School Pictures 2009

We were at the park yesterday so I thought I would takes some school pictures (sort of)

Belle---age 12, 7th gradePhia--age 10, 5th grade


Bobo--age 8, 3rd grade

My Summer Wood Land Home

I was barefoot as I stepped on the Summer ground,
with the soft moss underneath my toes.
As I looked up I saw the tall dark Oak trees,
with their limbs swaying as the wind blows.

The wind and the shade cooled me,
from the stalling warm summer air.
Then something startled me.
A rustle in the bushes,
for a minute I thought it was a bear.

I was assured when a rabbit came hopping out.
It's big round eyes looked all about.
When it saw me it turned and hopped away.

I suppose it was looking for someone
smaller to play.

One can hear the sounds and smell the scents,
of my Summer wood land home.
Just by reading word by word,
of this extra-ordinary poem.

Who says our kids don't know us?

Tonight on the way home from my inlaws I asked hubby to drop me off at Starbucks. Earlier in the evening my friend called me and asked if I could meet her for coffee. Hubby asked me why...such an odd request. I said my friend threw a fit, stormed out the door and needed to talk.

My oldest says..."What? Grown ups don't throw fits."

My youngest pipes up, "Yeah they do, Mommy has thrown thousands of fits!"

Happy Birthday Phi

I cannot believe it's been 10 years since this little one was placed in my arms. (in the front middle with pink hat) She was so tiny and so perfect. She had tons of black straight hair that would stick straight up when I washed it. I called her my little duckling. I remember her puking all over me after every feeding for the first month. I did so much laundry. She has always been the smallest of our girls, a little feather weight. Hubby would perch her in his hands and lift her up. She is finally getting too big for that now.

She is one smart cookie. I remember pulling out the puzzles when she was about 2 and she would just put them together in no time. It was amazing. At four she was adding numbers in her head. She would evaluate her world through math problems and not even know it. "Mom, if there are eight in the box and I have two and my sisters each have two then there are two left in the box." This from her car seat. Phi definitely sees the world differently and I admit it has taken me a while to understand her. Her daddy is so much better at it. But I love and appreciate her quirkyness and look forward to seeing what God does with her life.

Happy Birthday Phi!
Love, Mom

Motivation

As Belle has written her second entry to her blog I realized the valuable motivation it will provide to learn to spell and write correctly. I should have done this a long time ago. She is just thrilled to have a blog and when her Aunty left the sweetest comment her face lit up. She is growing up and getting so capable and independent. She is becoming so diligent in her school work and desires to learn. She can be so helpful when she wants. Like today, I got a call from an agent. I had 15 minutes to make my bed, get dressed, pick up and straighten up the kitchen. All I had to do was yell, in the nicest way, "an agent is on her way," and Belle sprung into action making sure all beds were made and dishes were neatly rinsed and stacked. It boggles my mind that I have a daughter so gifted and talented that is nearly 12. She is amazing to me and I am so glad she's mine.
Susan

Blogging and Belle

I have finally let my oldest Belle start a blog. She is so excited. She wrote her first post here at Renee's Writings

She said her favorite subject is spelling. Made me smile because it is the one subject she struggles in. Her spelling is atrocious. But we are working on it. I bought her an Evan Moor spelling book until I figure out what we will officially do for spelling and guess what? She loves it. What a hoot. She loves to write and is motivated to learn to spell. She said she finally figured out how to study a word to learn it. In the past she has made a notebook and she would write down all the words she wanted to learn to spell; her own dictionary of sorts. These are the words she uses most in her creative writing, which I have hardly read. She won't let me read it until she is finished. She has only let me read short snippets of it. You can see I have definitely taken the relaxed approach to spelling with her. But it is time to be more directed.

My poor daughter

Belle is enthusiastic. When she grabs a hold of something she doesn't let go for a long time. She works it and works it until she is satisfied that she has done well. Boy, reminds me of someone else I know.

I haven't worried too much about formal writing instruction as of yet (6th) grade. The girl has been working on a story for several months. She started hand writing it in a spiral notebook. It has several chapters, has lots of dialogue in it and is about fairies. That is all I know about it. She won't let me read it. Poor girl, thinks I am going to correct her work or cringe at the mistakes she's made. She's probably not far off the mark, but I promised myself to keep my mouth shut this time.

My hubby got a second computer (a hand me down from my parents) working and now we have this extra at the girls disposal. Because time on my laptop is far and few between. I'm a bit of a computer hog around here.

