where did she learn that??

My always entertaining and somewhat exhausting little 16 month old girl H learned a new trick today:

She can make farting noises by blowing on her arm.

I thought only teenage boys knew how to do that??

She quickly taught her big brother, and now the house is filled with peals of laughter from the kids and daddy too.

Hope she doesn't use her new trick in church!!

Queens and kings and mary

Yesterday was the feast of the "Queenship of Mary" and so today we had fun making a little crown for our mary statue, and some big crowns for the kids. They had lots of fun wearing them around the house, and even wore them to my midwife appointment later in the morning.

H enjoyed the crowns too, although in her own way of course. At lunch time, while she was in her highchair I noticed she was eating something before I had given her any food... whatever could that be, I wondered, as I pulled out 5 sequins one at a time from her mouth. I guess she prefers to eat crowns. Maybe she was listening last week when we read Hansel and Gretel? I hope she didn't hear the part about pushing the witch into the oven :-)

The crowns inspired E to dress up in her cinderella dress, and then later to put H in her other princess dress (waaaaay too big). H just beamed as she looked in the mirror at herself beside her big sister. Then H spent the rest of the day wrestling with her big brother.

10 weeks to go until the new baby is here!! I'm not sure how much more fun this house can take :-)

Later on we spent time doing our new spelling words (some big ones including school and mother), and then E drew a lovely picture of Noah and the Rainbow in her timeline book.
She also did a math test and got 6.5/7

God must really love me :-)

After wrestling both mentally and physically with 3 children all morning, I climbed into my bed for a much needed nap after lunch time only to find out that my neighbours are having a garage built , and there is a bobcat digging dirt, and a big dump truck driving back and forth right under my bedroom window... sigh. I was so tired (urgh! my iron is low again, so my doctor tells me)...I prayed that God would help me rest regardless of all the noise happening out there and I closed my eyes...

... only to open them two hours later and wonder why it was so quiet, thankful for the long rest.

I looked out my window and what do I see? A firetruck, the Gas company truck and the workers looking rather sheepishly into the big hole that they have dug. The firetruck just drove away, so I'm assuming I don't have to evacuate my house... thank God, but I am very grateful for the quiet nap time that I was given.

How can you argue with logic like this?

The whole family is in the car coming home from a long day somewhere. Mommy looks back at the kiddies, and notices that E's shoes are on the floor of the car, and not on her feet where they belong (again).

Mommy: "ummm.. why are you shoes on the floor?"

E: "Mommy!" (with this tone of unbelief at my stupidity in not knowing the answer)... "there's dirt in my shoes and so I don't want my feet to get dirty".

Mommy: "uuuuhhhh" (speechless) "ok"

back at school

After a week of fun at Vacation Bible School, we have started back at schoolwork this morning.

We woke up early, made it to morning mass with daddy and then came home and got a good start on the day with

Religion (at snack time): learning about guardian angels, our 5 senses, and the difference between animals, rocks, plants and humans

Spelling, reading and writing: reviewing the 60 words that she has already learned to spell and read, and practicing her phonograms

Grammar: reviewing the poem she learned, and then illustrating it for her binder, and reviewing the difference between proper and common nous

Math: orally going through place value and reading and writing numbers from 0-999

Then at lunch time we pulled our food and an extra chair out onto the porch and had a lovely lunch of Macaroni and cheese (don't forget the ketchup!) together in the shade.

By this time, all 4 of us were tired, so we cleaned up (after picking H off the kitchen table 3 times... she thinks it's fun to climb up there and play with the salt and pepper), and read some stories.

E picked out a book on archaeologists, so we learned about how they search for clues about the past in their digs. This encompased both science and history for today... good choice!!

Now everyone is sleeping, and I am about to climb up to bed too... gotta get my rest in while I can before the new baby makes an appearance on the scene in a few months.

Vacation Bible School

We've taken a break from formal studies for an end of the summer field trip to vacation bible school each day this week. E had a wonderful time going all by herself to VBS each morning, doing crafts, learning songs, playing fun games, and eating candy.

