I is for Idaho (year 2, week 30)

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This week was all about where we live.  All week, I would ask the kids, "Where do we live?"  Skimmer would reply, "Idaho," but Dragonfly would say, "I-don't-know," which would make all the kids laugh.  We did talk about Idaho a lot this week, and explored some new areas of our unique state.

To read more about what it's like in North Idaho, check out this post.

{Monday}
We went to our favorite park today!  North Idaho has a lot of mountains and rugged terrain for mountain biking, so a town in our area built a learning park for bikers.  The park is divided into four mountain bike learning sections: a smooth bike path, a "pump" track (where you ride the valleys and bumps without peddling), a "challenge" track, and a big hill for traditional mountain biking.  My kids are still too young to do any of the bike tracks, but they love to play on the trails and test themselves on the rugged terrain.

This hill is very rugged and requires a lot of leg strength to climb it.  I love that the park creators planted some trees on it, because that really is what our mountains look like.  As you can see, we're still pretty brown around here.  Lots of water and not very much sunshine (yet).

All the rain means lots of mud.  Tadpole and Dragonfly were really enjoying jumping in the puddles, stirring sticks through the water, and writing in the mud.

One of the riskiest parts of the park is the teeter totter.  It's designed for mountain biking across, but my kids love to walk across it.  They learned about physics, logic, balance, and taking turns.  At one point, Bullfrog (my husband) got on the middle and balanced it level and then the kids got on with him to see if they could make it balanced with all of them on it.

{Tuesday}
It was sunny today!  We stayed home and played in our own yard.  The kids dug for worms and made mud pies.

{Wednesday}
I received some encouragement yesterday about my blog, and it completely energized my homeschooling.  Today, we did sensory bins for the first time in months!

 Skimmer enjoyed this sensory bin, which included our new Safari River toob animals.  He had a bunch of glass stones, a bit of water, and a plastic shot glass.  He loved the feel of the rocks and water on his hands and played for over an hour.

Dragonfly used the river animals to make footprints in play dough.  She also practiced cutting the dough with a knife.  Eventually, she discovered that she could put water on her hands and turn the store-bought play dough into a clay for molding in a different way.  After it got sticky and muddy, she asked for some pigs to play in it.

The best thing about the way that we do sensory bins is that the kids can trade sensory bins at any time, which they did after about an hour of play.  I could tell that the kids had really missed their sensory bins.

{Thursday}
We watched "Me on the Map" on Youtube, and looked at the "Me on the Map" activity that I had build for them.  The concentric circles show planet Earth, North America on planet Earth, the United States of America on North America, the state of Idaho in the USA, our town on a map of Idaho, and finally our house.  It was really neat to see Dragonfly's understanding as all the random names that she had heard about for years finally had some context.  She can now answer, "I live in the continent of___, the country of ___, the state of ___, and the city of ___."

{Friday}
I was planning our field trip to the Sturgeon Fish Hatchery last weekend, and Bullfrog decided that we needed to take him along too.  Then, he had to work all day, and the fish hatchery wasn't open, so we didn't go anywhere.  The kids spent a lot of time outside.

Tomorrow (Sat), we're planning on going to the children's museum in the big city.

Printables
- north American animals 3-part cards
- all about Idaho 3-part cards
- hungry bear counting file folder game
- ice fishing for letters
- ID lapbook
- label the camping kid
- animal tracks cards
- state outline tracing page
- forest preschool pack

Ideas

- bear foot prints
- bear sensory bin
- bear unit

Videos
- grizzly bears catching salmon






For an insider look at living in ID, check out this post:

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