Toddler-schooling

Because this is primarily a homeschooling blog, I mainly focus on my older two school-aged children. However, younger kids in homeschooling families learn, too, simply by coming along for the ride. This post is all about Josh and his learning adventures today at the Pacific Science Center.

When it comes to Josh, no day is complete without Climbing 101. Today was actually more like Climbing 301. First, he climbed onto the dining room chair, a feat I did not know he could do on his own. Then, he stood up and climbed up onto the table. After scooting across our rather large table, he then attempted to climb down into his chair that hangs off the edge of the table. Today's table adventure was his first of probably many table climbing adventures. Who knew a 14 month old would be able to do this?

Of course, Josh gets dragged along on just about every field trip we take. He just loved the Pacific Science Center with all the stuff to see and touch. Here he's moving a water sprayer.

When we reached the entry to the room containing the animatronic dinosaurs, he saw and made a beeline for this lever that controls the movement of some dinosaur fossil jaws. We had to drag him away from it.

As usual, he's afraid of nothing, not even moving, biting robotic dinosaurs. He stood there staring at them asking us, "What's that?" (He really does say, "What's that?"...to everything.)

This wacky pendulum thingy was a favorite. You turn it by the knob that he is holding and it continues to spin in a crazy sort of way.

Here Scott and Josh are building something with these cool, interlocking wood pieces.

I was off watching Mika and Sammy putting on a show in bird costumes when I looked over at Scott and Josh to see this. Josh was going through the diaper bag looking for his teething tablets. When he found them, he handed them to Scott as if to say, "My teeth are bugging me. May I have some?" Scott gave him a couple, which he happily ate.

I've begun calling Josh "My Little Scientist" because he is constantly exploring and experimenting with anything and everything. When you hold him, he points to everything and asks, "What's that?" So, if you ever see one of us holding him you'll like hear something like, "That's picture. That's the wall. That's a flower. That's a sticker. That's a red car. That's a blue car. That's my nose. No, don't put your finger up my nose. That's my eye. No, please don't poke out my eye. That's a dog. That's a..." You get the picture.