The Vacation Bible School was a Catholic Kids Net and the organizers did a wonderful job. Today was the last day and they had a carnival for all the kids and their siblings. I should have brought my camera, because they had a great time there eating cotton candy, popcorn, chocolate, brownies, getting their face painted, watching the clown, playing games, and singing songs. Even the little monkey H got into the action... all the sweet little 8 and 9 year old girls kept bringing her candy and treats to eat. She's now zonked upstairs in her crib after all that sugar. :-)

Next week we'll start back with regular schoolwork. It's getting harder as my due date approaches, but I think we'll manage. My only real big goals for the year are to get Elizabeth reading well and adding and subtracting. She's really taken to cursive writing, so we don't have to worry too much about penmanship as she's already ahead of the game there. We are also looking into enrolling her in a Girls Choir this year. It's a teaching choir that has a few performances a year and 2 of her friends are in it as well. I'm sure she'll love it.

I'm off for my daily nap :-)

I'm not THAT big!! am I ?

E is at VBS again (vacation bible school) all week. She is loving it!
I'm having fun at home with the little ones. I can't believe that our youngest is already 16 months old!! how has the time gone by so fast?

Yesterday evening we went to the library, and the kids all picked out their own books. Little H was the cutest of all, going from shelf to shelf with pure delight in all the books, occasionally bringing one back to mommy or daddy to read to her.

Just before we left, everyone had to pick out which one they wanted to bring home. Elizabeth chose 2 magic school bus books (her current favorite,... a series on science). Z chose a book on dinosaurs which he was really pleased with, and a book on spaceships.

Heather walked over to a shelf, picked a big book from about 50 of them and brought it over... "There's a house inside my mommys tummy". Lovely.

camping with little ones...

YAWN is about all I can say

Seriously though, we had so much fun camping this weekend. On friday night after work, we packed up our new tent trailer, convinced my sister and her husband to come with us, stuffed almost everything we own into the van, and drove off to a camp ground a few hours away.

We didn't arrive until after dark, and lucky for us, homeschooling family that we are, our science class (we've been learning about weather) followed us out there in the form of big clouds, lots of wind, drizzle, downpours, lightening and thunder, etc... The only thing the kids missed seeing were a hurricane and a tornado. That was the first night.

The next morning when we got up, we got to see some of the fruit of our homeschooling efforts when our darling little grade one was explaining to her auntie that the drops of water falling on her head from the roof were not coming from the outside of the tent, they were from the water vapor in the air inside the tent that was condensing on the ceiling. LOL... I'm sure this didn't make auntie M feel any better about having a wet pillow and blanket, but I was happy to see that some of what we've been teaching is sticking.

One thing that I'm starting to see about homeschooling is that school teachers don't get that pleasure of seeing the fruits of their teaching as often as a homeschooling parent would. It's such a treat for me to be able to watch E understand and then apply her knowledge slowly over the progress of each year. For instance, later on in the day, when it was still raining and we were all having so much fun crammed into our tent trailer with a crazy toddler bouncing around, E eased her boredom by drawing, and then writing a story for us spontaneously.

My cat is red.
My cat is a good cat.
Good cat!

These are all words from our spelling lists, and I was delighted to see that she is actually learning them and not just straight memorizing them in one context.

Anyways, the rest of the trip turned out lovely. We spent the rest of the day at a very fun dinosaur museum where the kids had a great time running from exhibit to exhibit, thankfully burning off some of the energy that had built up over the past day hiding from the rain. My favorite quote of the day was my little 3yr old boy:

" mommy, why are dinosaurs called dinosaurs?"
....."ummmm... I don't know sweetie"
"hey I know!! Maybe they are called dinosaurs because they die all the time".

(He is becoming much more aware of sounds in words and breaking words apart into the sounds they start with. This is the first step of learning how to read, so it is really neat to watch it start. With my first preschooler, I was trying to hard to push her from one stage to the next, trying to be a good 'teacher'. With Z I don't have time to do that and I really enjoy watching him learn things as his development unfolds naturally.)

Below are some more pics of our trip... my favorite one being the first with H climbing into the exhibit... notice the sign right beside her :-)

Life with little ones

This is a beautiful post written by Elizabeth Foss, a catholic homeschooling mom in the states... I've been thinking more and more about how I need to limit computer time, and just really 'be' with my children. I love them, but I find that I can get into these ruts where I'm always trying to find something to occupy them away from me so I can get a breather. But, like I tell my eldest child all the time when she can't wait for the next fun even to come... Stop wishing your life away!!

