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Spanish

Posted by on March 12, 2012 Leave a Comment

Just to keep things exciting, in the home classroom, we’ve switched languages again! I consider it keeping Emily well rounded.

I picked up a Spanish Kids dictionary to help keep her excited about learning and try some new words out. I’m excited to try something new. I can hardly wait for next year when I get to try some new things again! I think one of the keys to helping a child learn a new language is modelling it. Like any other concept, if you do it, they will. I usually replace the words for “I want” and “I have” en Español and she picked that up without even knowing it was part of class. Now she asks if I want something of if she wants something and is using this weird kind of sign-spanglish. I doubt there is a term for it. I looked into Rosetta Stone for her, but she’s not quite there, so we will stick with a mixture for now.

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Pointillism

Posted by on January 21, 2012 Leave a Comment

African Violet Pointillism – by Emily

Homeschooling Lesson of the week…patience! For the both of us, or should I say for ALL of us because this included Avery and Daddy too.

We had a regular week of school followed by a completely irregular weekend. Normally, I dont use words like irregular unless Im talking about the potty, but Ive been studying my spanish way too much and Im all about verbs! regular ones and irregular ones, but I got of track there.

We have been doing progressive phonics for reading. Emily is pretty much good to go with short /e/ words! We just finished the “Secret World of Og”, which was definitely one of my favorite books of all time! Math U See feels a bit boring at this point, but I think she finally starting to recognize 6 and 9. I got a couple new apps on the ipad that are helping with that sooo much too. And we started a new science unit about creation from Our Fathers World.

We finally got into the groove…then morgan got appendicitis and kablooey(technical term)…the routine was gone. Mk is recovering well. Lucky guy is now less an appendix and plus three tiny scars. We will have to wait and see what next week looks like, but I’m planning on taking it easy and starting potty training…Avery, not me…

 

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Homeschool in the Fall

Posted by on October 11, 2011 Leave a Comment

Boy are we sure enjoying fall. It’s always been my favorite season. I like all the seasons, but fall is my favorite! I wrote a paper in school based on a speech given by Carl Honore titled” In Praise of Slowness”. Basically the gist of it is that we live our lives at 100 miles an hour and we miss alot of the living to be had. So we’ve been fully pursuing slowness this fall. I love the way it makes me feel to get into a rythym and a day to day routine without so many things in the week that everyone is confused.

A day in the life of fall:

7:30-8ish get up and make breakfast. Emily is learning to do this on her own, which is one of our goals for this year.

8:30-9 – I do my devotions and spend time praying while the girls play downstairs. This is the best part of my day and without it, Im in the wrong frame of mind the rest of the day and lets just say it goes more smoothly if mommy gets some time to her self.

9-10:30- School starts. We cuddle on the couch and read Emilys bible on the iPad and go over her A-Z Memory verses. She is on “E” – “Every good and perfect gift is from above”. then we sit at the table and do some reading, writing and math. I’ve been keeping it more consistent for the last little while because emily needs the same things more than I do.  Avery takes this time to draw on a white board or play with playdough. If I have something really tough to teach Avery gets the playmobil house because it holds her attention even longer. Speaking of tough things…how dumb is English that p,b,d,q,6 and 9 are all essentially the same shape! so not fair to kiddos leaning letters and numbers!

I should clarify that all these times are “ish”, meaning that we just start when we start and when Im ready for us to start.

10:30-11 a snack and more play time. On nicer days, the girls play on the deck or outside

11- 12- Lately I’ve been throwing together crock pot meals and getting laundry done.

12 – Emily makes lunch! Just globby jam sandwiches and yogurt and carrot sticks, but its super cute that she wants to make lunch.

1- More playtime. Usually in the back yard or the playroom if its raining or windy.

2:30-3 Nap time and quiet time and mommy studies Spanish time!

4-5 reading books or playing games with the girls and then getting dinner ready.

The evenings are all over the place, but they’ve been more routine since Emily got over her issues with water on her face and started showering. Wow that makes it sound like I dont bathe my kid, but really she just prefered baths before.

All around we are enjoying the fall and the fun leaf treasure hunts that come with that. I really need to find my camera…

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Gauged

Posted by on December 11, 2007 3 Comments

My ears are all warm and fuzzy. I gauged my ears. Well…with help. I don’t think I’d have been brave enough if my friend hadn’t been a pro piercer before. So instead of a 16 I have 10′s in my ear. Little teeny black tunnels. I’ll take a pic whenever the redness goes away…haha. I had totally wanted to do it forever, but I just really didn’t want to do something irreversible. I could still gauge a couple more sizes before I reach the point of no return. It’s funny how piercing and tattoos and stuff like that are addicting. I’m already like “8 gauge isn’t that much bigger”. Funny hey. I think I’m pretty content with 10′s. It’s cool too cause they are tunnels so I can still wear my coconut earings that I just got. It’s probably the first impulsive thing I’ve done in a really long time. It felt good. Silly, but good.

