More thoughts on Kindle Fires.

Today my 8 year old wanted to write a review for Minecraft on the App store.  He is very good at checking the reviews before getting a game (because I make him), so has learned that reviews are very important.
I suggested he writes the review, then I edit and post it.  He really didn't like that idea, and wanted to dictate it to me, which we did.  It was a pretty good review, he had clearly learned well what he found helpful from other reviews.  He also learned about punctuation::::,
This is the first time that he has asked to doing some writing, and in this day and age I thought it was a very good choice.

Holiday in Iceland 2014

Day one
Drive to Seattle.
As usual we start the holiday by driving to Seattle and a visit to the Pacific Science Center.  The crazy mirrors were a big hit this time, and the small sections on how motors work.  At least that was what I enjoyed - the boys were all over the museum trying other things out: the puzzle section, butterfly house, nutrition.  We got tickets for a documentary "lemurs of Madagascar" which was delightful and caused us to be dancing like lemurs for the rest of the day, Phillip especially decided that he was actually part lemur.
They spent quite a long time in the shop working out what they could afford, but finally decided that they should save their money for Iceland.



Day two.
Back to Seattle from the hotel, this time by the train. It was quite a long walk from where the train dropped us off to the science center, but it was sunny and a pleasant walk with a stop  at a bakery to help us on our way. We again spent several hours at the science center, and outside climbing on a huge sculpture

then went back by monorail then the train again to the hotel, quick luggage pickup and into the airport.
We are on our way!

Day three
Iceland, again. Never in my life did I think I would be having a third trip to Iceland.  It was sunny when we arrived, unlike the first time we came when it was grey and everything looked so desolate.  This time the sky shimmered blue and it was much more welcoming.

Is there ever a time at an airport which is not slightly fraught? The ATM would not give us any money on any card, we thought the b+b would pick us up but they weren't there. We got a taxi to the b+b http://bbkeflavik.com/  which proved to be adjacent to the airport. Within 10 minutes we were in bed, and 20 minutes asleep.  We woke about 2pm to glorious weather, which I hate to waste - sunny days are not a dime a dozen here. So I went and picked up the rental car, rousted the boys and started off on our Icelandic saga.  Actually, we knew exactly where we were going, one of our favourite places: the swimming pool.
The pool, Laugardalslaug,  is the largest in Iceland and is at an athletics complex.   The pool area boasts a 50m lap pool, an 50m indoor pool, a leisure outdoor pool,

 and numerous hot pots. The hot pots are of course my favourite part, and it's a serious business here.  There is one large one that you can sit in (about 50 people), then a saucer shaped one that you recline in. Once I stayed in there for 3 hours. Our new discovery this time is that at the far end of the lap pool there are 6 more plus a steam room. The temperature of the water is displayed by each, ranging from 38C to 44C, one is jetted, and one is seawater. I spent my time hotpot hopping, mixing in the steam room, and the leisure pool to cool down.  These Icelanders know how to relax! The air temperature was 7C but it was clear blue skies and people were just lying out sunbathing. In Iceland you take it when you can get it!
Interesting fact: the Iceland word for Saturday literally means pool day.
Several hours later we felt refreshed, hungry - which we fixed with a trip to a kebab restaurant - and then sleepy again. We happily trooped back to the b+ b and collapsed back to bed.
We woke up at about 2am and realized that there was a nearly full red moon. We went out to look, but even bundled up in coats, scarves, gloves the wind was just too cold for us and we went back inside.

Day 4
Golden circle and mid-hvoll cottages
We are off to explore Iceland outside of Reykjavik for the first time, in glorious sunshine.  Seriously, not a cloud in the sky.
Our first stop was the sight of the ancient Icelandic parliament, http://thingvellir.is/english  up in the hills, surrounded by snow clad mountains, the lake a beautiful, shimmering view. The first sight of it is some way off, but a great view. Many people stop here and build little rock towers.