They are my life and my vocation, and this period with them all so young is so shortlived that I want to savour it and enjoy it.

I know I'm one step ahead in the game already by not having a television to distract me or the kids with, but there are so many other things that can grab my attention and mind away from them.

Go ahead and read her post... it's very beautiful.. and then check out the rest of her blog and look at her series of posts on teaching and playing with preschoolers in the home.

Sleep, cookies and other deep thoughts

I have a new philosophy that I've adopted as my motto in life, since becoming pregnant with my fourth child in 5 years. It goes like this:

"Never think farther ahead in life than past my next sleep"

Now this doesn't mean I can't plan fun vacations next month, and I can't daydream about what I'm going to be when my kids grow up... but it does mean that I don't have to worry about how I'm going to handle making dinner tomorrow when my one year old has kept me up all night, and I'm not to even start thinking about how I'm going to teach my 6 year old high school physics when she's a teenager.

In fact, I don't worry about laundry, dishes, vacuuming.. or even what time I'm going to be woken up in the night by assorted children who need their mommy.... Because it's all after my next sleep and therefore is out of bounds.

Miraculously, without all the worry and angst that I used to put into everything from laundry to when I'm going to hit menopause... Life still seems to go on. Laundry and dinner get done, because I'm not as stressed out anymore. Children get attended to, and husbands get clean socks and underwear, and I even get naps in.

......

Now I am wondering how I can transfer this good motto over to my cooking skills somehow... Like don't think farther ahead then when your timer buzzes.

I'm not sure why, but every single batch of cookies I have made in the past 5 years or so has managed to have at least one tray full of burnt hockey pucks. The first tray always comes out perfectly, but after the initial excitement, all the kids wander in search of greener pastures, and I am left in the kitchen all alone with a timer waiting to beep, mess everywhere, and a tray full of warm fresh cookies. What am I to do but to ignore the mess and sit down to taste-test one or a few of our freshly baked treats.

This is where I go wrong every time.... I'm eating a cookie, there's a mess I'm trying to ignore, and there are no kids around so I'm trying madly to think of something to do to take advantage of the quiet. I start thinking beyond the end of the timer, and inevitably phone someone, start checking my email, or settle into a good book, and then poof!! Where did the time go? All of a sudden that telltale smell drags me out of my state, and I realize I've wrecked yet another batch. Urgh!

I think I'm going to have to set a rule of only baking one batch at a time and freezing the rest of the dough for another moment of 'domesticity'. Or maybe just eat the cookie dough raw... Yummy!!

More Science

E has told me that her most favorite part of school is doing science. Today we learned more about rain and hail. We are basically learning about the water cycle.
We did a simple experiment where we filled a glass with water and ice and watched as the outside of the glass got wet (why we need coasters, i guess). We learned that the water vapor in the air turned back into water or 'condensed' when it touched the cold glass, because when water vapor gets cold, it turns back into water.

Then we read a good book that explained it very clearly in grade one language. It's called Down Comes the Rain by Franklyn Branley. This series of books is very well written and I highly recommend it.

Below is her drawing and her 'narration' to me of how the water cycle works. Water vapour comes from rivers and oceans and seas. It turns into water vapour by the sun. Water vapour is always everywhere. Even in the house. It’s on trees, horses, cows and us too.

The water vapour turns into a cloud because if you go further away from the earth it gets colder and colder. The water vapour turns back into water to become a cloud.

The little droplets stick together, and the clouds become bigger and bigger with more water vapour and then the little droplets fall down as rain. 

Science with Daddy

Last saturday....  

My 3year old meterologist

In a very serious (but with the added 3 year old cuteness) voice,

"mommy, look at all the cumulus clouds outside... I think it's going to rain."

Science With daddy

On saturday Daddy is the science guy. This week the kids got up early, helped make a nice breakfast with dad and then started on their science project. We have spent the week learning about weather and the seasons, and their project was to make a wind vane.

