Friday during co-op Sophie’s pre-K class learned about buses. We sang the ever popular song Wheels on the Bus, we talked about what buses do, where they go, some of the street signs they have to obey, etc. Then everyone got to draw their own bus. Here’s Sophie’s great bus:
Tags: bus
My baby will be TWO tomorrow! Yikes! Today we had a little birthday celebration for her. Lots of fun.
Sarah looking mighty pleased with herself:
Blowing out the candles:
And enjoying the cupcake!
Tags: Birthday
Whew! It’s been a busy couple of days! Yesterday we had chess club, park day at the Botanical Gardens, and soccer practice. It was a very windy day yesterday, but nice temperature-wise. Today our local co-op came over to play and did the kids need that after a long rainy day!
Sarah collecting rocks at the Botanical Gardens
Sophie and Sarah throwing rocks in the water
The kids had lots of fun with Play-doh today. Sophie’s a pro at blending all the colors together!
Parker make a lovely cake:
And then Sophie made one:
And then Sarah:
Tags: play-doh
Saturday was soccer game day. Everyone had fun and even Sophie played! Well, at least for a bit.
Tags: soccer
No doubt that being a mother is tough, the crying and whining, the tantrums and meltdowns and then there are the kids themselves to deal with!!! But as tough as it may be to be a parent, I can’t imagine how it was in the days before all our modern conveniences: dishwashers, washers, dryers, Starbucks, etc. I’ve been trying to think of what modern conveniences that I could not live without and it’s hard.
I’d say the biggest is the washer and dryer, hands down. But then, there is the oven, the dishwasher, and refrigerator that I’d be hard pressed to manage without! And what about electricity? Is that considered a modern convenience?
But as for some of the more recent conveniences, I’d have to say the one I would absolutely miss the most is the computer. I do everything on the computer: shop, pay bills, keep in touch with family and friends, store pictures, research, look up directions, phone numbers, etc. I use it for entertainment too, reading news, and even for homeschooling. Yep, I’d be mighty sad without my trusty laptop.
This post was inspired by Yoplait Kids and Parent Bloggers
Tags: blog blast
Our Right Start Math curriculum is going very well. I am really very pleased with this curriculum so far. It is suppose to rival the Asian way of teaching math. I can already see an improvement in Parker’s basic math facts after just a few lessons. One of the biggest points of this curriculum is that children not use their fingers to count or add. It reviews the numbers from 0-10 quite a bit and teaches children to see numbers in groups of five. So 6 would be 5 and 1 and 9 would be 5 and 4 or 1 less than 10. They use an abacus to ‘see’ this and it helps. This curriculum was created by Dr Joan Cotter, who has a BSEE, a PhD in mathematics, and was a Montessori teacher.
One of the games that this curriculum teaches is called Go to the Dump, a spin-off of Go Fish. You use the A-9 cards from a deck of cards and instead of finding matches you try to find pairs that equal 10. Parker and Sophie both enjoyed this game.
Here is Parker working with his abacus:
And here is Sarah doing her part:
Tags: math, Right Start
Parker LOVES building and construction. He says he wants to build roads when he’s a grownup. I’m always being pestered, uh, I mean questioned about how roads are made. My answers never seemed to satisfy him though! One day I found this cool video on netflix, however. He loved it and it seemed to do a much better job of descibing the process than I did! And it had explosions and heavy machinery in it too – what more could a boy ask for? Besides road construction, Parker also loves the thought of building, well, buildings. Building a skyscraper is another of his aspirations. And yesterday, he built his very first house! He was inspired (somehow) by Sophie’s Hello Kitty stickers. He just would not rest until the Hello Kitty stickers had their very own house. So, he got busy rummaging through the recycle bin and the craft supplies and came up with this masterpiece:
Sarah was also having a creative day:
Tags: building, hello kitty
We had our second chess lesson yesterday. The boys are catching on and are having fun with it. We reviewed the board and learned the names of all the pieces yesterday. Parker is just itching to play a real game but did have a lot of fun with the pawn game that he played with Alex and Keona. I had hopes that Sophie would be interested in learning chess but nope!!! One day, maybe.
Tags: chess
