Tuesday October 14, 2003

This morning we woke up early and had breakfast. I've been severely restricting how much and what TV Reagan can watch. I've found that when he watches Nickelodeon shows, even ones that I like, his attitude tends to change. The focus for most of the kids on the shows is other kids. I want Reagan's focus to be on his family and on learning. Many of the shows he watches create in him a negative attitude, and instead of working to combat it, I've decided to cut it out. So, he can watch Nick Jr., Disney channel morning shows, PBS, and only a couple of regular Nickelodeon shows. I like the Wild Thornberrys. I tell him those kids are homeschooled. :-)

After breakfast Reagan watched some PBS and Piper watched Tellytubbies while I showered and got ready for the day. Then we went to Underwater Adventures to see how they feed the sharks. We learned about the Wobegon Shark from New Zealand. It has whiskers like a catfish and sucks food off of the bottom. We learned that sharks have skin like people and that some sharks can jump out of the water (but they have to go right back in). We learned that the fish they feed the sharks have their heads and dorsal fins removed so that they can't get stuck in the sharks throat. And that the fish are stuffed with vitamins so that the sharks get all the nutrition they need. Apparently their giant sea turtle is more aggressive than the sharks, so they have to have a simultaneous feed on the other side of the tank to distract it. For the sharks they hold the fish in tongs and move it about in the water as if it were alive. We watched several of the sharks feed. They didn't seem terribly hungry today. It was nothing like what we expected a shark feed to be like. But it was really neat when the sharks did finally take a fish. To watch those teeth go to work was pretty cool.

At the grocery store we talked about big and small, less and more, and what a budget is. We sorted colors and sizes and practiced counting as well as basic addition and subtraction. The produce section is a great place for word problems.

At home this afternoon Reagan practiced his Spanish lesson. This is his third time with lesson 2 and his scores are improving. His scores were 76, 90, and 67. Soon he'll be ready for the next lesson. In the meantime we quiz a lot in the car. We translate our verbs back and forth, and he loves it when I shout out a Spanish verb and he acts it out. He's started calling me "girl" in Spanish which I can't type with this keyboard, and I keep reminding him that I'm a mujer. Even if I don't feel like it.