It is unquestionably a beautiful location, fascinating history and a pretty good visitors centre.  Unfortunately to 3 small boys, it is pretty much "who cares?"  Even the fact that it sits on top of the joining of the American and European tectonic plates was lost on them (not entirely surprising).

Our next stop was a big hit with everyone, a spa, situated right on top of a hot spring and next to a large lake, it is fairly small but had everything needed. There was a long, shallow pool with different shapes in that the kids could enjoy sitting in or on or next to.  For the grown ups there was a large hot pot at 40C, a pool made with rocks and containing the spring water, a waterfall to sit under, a sauna with a beautiful view over the lake and 3 steam rooms. The steam rooms were directly on top of the spring and in the first one I nearly burnt my foot as steam gushed through the slats of the floor.  It also smelled of pure rotten eggs.  Ahhhh.  Ughhhhh.
It was fascinating watching the arctic terns on the lake flying directly into the wind and staying in position.  We went and paddled in the lake, just to say we had, but didn't linger.

 

After several happy hours at the spa we moved onto Geyser, the one which all the other geysers in the world are named after.  In less than a year we have visited the 2 most famous water spouts in the world: Old Faithful and Geyser.  It erupts about every 10 minutes. Interestingly it is not Geyser which erupts anymore, it is about 30m away, as Geyser has stopped erupting.  Again, the boys were unimpressed as they had seen so many at Yellowstone last year.

The next stop on the Golden Circle was Gulfoss, an enormous waterfall, very beautiful and picturesque, but cold with the wind whistling down.

After this we set off on a longish drive to our cabin for the next two nights.  It is situated in a beautiful location on the south coast, to one side black sand beach, to the other side a glacier capped volcano, in fact the volcano that erupted 4 years ago and caused all the flight chaos in Europe.  Happily, right now it is sleeping peacefully and beautifully.
It is a tiny, but well designed cabin, we suspect came as a kit from IKEA.

Day 5
A late start today as I had got sick in the night and spent a large part of it vomiting. By about 11am I felt fine and off we went. The first part of the journey was hilly, through the town of Vik, and very beautiful. Then the are got very flat. There is a lot of run off here from the glaciers on the mountains and volcanoes, and can become a torrent. There is one point you can stop and see some twisted hunks of metal that started life as a bridge on the road. Clearly this road gets washed away from time to time and has to be rebuilt. As it is the only road to this part of the country it is fairly essential to repair it promptly.
Our destination was jorkesdgsdg. It is a lagoon left from a retreating glacier, filled with icebergs 1000 years old.  We went on a boat ride around the lagoon, and fell in love with this place.  There was a guide on the boat who explained the geology of the area, and he broke off a chunk of ice for us to try in a drink of the local fire water (disgusting!).  We went snap happy, taking loads of photos, which we are thrilled with - they are very photogenic.

Day 6
We left the cottage and started the day by visiting a local beach. It is black sand and pebbles, huge black cliffs full of nesting birds, an arch in the rocks which apparently is a favourite place for Hollywood films, and today beautiful blue skies and a deep blue ocean. It was beautiful. We spent a couple of hours throwing pebbles into the sea, climbing rocks, exploring caves, building rock towers and rock people, and generally having a wonderful time.

The road back to Reykjavik along the south coast is overflowing with waterfalls.  We stopped at one called Skogafoss,i one of the tallest at 60m.  As we were there on a sunny day there was a rainbow framing it.  Living in Oregon I am used to spectacular waterfalls, but still managed to be impressed by this one.

Driving further on the road we saw so many more that we stopped counting when we could see 7 huge ones at one time.
When we got back to Reykjavik we went back to our favourite pool for some more heat therapy, rounded off the day by strolling around the city and having dinner then back to the hotel near the airport and to bed.

