Fishin For Trees

For our homeschool efforts today, we created a shopping agenda and went to Brainerd to accomplish our mission. Our list of items included fishing poles, flash cards, notebooks, and markers. We were able to find everything we needed at Target, our store of preference. We went to the HUG campus to see Ryan and tried out our fishing poles. Ethan's been asking for one for a few weeks, and mostly because the thought of fishing makes me sad, I didn't get him one. But it was time and Ethan and Avery spent the better part of an hour learning how to cast, with and without instruction. Ethan managed to catch a few trees, and Avery caught the fence and the playground.

Tonight we are going to the in-law's lake home and will get in more fishing practice, this time for real fish. The lake has at least four varieties of fish- Bass, Northern, Sunnies, and Perch. The odds are in our favor to catch Sunnies.

The flash cards purchased are excellent for solo and group play. Good illustrations and a diverse assortment. Notebooks are 10/$1 and a hard deal to pass up. We usually buy two or three packs a year because the kids love to fill them up or dump them in purple pools. We also got two foam clocks to help Ethan learn how to tell time. (one for me and one for him)

This evening Ethan and Avery learned how to roll pie crust but weren't able to much more than observation. I didn't have enough for their own mini-pies but will when I make pies in the future if I can get better equipment. Our rolling pin doesn't roll well and the surface was too sticky so everything was tricky to get a good crust shape. But with a trip to Kohl's I can fix that! They have wonderful non-stick rolling pins and I can find a new non-stick rolling pad to minimize the mess and maximize convenience.

Update- Ethan and Avery had a good time last night learning how to catch fish, none of which were caught. They used some sort of meat as bait- grilled sausage, and Ethan had several successful bites. On his line he used a hook and plastic worm and a bobber. He might have had a fish if he was gentler about setting the hook. Every time a fish would take the bait and the bobber would disappear, he would jerk the line hard several times, rather than once or twice. But the entire time I was there he got better and better. I think they'll be back outside today. We also had a painful lesson about the nature of bees, primarily walking through their home and what happens when someone does that. We practice ahimsa and bees are not bad, they just do what they have to.