My Kids Rock!

I think you can tell I was a bit worried about Science this year. Most years Science,History, Art, Music, and PE are not even called "school". We have so much fun with them we don't call it school time (they are family fun time after basic subjects are done for the day). This year Travis complained a bit claiming I was making him write too much in science class. I wasn't really making him write that much. He was just complaining and that was making science a chore (he took all the fun away with his fits). I worked hard on keeping the focus on the fun and trying to ignore the protesting. I now see that it worked! The days of Travis complaining about Science have vanished. Sunday I found my children in the yard learning about rocks all on there own. They were digging them up, washing them, looking for info on the rocks in our rock and mineral field guide, then breaking them open with a hammer to see what was inside the rocks. I thought cracking them open was silly because I was sure a rock is just a rock same inside and out (except for geodes but I didn't think you could find geodes in my neck of the woods). Imagine my surprise when my son showed me a rock with a kind of white/kind of purple lumpy sparkles inside it. They then showed me how they found what looks like rust in a different rock and several other interesting things in other rocks. I felt dumb BUT I also felt good! It was easy to see that my children have got a lot out of the rock studies we have done. I can tell that my 4 year old knows more about rocks than I do! I decide that I am going to let them keep using the hammer and safety goggles, dig up the yard, and explore rocks. I am a bit worried they might get hurt (4 year old with a hammer makes me very nervous) but it looks like they are being careful and learning a lot. I am sorry I didn't take pictures of the broken rocks but I noticed they are keeping all rocks in rock boxes. I will try to get pictures of some of them later in the week. I am so surprised Travis and Demi spent over 1/2 the day on Sunday happily playing with and learning about rocks. To think I really thought they were looking for bugs or playing golf (they play a lot of golf in our driveway). I am such a proud mama!