Core Curriculum

I have to keep reminding myself that our core curriculum is: right and wrong, good and bad, true and false, play and work, and that the rest isn't the most important to focus on.  Well, with Christmas approaching we've done really well in the play and family work categories.  :)

Here is round 1 of cookie making.  They helped me with four types of cookies.  It's a shame I didn't get any pictures of our gingerbread cookies today.  Those were very involved and very fun.  (Though a lot of work for me!)

This was also my week to host playschool.  My kids had been eager to decorate graham crackers houses ever since we pulled out the Christmas decorations, and we just hadn't found time to do them.  So that was our playschool activity this week.  Fun.

Reading, Art, Puzzles

So what've we been up to lately during school time (when I feel good enough for anything)?  Well, lots of reading and story time of course.  We just finished reading A Little Princess as a family; it was very enjoyable and we had some great discussions about sacrifice and how to treat others.  Jim read the entire thing out loud to us, and now I can't wait for the next family book.  Logan is starting to take off with his reading, and now Annie has no hope of keeping up so she looks at books during that time instead.  I should probably explain reading time.  After no school all summer, and no reading practice Logan forgot what he'd learned and had become VERY anxious about reading.  We laid off for a few months and continued to do nothing with it.  A few weeks ago we decided to try again, and started with me pointing at the letters, making all the sounds, and them just watching.  We'd do one very short book each day...like only 24 words long.  So it started at Annie's level.  It only took a few days for Logan to begin reading the words himself.  Now he reads the whole book each day and walks around spelling out words to himself.

We're doing plenty of art too.  Logan has suddenly decided he likes to draw and he usually 'gifts' his pictures to me.  I have quite a few tornado pictures now.  :)  Annie continues to be an amazing little artist.  Our art wall is VERY full right now.

This week Annie has developed a sudden interest in puzzles.  She initially worked on the 24 piece jigsaw puzzles we have, but those weren't a challenge for her at all.  Then she pulled out this book that contains several 48 piece puzzles and has been working nonstop on those for a few days.  They are pictures of animals in various habitats, and they aren't cartoon like (although they aren't photographs either), so they are actually fairly difficult.  I'm talking about a lot of brown and green in all of these.  It takes me some time to do them!  I'm very impressed with my little girl; she's only 3!  Math ability, hmm...  Logan has been working on the puzzles with great interest too.  It's been really nice for me as well, because they are so focused and quiet.  I'm really glad that we bought each of them a harder puzzle for Christmas. 

Keeping My Balance

Whoever coined the term "morning sickness" could not possibly have been pregnant.  I hear there are women out there who are actually only sick in the morning, though I have yet to meet one, and I know there are the lucky ones who aren't sick at all.  Let's just say I'm among the majority, and if you've ever been pregnant you probably know what that means for the first trimester.  School has suffered and benefitted from this lately.  My energy has been gone, my stomach has been in an uproar, and I never feel fully awake.  It's so tempting to give the kids something to work on and lay on the couch.  Actually that's happening a lot lately.  We're having a lot more do-it-without-mom art projects, I'm loving their penpal letters (more on that), and reading/ story time prevails as the easiest thing for me to do from the couch.  It's a good thing that's the such an important part.  :)  We're also learning all about growing babies.  Logan has had tons of questions, and is currently working on a picture of my womb, complete with baby and umbilical cord.  (I haven't given him certain full explanations; he is content to understand that some things are too sacred to discuss at this point.)  I've benefitted from lots of other TJEd moms who've been where I'm at and remind me that my kids are young, pregnant mommies need their naps, and don't worry!  So I'm not worrying too much.  (Although sometimes I worry that I'm not worrying enough.)   

 

Anyhow, they've been corresponding as penpals for several weeks now with my sister Sarah, and brother Josh.  I forget exactly how I came up with the idea to do it, but it's been great writing practice for them without pressure or monotony.  I'm really amazed at how quickly Logan's writing skills have increased considering the only time we 'work' on writing is when he's responding to a letter (about once a week).  Here's a sample of one of his letters to Josh.  I've had this sitting on my counter for two weeks because Annie didn't want to finish her letter to Josh, but also didn't want me to mail Logan's without hers.  I think I'm just going to mail hers incomplete and not allow her to dictate such a long letter next time.

Today they received letters from Sarah, so we had letter time again today.  They were working really diligently when I started this post, but their attention seems to have wandered in the last few minutes.  Sounds like it's time to end this post.  :)

Aha!

During story time the other day I had an "aha" moment.  We were reading a Curious George book and these were the words that struck me,

"Poor George.  He didn't mean to cause trouble.  Now he only wanted to get away."

