Science on the Tube

So, I had good intentions of doing lots of "school stuff" this summer, but so far, it has been hit or miss. Although I have been working on Michael's room in the afternoons, the mornings have often been spent either running around (literally or on errands)

or trying to keep the house from caving in on itself.

We have been to the library at least once every week, and aside from mountains of books, we have also been checking out these Eyewitness videos. Matthew and Michael love them,

so we check out two every week.

So far we have watched, Dinosaurs, Ponds and Rivers, Rocks and Minerals, Sharks, Fish, and Skeletons. In the past, we have watched Volcanos, Butterflies and Moths, and Flying Things. Each video is about 35 minutes long, and while my six- and three-year-old can understand and enjoy them, they are not children's videos per se. Matthew also likes to watch the part where they show how they made the movie. The dvds are so, so interesting, and Matthew will often quote factoids from the dvds back to me during the week. There are also books that are just like the dvds, but we have only checked out a couple of those (child-selected: Epidemics-Matthew and Cats-Michael) because they have so much text.

I know my little science boys are learning from these.

Disclaimer: They do at times make evolutionary suggestions. While I don't like this (btw, there is an Eyewitness book entitled Evolution...Matthew is dying to check this out for some reason...ugh), we just use it as a "teachable moment" to talk about why we believe something different.