Playing with Matches

This morning Joey took the kids to their P.E. class at the park.  Afterward I took them to a pot luck lunch at a friends house.  Usually Luke is bored or reading a book during these lunches because he is the oldest kid there, but today he made a few friends and was sword fighting out in the backyard the whole time. This afternoon I was reading Little House on the Prairie and Pa would lower a candle in the well he was digging to see if it was safe.  Then Mr. Scott passed out in the well because of lack of oxygen and Pa saved him.  Okay maybe that is too confusing if you are not reading the book, but point is, I then got to explain to Luke and Isabel that sometimes deep in the ground there is methane gas and not enough oxygen.  Also that fire (like the candle) needs oxygen or it will go out.  We then did a mini science experiment.  I lit a match and set it on the table and put a glass over it.  They saw that it went out.  I then encouraged Luke and Isabel to play with matches.  Well, I taught them how to light a match.  Also I let Sylvia sing Happy Birthday and blow out a match a few times.  It was really funny watching Safety Nerd try to light the match as far away from his body as possible, but he did it and hopefully that will give him confidence and loosen him up.

Random gloomy comment from Safety Nerd today, "Mom, two children die every minute."

Horticulture vs. Botany?

I felt like we got a lot of great things accomplished today! Luke has three more Math worksheets before he is finished with his Math U See "Beta" book. Once he is finished he and I are going celebrate by going out for sushi. We are the only ones in the family that like sushi (I think Luke mostly likes it because they line the sushi up to look like a catapillar or dragon.) So anytime he got distracted while doing his math today I would yell at him, "I WANT SUSHI, GET BACK TO WORK." Joking of course....(and so very very serious.) Isabel and I have learned the alpha bet in Sign Language (ASL), counting to ten, and today we learned father, mother, family, brother, sister, boy, girl, grandfather, etc. We are using a book we rented from the library, Learn to Sign the Fun Way! by Penny Warner. She loves it and is very quick to memorize.

One of the things Luke wants to be when he grows up is a horticulturist. He has also heard of botanists, so last night he asked what the difference was. This morning I scrambled around on the internet trying to find the answer. I couldn't find any great "Horticulture vs. Botany" websites (gee, you'd think there would be tons.)  I went to dictionary.com and got simple definitions for both. There is a lot more to it than this, but let's just say horticulturists work on/improve/cultivate plants, flowers, trees, etc. and botanists study/analyze/dissect plants, flowers, trees, etc.

I then read to them out of our read aloud book, Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingles Wilder. My kids are loving this book and I find that we are having to stop at least every few paragraphs to have a big discussion on covered wagons, cabins built out of logs, wolves, etc. It gives them, and me, a glimpse of what life was like back then. A great history book for young children.