I immediately thought, "Poor Logan...or poor Annie.  He/ she didn't mean to cause trouble.  Now he/ she only wanted to get away."

It was a good lesson for me.  I need to be more aware of their intent when they make trouble.  Like when Alex turns the oven on to broil and I discover it after it's been heating for a long time. Or... as I was typing this paragraph, Logan appeared with a long screw and a screw driver.  He'd started taking apart a bookshelf.  It's really easy to focus on the problem that they created, and forget about the curiosity that started it.    

Smarties

Not the candy, although they are pretty sweet.  :)

Jim introduced Logan to the idea of taking things apart with a screwdriver recently and it totally clicked.  I'm very impressed with his fine motor and mechanical skills.  He decided he really liked taking things apart, and before we knew it he'd removed screws from quite a few things!  We've had to create a project box for him with his tools, and things that he IS allowed to disassemble.  We actually took him to Goodwill in search of a good project and found an ice cream swirl machine.  It doesn't make ice cream, but pushes the ice cream out for swirl cones.  He was very excited to work on it and took out all the screws immediately.  Unfortunately, one of the screws was very irregular and none of us could get it out.  So Jim needs to get a new tool.  Then Logan can finish taking it apart!

The other day I came downstairs to discover this.

These kids are so smart!  Logan had set the chess board up entirely on his own and was instructing Annie on how the pieces move.  I eventually had to sit in to help Annie because she was having a problem accepting the fact that he was taking her pieces.  (Then we started capturing his.)

I hosted playschool again yesterday.  It wasn't the most successful day as far as our activity went, plus I was feeling pretty sick, but these kids are only 3 and 4.  I'm not very concerned.  They had fun, and we had lots of friends to eat lunch with.  If you count, there are seven kids at that table, and one was missing!

Fall Colors and Pumpkins

We've had some fun fall activities and outings recently.

This is only first because it was the order my pictures were in, and it's not really fall related.  It was a great activity, though!  I pulled out our (very out of tune) Music Maker one day.  We'd been to a string quartet concert the day before, and the kids were fascinated with the music and the instruments.  So I thought we could make our own string music.  They loved it even though I couldn't tune it.

I finally pulled out my camera to capture some of the fall colors.  All of these are views from my house.

Actually, I can't see the river from my house, but it's very near.  The rest are from my house.

We had a totally unguided activity in the backyard one day.  Some of it was play time, some was picture time, and most of it was discovery time.

This was the discovery.  I turned over our sandbox that we'd used as a wading pool this summer, and we discovered lots of worms.  These two spent most of the time examining, and then gently trying to move the worms to where they could find better mud.  They had all sorts of questions about worms.

This little guy was cracking me up.  I love his sweet face.

He kept making this face over and over whenever he thought I was going to take a picture.

Another day we had a field trip to a pumpkin farm. 

Checking out the honeybees.

A little climbing.

Alex enjoyed the little games they had out.

Annie and Logan really enjoyed choosing their favorite pumpkins.  These pumpkins were on a hill, and Alex created a new game: pumpkin rolling.  He thought he was hilarious.

We discovered a John Deere tractor!  (When it pays the bills, you quickly become a big fan!)

My friend, Jamie, came with us.

The pumpkins there were much more expensive than the ones at the grocery store, so we only bought this small white one.  Then we bought a bigger one from the store.  Annie wanted Snow White on "her" pumpkin.  So I printed a picture of her, and meticulously drew her onto it.  This was no easy task!  I have never been much of an artist, so I was very pleased.

After the effort I put into the drawing, I came to realize that this was really my pumpkin.  I just couldn't let it go.  So, yes, I painted it.  Annie was happy to blow dry each color as I washed my brush, though. 

Then, I let her help paint after I assured Snow White was as perfect as I could make her.  She was thrilled for the whole process, so maybe it wasn't so bad that I took over.

Ta da!  This is easily the masterpiece of my life so far.  It sure is a shame that I put it on a rotting pumpkin!

We did "Logan's" pumpkin second.  They helped scoop out the guts.

Then I carved it.  I just couldn't bring myself to give Logan a knife, plus he'd picked a pattern that definitely required an adult.  So I guess this was actually my pumpkin too.  Next year, we need to get a pumpkin for each of the kids and one specifically for me.  Then I need to give them the paint and not touch theirs.  Lesson learned.

After carving the pumpkins, but not the same day (same day as the worms, though) we cooked and pureed part of our pumpkin remnants.  Then we made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.  They were delicious!  I think I have a new favorite treat.

Alex surprised me by getting sleepy while we were cooking.  I guess all that fresh air wore him out.

We finished the batter, tasted it, and put them in the oven.

Meanwhile, Alex took a nap.