. I have to agree I would love to travel north to see the leaves change, but I fear we would never want to come back. After the leaves changed we would have to stay to see snow and snowmen and fireplaces, etc.

Someday, that is my plan. Not this year.

For now, I will try to keep him busy with fall projects and crafts. He's already talking about Halloween. Maybe this year he will actually want to go trick -or- treating. Last year he got scared and changed his mind at the last minute. I'm also going to try again with the vegetable garden once the weather cools a little. He was very upset that the insects ruined our pumpkins. It would have been nice to have a home grown pumpkin to carve!

Many Thanks!

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:00:00 +0000

Happy Labor Day to all! Hope you are taking it easy.

A special thank you goes out to LaShan at A Lil Enchanted for honoring me with this award!
I do enjoy all the great new blogs I've found recently and I will be passing on the award soon.

Tadpoles

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:51:00 +0000

Happy Wordless Wednesday!

For more photo fun visit 5 Minutes for Mom.

Printable Play Money

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 19:31:00 +0000

This week we decided to start learning about money. My son got a wonderful teaching cash register for Christmas last year and it came with some play money.

Unfortunately most of the paper money is missing now, so I went online to find play money to print out.

There are several sites that are free.

Activity Village has a page of US dollars and Euros, plus coins to print out. The only one they don't have is the US ten dollar bill for some reason. I also found Money Instructor, which has a page of very real looking bills and coins to print, including the $10. They also have worksheets and interactive lessons available, but I think you have to sign up for an account to get those. Donna Young has play money and some great math worksheets to go with them.

Funny thing was, after I got all our bills printed out and cut up, my son asked whose picture that was on the money. I told him that it was George Washington the first president, so then he wanted to know who came next.

That led us to The White House and a whole different lesson for the day. We spent the next hour or more, looking at every presidential picture and biography in order (or course).

I hope to get back to the money lesson this week. This is one of the great benefits to homeschooling, if your lesson heads in another direction, you are free to go with it and learn!

How to Make an Easy Wind Chime

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:38:00 +0000

This wind chime was super easy to make! All we did was cover the back of three empty cat food cans with contact paper. Then glue on ribbon and buttons to decorate. The colors are really off in these photos, they are really quite bright and cheery.

The top is an empty ribbon spool trimmed with a scrap of ribbon. Card stock circles cover the writing on the top and bottom of spool. Everything is hung from fishing line and tied to a cafe curtain ring to hang. Oh and of course a hole is punched along the edge of each can to hang them.

The cans make a nice "clack clack" noise, sort of like a wooden chime would, not too startling. My son was able to apply the contact paper and glue on the trims himself. Great children and eco-friendly craft!

Child Led Learning

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:30:00 +0000

Even though it's summer here, we never really stopped homeschooling. I think with my son it would be difficult to just stop, since he is the one who initiates most lessons anyway. What has changed is that he seems to want to stick with one subject or project at a time.When I suggest we go on to something else, he gets upset.

I know other homeschoolers will work all subjects around one theme that continues for a period of days or weeks.

Right now my son gets so focused on one subject, I can't break him away. For example, he has been making up his own addition problems on the white board and then solving them. He has been working with double digits and zero's for three days now!

Last week all he wanted to do was play the story telling game. The story telling game is when we each take turns adding a paragraph to a story until one of us thinks we have come to the end and proclaims "and they all lived happily ever after". Then I have him tell the whole story back to me as I write it down to re-read later. It's great for memory and for creative thinking. Eventually I will have him write it down instead of me.

If we decide to learn about geography, we can't just focus on one country. He wants to learn about one and then another, an another. I just let him keep going because he is so excited about it.

While I'm thrilled that he has such focus and attention span, I'm beginning to wonder if this is a real learning technique for him or if he is just being obsessive. Perhaps it is both. He has always been driven and intense with anything he is interested in and I know children learn by repetition. It's the inability to switch gears or environment that bothers me. Not to mention, any attempts at lesson planning by me goes completely out the door.

I know he is ahead for his age (he's four) and that may be all it is. He seems to need to completely absorb and exhaust all sources of a subject before he wants to move on. Thank goodness for the Internet, without it I fear I would run out of material for him to review in no time flat!

Have any other homeschooling families out there done this?

Only one subject a day?

Math on Mondays, reading on Tuesdays, etc. Maybe each subject would be covered more thoroughly like this. Perhaps we are on the road to being unschoolers? I do know that he loves learning and he takes the initiative. I don't want to do anything that interferes with that!

The Milestones of Summer

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:20:00 +0000

As summer begins to come to a close, I realize it has been a very eventful one. A summer of many "firsts" for my son:

1st fish caught.
1st pool party.
1st marshmallow roast.
1st tadpoles.
1st pet loss.
1st butterflies.
1st vegetable garden.
1st cooking lesson.
1st bike riding lesson.

Now there are hurricanes brewing in the Atlantic, but with any luck we won't have a first one of those this summer! Actually it won't be his first storm if we do get one, or even his second. It will be his fourth, should it happen.

When I eight months pregnant in 2004, he went through Frances and Jeanne. Then in 2005 when he was still a baby, he went through Wilma. Of course he doesn't remember those, but I sure do!

Summer Love

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 17:09:00 +0000

I love you more with every stubborn look and every defiance.
You make me giggle with joy when you dance, sing
and stand on tables.
I want to twirl around with you but I am afraid.

Afraid of too much. Too much love, too much joy.
I could not bear for it to end.
So I hold back. Snarl a little more than I need to.
Keeping the magic reigned in and reality in the forefront.

I will most likely regret this one day.

Frogs and Tadpoles

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 01:44:00 +0000

With rain comes frogs and with frogs come tadpoles!
We have had a lot of rain here lately. Our drainage ditch around the house has been full of them. So we scooped up a few before they were eaten by birds and put them in our creature keeper.
They are hard to see, but three are fairly large and six are tiny. The water is amber colored because I mixed tap water, half and half with the rain water. I didn't want to shock their systems with city water.

We will be watching and studying them as they grow and change into frogs. I added a couple of floating water lettuce plants for them to hide in and we will be feeding them fish food.

Can't wait to see what kind of frogs or toads they turn into! As you can see, my son has been watching them all day. If you look closely, you can see his reflection in the first photo :)

His First Fish!

Tenkatt@aol.com (DJ) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:50:00 +0000

It was his first fishing trip and his first fish. We went over to one of the lakes near the river. At almost sundown, all the turtles and birds were out hunting for dinner, so I figured we would get some bites. After several failed attempts at casting, he decided I should cast and he would watch the bobber.
At first he was scared to reel it in and handed the pole to me. Then he changed his mind when he saw the fish and wanted to finish himself. He got so excited jumping up and down, he smacked himself in the face with the wet fish!

I tried to take a photo and this was the best one of the bunch. Do you know how hard it is to photograph a fish spinning on a line? I don't know what kind it is, we looked online to try and identify it, but couldn't. I know the photo is blurry, but if anyone knows what it is, let me know. We released the fish back into the lake and it quickly swam off.
After that the turtles kept chasing our bait and I didn't want to catch one by mistake, so we called it a night. I was also getting bit by mosquitoes (forgot the bug spray). He has been talking about his fish ever since and can't wait to go again!