First, they pulled out all of their materials, started reading the instructions, but then got sidetracked talking about the compass and directions. E decided to draw a picture of a compass in her science notebook, and then draw pictures of what was to the N, S, E and W of our house.

Daddy introduced her to the amazing world of google earth, and they spent about an hour together exploring all the interesting pictures of the world. Personally, the program makes me very dizzy and sick, so I was happily scrapbooking at the kitchen table.

Later on they eventually got back to their experiment, and discovered the wind was coming from the SE. I think Science with Daddy will be lots of fun this year!!

This week

Reading/spelling: We've been playing games with our spelling words (pretend to be teacher, go-fish, memory, write a story)

History: We started with creation and moved to adam and eve. Now E is making a timeline page for her 'book of the centuries' on both of those. This year is all on ancient history, and it's jam-packed with lots of hands-on activities. I'll see if I can keep up with all the fun. Z is now drawing a picture of the sneaky snake who convinced eve to eat the apple. cute :-)

Science: A week about weather- We've learned about Cirrus, Stratus and Cumulus clouds, the sun, and why we have seasons. E drew some pages in her science notebook to illustrate it. She's excited to do science experiments on saturday with daddy.

Math: We read some story books about subtraction and addition, did puzzles, and played with her box of tangrams (shapes you have to fit together to make a picture). I still have to get her Math-u-see book.

Home Ec: The kids are doing really well with their new chores, and Z is learning to get dressed all by himself (if he could just figure out how to put his shoes on that would be great!!). They also had a lesson in midwifery care when we went to visit the midwife today and hear the baby's heartbeat.

Speaking of babies, two of my best friends both had babies this month!! Congrats to both of them :-)

As for mom, I've been having lots of fun playing with my new homeschool planning/record keeping program called Homeschool Tracker Plus. I love it!! It's fun to make schedules and report cards and run reports. It's very easy to use and I am happy I have my whole year planned out before the baby comes. yay!!

First Week of School

 

New School Year

Monday was the first day of grade one (and preschool), and things are going great!! The kids are so excited to start school again. I went out to walmart and bought them each a brand new backpack. Z also got a big box of crayons, and E got a binder to keep all of her school work in.

We started on monday morning with mass at 8am and then came home to a snack around the kitchen table while we read our religion book. Then we did spelling (which after a month off I was surprised by how much E retained), math, and science (learning about the weather).

The kids also have new chores for the year because they are so big: Z puts away the cutlery from the dishwasher, and E puts all the cups, plates and bowls up on the counter (she can't reach the cupboards yet).

We also took some time to sit on the floor and do some new puzzles that we bought. Both Z and E are good at putting them together, and it's a fun activity for me to help out with too.

Today, Z is cutting paper (his favorite activity) and E is drawing a picture of a princess to go along with the saint story we just read (St. Alice, who happened to be a princess).

E has begged to do science every day because she is so interested in learning about the world around her... I love her curiosity and hunger for knowledge. Yesterday in science we learned about why we have seasons (because the earth is tilted slightly), and she grasped the concept almost faster than I did :-) I think we'll have lots of fun this year.

This is what we finally decided on for our curriculum:

Math: math-u-see Alpha
Spelling/reading/writing: Spell to Write and Read (using cursive writing)
Religion: Faith and Life 1 (mondays), Saint Stories and other short catholic stories (tues), Treasure of My Catholic Faith 1 (Weds), Catholic Mosaic (thurs and friday).
Science: Noeo Biology 1 (daddy is doing all the science experiments on saturdays)
History: Connecting with History volume 1 (beginners level)
Art: Artistic Pursuits vol 1

What a week!!

Well We had a ery busy week here, looking after a very sweet little boy. Z loved having a friend to play with and we did lots of different activities !! With my budding first grader, we have been doing older activities this year, so it's been fun to have another preschooler in the house. We did all sort of fun games.

1) H is so proud of her new ability to climb onto chairs.... and she also tried her hand at climbing OUT of her crib. That little monkey sure keeps me busy.

2) We played outside almost every day with bubbles, the water table, the big toddler car. The kids also found a lady bug, some sunflower seeds, a rock, some dandelions, and many flies and birds.

3) We colored thomas the tank engine pictures, glued circles onto paper to make teddies, and drew pictures.