Recently we bought Kindle Fires for all the boys.  A lot of reading about this issue led me to the conclusion that if children are given unlimited access to electronic media they will initially spend all their time on it, then move on to other things and treat it like any other toy.  We have configured them so that they cannot watch tv programs on them, and of course we decide what can and cannot be downloaded.
Their favourite app so far is Minecraft.  Although I don't play it myself, it is a building, creating, Lego type game, and we have it set up so that they can play together.  Frequently they are all sitting on the lovesac together, on their own Kindle, playing together, talking together and working together.  This is no different from a board or card game.  For the most part there is far less arguing than normal between the 3 of them, and I leave them to it.
They also like to browse the app store and look for new apps.  If they can afford it, and the game looks suitable, I download it for them.  They have got very good at seeing how much they cost (or whether they are free), and most importantly how they have been rated by other users.  Several apps have been decided against when they see the poor ratings. This is a really good for decision making processes.

I have never worried about Edward using a Kindle.  He so enjoys making things that I knew he would not spend all his time on it. He downloaded an app that prints out patterns for making the characters in Minecraft.  He quickly worked out how to make the patterns himself and has been busy making them.  He also used actual Lego to build the sets in minecraft.  On another game, hunting for prehistoric animals, he knows all the animals and we have looked them up on Google and had great discussions about them: herbivores, omnivores, size, weights, how they compare with modern animals....

Philip enjoys playing Minecraft, especially with dad.  However, he is more than happy to put it down to go out and play with friends, fishing, learning to walk on stilts, lacrosse, etc.  I often read to them in the afternoon and he loves listening to the story and usually puts away his Kindle.  His ability to track with a book which I think is above his head is impressive, and his working vocabulary is way ahead of an average (nearly) 7 year old.

Benjamin has been my biggest worry with the Kindle, as he is likely to be the biggest couch potato and watch tv all day if he could.  However, he is playing games well with his brothers and goes on to other things quite easily.  I would say that he is generally happier and we are not arguing about screen time any more. He also likes to listen to stories and is the first to put away his Kindle in favour of stories.

Overall, I am happy with the decision to buy them their own Kindles.

Titanaboa

titanaboa

Edward managed to find the Smithsonian channel on Netflix and watched a documentary about an extinct snake called a "titanaboa".  This has led to a week of spin off learning of myriad things.

Firstly, he learned that the snake was estimated to be 48feet long, so he wanted to make one that long himself.  We found a roll of paper that looked long enough and we set about measuring the correct length.  The rug in our hall is 10 feet long, we discovered, so we measured the paper out for 5 times the length of that, then removed the last 2 feet and "voila"!   A face was drawn and scales were copied on to it using the back of a ceramic tile which had a great texture to it and were used as a rubbing.  To make a miniature model of it (I drew the line at a full sized model) we had to purchase some Sculpy clay and it was coloured using Sharpie pens.

A few days later he tried to type the word into the search engine, but clearly typed Titanic instead.  This led him toa video of how to make a miniature model of the Titanic using Legos, which didn't take him too long to copy.  That was soon followed by a model 4 times as large and with more detail on, as was found in a book that he had in his room about the ship.  A rummage through the National Geographic archive soon found the edition commemorating the centenary of the sinking, and the Lego model was adapted to simulate the way that the ship broke apart as it sank.  A rummage through YouTube again found a documentary on the submarine that was used to find the wreckage.


Meanwhile Benjamin has become more interested in reptiles generally, and has starting looking at books on snakes, crocodiles, lizards and is busily telling me how dangerous they are.

Central Oregon, part 3

Visit to central  oregon 111

The high desert museum contains displays of animals, plants, native American artifacts, mock ups of mining towns and homesteads.  We have been once before, in May, but the boys asked if we could go again.  This time they raced through the exhibition on plains Indians, the stopped by the small black and white tv in the mock-up of a house on a reservation and watched the Lone Ranger for about 20 minutes (they believe they are starved of television time).  

