Rice box, and regularly scheduled blogging

I'm sorry this blog has gotten all crazy-homeschooler on you guys for a few weeks... I'm sort of using it as my notebook in addition to a blog, as there is much less chance of my blog getting lost than all of the little scraps of paper I jot notes on and then promptly drop behind a piece of heavy furniture.

So here's what the kids are up to:

Ivy is saying "oui" insated of yes.  I have no idea why she chose this word to insist on French. 
She's also really into animal noises right now.  And while she is not speaking in sentences, she does have a big vocabulary and is doing a lot of parroting these days.  Her cutest word right now is "kickle", rhymes with pickle, for "bicycle".  In close second is "kirkle" for circle. 

Eliot is on lesson 56 of 100 Easy Lessons.  We have now officially modified it slightly, as it's getting a bit hard for him.  Now that we've modified it, he likes it a lot more.  He is also getting better at picking up more and more sight words.  Zoo phonics is still a lot of fun for him. 

Yesterday, I don't even remember how this happened, I decided to fill a plastic box with rice.  I read this online somewhere as an alternative to a sandbox.  So, we trekked off to the grocery store, and 8kg of rice later, we had a box-o-rice.  The kids love it.  Recent experiments have shown, however, that while it's big enough for two kids to play with, it's maybe not quite big enough for four kids to play with.
Rice was thrown.  Threats were shouted.
This morning I had the good sense to put a blanket on the ground first, which collected almost all the spills and made it easy to put the rice back in the box.

I feel a little bad about wasting the rice, but rice is soooo much easier to sweep up than sand.  And in the event of a nuclear war, we'd still eat the rice from the rice box after picking out the lint and whatnot.  Also, there are some red beans in there, just to add another element of texture, encourage sorting, etc.

Overall evaluation of this toy:  Good and cheap.  Highly recommended, but not so sure it would mix well with carpeting.  It's nice to have an indoor "sandbox".   Apparently, the really dedicated rice-boxists out there will paint the rice different colors, hide small toys inside, etc.  Some rotate with a cornmeal box, a cooked spaghetti box (?), elbow macaroni box...   And all of these are toys that encourage sensory integration.  Neither of my kids have sensory integration disorders, but I do think Ivy benefits from these types of exercises, as she does have a tendency to get overwhelmed and just FREAK OUT sometimes, for no explainable reason.  These toys that completely absorb her interest are very calming for her (and for Eliot).  Obviously, this is a completely open ended toy, so great for development.  Luckily rice is easy to clean up, and doesn't seem like it would get stuck in eyes like sand can.