Two Christmas dinners down… Three to go. We have one every night this week. I totally messed up tonights and forgot I had French Class and Dinner. Sucky, but at least I did my French homework. The teacher let me off easy this time. Merci Coco! Je t’aime! Je ne suis pas assez intelligent. Here was my verse for this week

Romains 3:23 “Car tous ont péché et sont prive de la gloire de Dieu.”(aside from 1 spelling mistake when I checked it I got it right all by myself!) It says “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”.

All I can say is that I’m defninitely better than Mr. Bean. His French is bad. In the new Bean movie (soo funny) this is a sample conversation:

Waitress in France: Would you like some coffee?

Mr. Bean: Oui!

Waitress: Cream or Sugar?

Mr. Bean: Non!

Waitress: Your French is good Monsieur.

Mr. Bean: Gracius!

If you don’t know whats wrong with that you need to take my French class.

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Je t'aime cafe

Posted by on November 21, 2007 4 Comments

I didn’t mean to but I guess I took another blog holiday. Last week was pretty busy.

Emily is cutting all 4 molars this week. Ahh. I was trying to figure out why she had been such a whiner last week and now I have my answer. Roxy is cutting her wisdom teeth too so her and M can be whiny together. M was up for almost an hour today before we put her back down. She was so tired and drooly and unruly and whiny and make-your-momma-crazy!
So now I’m back to enjoying my quite morning and my slightly cold coffee.

I wore my bangs down again yesterday. Now that totals 2 times since I got them forever ago. I think they are finally long enough that I can have the pretty, swoopy sideways, bangs instead of the emo short, stick out of my head, bangs that remind me way to much of my mushroom cut from 1992. It’s almost enough to give me flashbacks.

We finally remembered to pick up m our camera from the church. Its been there for several weeks, so no new pictures for right now. It’s so stinking cold out right now too so playing with M outside is not likely to happen. I’m hoping to take some pictures this week. M is changing so fast I have to keep up with my pictures as they soon become outdated.

I had my third French Class last night. It was really fun. We played a guys against girls quiz game. Out team was called “Les Singe mauves et grosses”. It means “The purple fat monkeys”. So we have a limited vocab to make a name up from ok. Our motto was “Je t’aime cafe”. “I love you coffee!”. I messed that up once and now I cant say it any other way.

I did good at my French, but the part I had a problem with was spelling an English word with French Letters. Seriously I spelled “Wednesday” WRONG! Who does that after grade three. I didn’t say the French letters wrong, I actually spelled the word wrong. I can spell pretty well if I can write it down first, but nope. Straight out of my head onto the board. Coco wrote down what I spelled. “W E N oops”. Cause thats what I said. It was pretty funny. So there you go Roxy. Just one more reason you can bug me about my spelling.

I’ve been saving money for Friday. It’s Midnight madness. I’m hoping to get some Christmas shopping done. At least stocking stuffers and stuff. Probably some stuff for Emily too. Ooh I need to get a paper today. It will have all the sale times and stuff. Ain’t nothing like a good sale.

Danielle and Coco and I are having a Christmas movie Marathon. We’ve been watching classic Christmas movies and the new ones too. I was going to put them up, but I think they will be tomorrows Thu13.

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Psycho. Psycho. Psycho!

Posted by on October 21, 2007 1 Comment

My blog has been getting neglected lately. Between a toddler, Facebook and learning French I’ve been a bad blogger. I got so mad at my computer that I stopped even using it for a bit. So now I feel like I have oodles to write and nothing at all at the same time. grr.

*Finally remembered the stupid bathtub plug! About time!*

I’ve been Quasimodo for the last 3 days. It’s been kinda funny.  I woke up on Friday unable to move my neck. It happened last Christmas for a few days too. Remember, Leah? It sucked so bad. I didn’t wait to see if it would just get better though this time. I downed the limit of Back pills and smelled mentholated  all day from a patch. I stood in hot water until my feet looked like lobsters. Finally by today I am mostly back to normal. My firsts night sleep was awful. I wish I new why my neck did that. Its not like when I sleep on it funny. That feels bad, but way different.  I look like a gibble. Which is a perfectly acceptable word to use thank you very much Morgan!

I making a roast beef for dinner tomorrow night. I’m all excited because I haven’t had roast beef for several months. I really like it. Crock pot style. Easy and Tasty. Morgan thinks all my crock pot meals taste the same, but I can’t complain. They are still better than eating toast for dinner.

Emily keeps dropping “F” bombs. I’m not sure what she is trying to say. Maybe fork or frog. I don’t know. Maybe she listens a little to closely to my neighbors when they get a little crazy.  She also told her baby sitter “My daddy’s a psycho! Psycho. Psycho. Psycho! ” Awesome hey. I guess I must say psycho. But she did learn like 5 new songs this week. and all of them old church songs I sang in Sunday school. Like “Jesus loves the little children” and “Rise and Shine and Give God the Glory” and “He’s got the whole world in his hands”. Her favorite is  “This little light of mine”.

I should go to bed. I have a couple of extra kids to look after tomorrow. Should be pretty interesting. or crazy. Whichever comes first. I can’t remember when they are coming, but I’m sure I’ll be sleepy. haha. Maybe I’ll work on my French for a bit then sleepy time.

Je ne suis pas grosse. Je suis mince. Wishful thinking!

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