4) We ate home made macaroni and cheese, eggs on toast, cookies, crackers, grapes, kiwi, oranges, apples, bananas, chicken nuggets and drank lots of milk, juice and water.

5) We had a fun field trip to the midwives office, where we saw some horses and cows in the field, helped take mommy's blood pressure, and then went out for a special treat of mcDonald's for lunch.

6) We read lots of stories, and had wonderfully quiet naps each afternoon for an hour and a half. It's quite a schedulling masterpeice to get all four kids to nap at the same time :-)

7) We played silly games, like run away from the big frog (Z), play in a 'tent' in the living room made of sheets, Bob the Builder and the princesses going to the ball, good guys and bad guys in the toy castles, thomas and percy (the trains) crashing into everything imanginable, 'phoning' grandma, hiding from the scary toe-biting baby on the loose, and building big towers and roads with blocks.

8) Finally, today we made lots of messes when I dumped a bunch of flour into 3 cookie sheets for them to 'draw' in with their fingers. This was especially fun... and then they got to take turns using the vaccuum cleaner to clean it all up. After that, we made blue playdough which they played with for over and hour and a half!!

I'm truly amazed at the creativity and imagination of children when they aren't stuck in front of a tv all day!! They just have so much fun, and I find myself smiling and laughing all day at their anticts. It's such a privaledge to be able to spend so much time with these young people.

Some good resources

I've been busy planning what we'll do for grade one, and here are some good resources that I have found:

Noeo Science: We have bio 1, and I just finished looking through it last night. It seems to be a very good curriculum for early elementary. Daddy is going to do science saturdays with the kids and do all the experiments with them. I'll do the readings and narrations on the weekdays. The topics range from the human body to birds and butterflies, to microbes and bacteria. I like the fact that they stress using narrations with the children, and keeping a science notebook with drawings, experiement notes and charts, and narrations. It will be a fun addition to grade one.

Classical copywork: This is a free workbook for doing copywork with elementary kids (aimed at grades 2-5 but could work with 1-6 i'm sure. It's exerpts from classic children's books that the child would copy each day. The first 2 days from the workbook, and the 3rd day they write it from dictation, trying to get the correct spelling and punctuation etc... and there's room to illustrate it. Each week's selection is only one sentence long.

Living books: Living books are books that teach about something not in a dry textbooky style. They are written by author who are passionate about what they are writing about. They are often stories or biographies etc... This is a webpage with links to living books in various subjects. They make great supplements to a science or history curriculum that you are already following.. just get them out of the library.

summer time!

We've been so busy around here the last few weeks!!

Kindergarten is officially over... E did a great job of finishing up everything and is very excited about starting grade one. She wanted to start yesterday, but the teacher needs a holiday, so we're going to start back up after Vacation Bible School.,.. probably on the last week of July. I want to make sure I start early so we can take off 2 months when the new baby arrives.

We spent 3 days camping over the long weekend at a Catholic Family conference with some of our friends and had so much fun. The kids loved camping: marshmallows, tent trailer, fun food, playing with friends, running around outside all day etc... Mommy loved it more than being in a tent, but less than being at home where everything is child proofed and the little H can run wild without much supervision. phew! i'm tired after chasing her around all weekend.

Speaking of H, she's learned how to climb up on to the chairs at the kitchen table, climb into the dishwasher if it's open, climb up and down the stairs at ease, climb out the front door anytime it's open, and I'm hoping she hasn't learned how to climb out of her crib. She's a baby with a mission to conquer the world!!

This past week we vacationed at home. Daddy had the whole week off and we just cleaned, played outside, visited relatives, took naps, and savoured sleeping in. The kids were still on camping schedules (which means getting to bed at 10:30pm or so... and sleeping in at least until 7 or 730).

We also visited a good friend who just had a baby (congrats to Karin!!), and went to the science centre (waaaay too crowded).

This week we are babysitting one of our neighbors little boys (almost 3 yrs), and having lots of fun with him. So far today the kids have played trains, blocks, castle with bad guys and princesses, made a tent, had lunch, coloured and cut up paper, and did some puzzles. My, do they ever have a lot of energy at this age. It's a regular preschool around here this week :-)

Hope everyone is doing well in your little part of the world too!