Following that we went up to the homestead that has been set up outside, complete with a family home, stable, hired hand house, saw mill, stables, vegetable patch, hen house, cold store.  There  were two actors dressed up as the owner and hired hand from 1904.  The boys took to life in the early 1900s with a passion.  They dug in the vegetable patch, collected eggs, chased chickens, fed horses, played with a wooden hoop, learned how the steam powered lumber mill worked, and then started telling all the other visitors about the place. They told the actor about the visit to Shaniko several days previously and he talked about his visits to the town in 1904 and how it was so important, all the brand new buildings - it fitted in so well with that visit.  All in all we stayed at the homestead for over 2 hours, while many other visitors came and went.  

I really believe that time is one of the best gifts that I can give to my children in our unschooling journey.  They were interested in this (all 3 of them in different aspects of it) and had the time to find out more than most people passing through. 

The following day two of the boys were outside and came in periodically with status updates.  "Philips has done his 20s",  "I have done my 30s", etc.  We didn't enquire what that meant, but just said "great, carry on".  In the car later Philip said "20, 40,  60, 80, 100".  Clearly he is counting by 20s, and probably worked out 30s and 40s too.  

Visit to central Oregon II

Back in central Oregon, and so much that we have seen and done.  

I had read about a ghost town near Terrebonne, which sounded intriguing.  There are still people living in the town, but there are many buildings which were built about 100 years ago, and abandoned about 90 years ago.  It is quite a long drive from Crooked River Ranch, but the boys seem interested, and I certainly was, so we decided to go for it. 

After a long drive, through some barren scenery, we finally got to Shaniko.  It was definitely worth it.  The main building is a hotel that is still in great condition, and looked authentic inside, but unfortunately, due to disputes between the owner and the county it is not open.  Outside there is a boardwalk.    Just stepping on that makes me feel that I am in a different century, and as I walk along the "main" street we do get an inkling of what it might have been like 100 years ago.  Possibly the highlight of the visit is a barn which is full of old cars and wagons.  They have clearly been there for decades, as they are covered in bird droppings, dust, have dried out tyres, and are gradually fading away.  But, it is a museum of car history.  Cars from the early 1910s, unmodified, and just there, not as a proud display, but just a reminder of what has been and gone.  Similarly the wagon, which we could climb on and into, gave us a brief glimpse of what life was like for Laura Ingalls (at least, that is the closest experience we have read about). 

On the way back to Crooked River Ranch we saw a sign for rock houunds - a term I wasn't even familiar with - which apparently means amateur geologists.  Central Oregon is a great place for thunder eggs, or geodes, and they are the state rock of Oregon.  Patrick has always wanted to dig one up, so he clearly could not pass by a sign advertising them, anymore than he can pass by a sign for an estate sale. The family who owns the land has mining rights and periodically digs out an area that is rich in thunder eggs, then instructs people on how to dig for them, what to look for and lets them go off and do it.  What a great activity this was.  It was in a beautiful area, and in a similar way to Shaniko it felt like we were in a western movie. There was absolute silence at the digging site, hot sun and rocks.  We were armed with rock hammers and we weren't afraid to use them.  Patrick hit geode gold straight away with 5 in a cluster,  and after much patient hammering they were freed.  He was thrilled.  We hit a bit of a lull after that,  but then found a spot where we hardly even had to dig, we just scraped and they came straight out.  After about 1 1/2 hours we had a bucket full of geodes, were hot and tired and ready to head back.  We chose one to be cut in two.  Although none were a great quality, they were ours which we had dug out, and we felt great pride in them.  Plus, we have a out 20 more to cut.  

This was a wonderful day out, with history and geology.  The last few weeks in Central Oregon have taught me more about geology than I have learned the rest of my life.  There is no substitute for getting out there and seeing it "in situ".  My 5 year old knows as much as I do, just because he is living it. 

On Sunday we had a very different day, but still lots of great experiences.  I had heard there was an art show going on in Sisters, and I wanted to go to it.  A week ago a wildfire started in the Sisters wilderness, and we have been watching the effects here at Crooked River Ranch.  Early in the morning the wind has been blowing to the north and our view of the mountains had been obliterated.  Very sad.  By about 3pm the wind has clearly changed direction to the east, over our house, and we have started seeing the mountains, smelling the smoke and seeing amazing sunsets with the ash cloud.  So we were not sure what it would be like in the town itself.  It as definitely very smoky, and we couldn't see the mountains even there, but not terrible.  Probably it would be considered terrible if we had asthma or other lung diseases.  A forest ranger had a display set up in the street giving an update to the fire, where it had started, how big it was, the containment, the road closures, the implications. It was well done. 

Our first port of call was an art gallery, which contained work by essentially one artist, who was also the host.  She was delightful.  Edward told her that he was an artist and asked if he could borrow a pencil so that he could draw something for her.  The rest of us looked around the gallery and talked to her about her paintings, which we luckily liked.  When we left she posted Edward's drawing up on the wall too. 

Finally we found the craft show, and though it was smaller than we expected, one particular stall had us enthralled. It was selling native American flutes. We spent probably half an hour talking to the owner about the different flutes: what they are made from, how the sizes differ, how they are tuned to different keys, how they compare to different instruments around the world, and of course playing them - because a flute is no flute till you play it! How many "subjects" did that cover - music, geography, social science, maths, biology (because they were all made from different woods)? 

Learning in central Oregon

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Visit to central Oregon

Central Oregon is a wonderful place to learn.  First of all, it does not rain very much so it's a really good place to learn outdoors.

The most inescapable feature is the geology.  There are mountains: from the deck of our house we can see the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th tallest mountains in Oregon.  With a short walk we can also see the tallest.  I love to sit and "check that my mountains are okay" - it's a very important job I assure the boys.   This visit was the first time that we have been there in late summer and there was no, or minimal, snow on them. I loved Benjamin's description of "your mountains look sick, mum".  They certainly don't look as beautiful as when they are covered with snow.  So, we had a good discussion about altitude and seasons, and what might be a good time to go climbing them. 

Secondly are the rivers and the spectacular canyons that they have carved.  The layers of rock, the undulations, colours all tell a geologic history that I know nothing about, but would love to learn.  Why, for instance, did the river carve that path, not 50m to one side? 

Thirdly are the remnants of volcanic eruptions.  Lava flows,  high mountain lakes that are so cold to swim in until you reach a bubbling, sulphurous area that suddenly almost burns you, obsidian and pumice flows to clamber over - and again wonder "why here, when to each side there are forests growing?".  

There is the lava tube, lava cast forest and many more buttes to explore.  The boys are beginning to piece together in their minds how it works, what to look for, what to expect in each area.  My prediction: they will have a good grasp on vulcanology by the time they are teenagers. 

Aside from that there is the flora and fauna of the area, so different from the Willamette Valley.  Armed with a great book of the wildlife of the northwest, we set out to explore the area: footprints, scat, holes, marks on trees, feathers are all routinely examined to determine just what has been there.  They have also learned that sitting quietly is the only way to observe wildlife: just watching a jack rabbit eating for 20 minutes was interesting, and I have to admit that watching my boys still and observant for 20 minutes is a fascinating experience in its own right. 

The other bonus of traveling up to central Oregon is the three hour drive.  Several years ago I would not have considered this a bonus, but then we discovered "Your Story Hour", a series of stories on CDs about famous people (mostly).  Each story is about 25 minutes long, and inspiring.  We have learned about Louis Pasteur, Walter Reid, Eleanor Roosevelt, Booker T Washington,  to name a tiny handful.  All have inspired me to go on and read more about them.  As soon as we get in the car they shout "story hour", and even ones that we have heard numerous times still bring about silence in the car and then great discussions.  Isn't that every parent's dream?  That and the doughnut stop in Sisters.