Belle has decided that she would rather type her story , what she has so far, on the computer and then she can fix and edit as she goes along. Little did she know how poor her spelling skills were. In fact I'm not sure I realized how poor they were. I'd say about every third word is underlined. She's just realizing how bad it is and yet she hangs in there, asking how to spell this and that and we holler from the other room how to spell it. ( The child has been working at this for more than an hour now).

I've made her a small personal dictionary with a list of 1000 most common words and then a page for each letter to list words she uses that are not on the list. That is why I have been doing so much spelling research lately. We've gotta do something about this. Unfortunately the world looks at a poor speller as an uneducated one and I understand that, so we will work hard on it until I am satisfied that she can "look" as brilliant as she is.

Belle is a great reader though and scores high on comprehension tests. She just seemed to get through phonics enough to read and now she flies through books, but I know she skips a lot. In fact when she reads aloud I can tell there are just some words she cannot sound out. Boy, I would have done things a bit differently way back then, had I known what I do now.

By the way, we are going to start using Spelling Plus as soon as she finishes her Evan Moor spelling book.

Susan

The girl who teaches herself

Sometimes having a Kinesthetic learner can be exhausting. Sometimes I just cannot think of another game to play/make up to reinforce learning.

Sometimes I am given a break when the child thinks up her own learning game. And I am happy to have that break. Especially when I see the brilliance that just came from my child.

First you take egg cartons and turn them upside down. Then you write a letter on each egg section. You will only get to the letter "x" but that is OK. We can do without "y" and "z" for now. Then mom tells you a word and you find the letters and plink on letter/egg like it's a key board.


Then you write that word on your makeshift computer screen. Brilliant, I say!

Susan

She didn't get it from me

The last couple of weeks two of my girls have been sick. One with an ear infection and the other a cough/congestion cold. Belle, the oldest had decided that getting sick was not an option. She was going to stay healthy no matter what. She took matters into her own hands. She washed her hands continually. She put antibacterial wash on every five minutes. It sat on the table in front of her during school. The two sick girls got better. The antibiotic was completed.

Then Belle woke up with a stuffy nose. Darn! She was not happy about getting sick.

After a few days of not feeling well, when she felt on the mend and got some energy back she decided that she would not recontaminate herself.

So on Saturday, she stripped the bed and put all her bedding into the laundry. Not only that, she saw it through the entire wash and dry cycle. Then she ironed her pillow shams.

She wiped down her bed and shelves above her bed. She swept and mopped her floor. She remade her bed after everything was clean and aired out.

Amazing huh? I did not tell her to do one of these things she did. Seriously folks, where did this girl come from and who mothered her for 11 years? She certainly did not get this from me.

Susan

Lewis and Clark, Mocasins and more

We are starting our study of Lewis and Clark. I love our History Curriculum, My Father's World, but I was a little put out that the study of Lewis and Clark was one days reading. Since we live in the Northwest and my husband grew up in a town where they walked right through, I knew we couldn't leave our study at one day's reading. So I got on line and found a delightful lapbook project at Homeschool Share.

I collected some books from the library and have a few more on hold for me and we will start our reading soon. One delightful book I found is this:
The project we found inside is this:

Now that we are half way done making these, the girls are requesting full American Indian dress up clothes. It won't be long before we have dress ups for every era. I'm sure that making the girls dresses will only add to their experience learning about Lewis and Clark. And we must not forget Sacagawea.
Because you know my two oldest will be doing some fancy bead work on their moccasins.

crafty updates

Its been far too long since I have updated this blog. I am wondering if it is even reasonable to have it as well as my main blog. Maybe I should combine the two? Except I love this template and blog name and hesitate to trash it.

My girls are busy working on their crafting skills. They rarely need me to help them with their skills. We had acquired quite a few Klutz books for Christmas and they are worth every penny. If you are an uncrafty mom but have children who desire to learn different craft skills these books are a gem.

I am pretty convinced at this point that my Belle is a designer by design. I am sure God gave her some pretty amazing gifts in the area of the arts. An example: I showed her a picture on a website of the cutest little crochet cupcake bag. She looked at it for all of about 30 seconds. By the next day her creation was made. This is what she came up with. She has made several since this first one and given them away.















This doll below is wearing a poodle skirt. Belle made this one too. The girls had an opportunity to sing in church worship this weekend and I helped the leader make poodle skirts for all the girls. When we got home she decided her doll needed one too. I noticed that the bottom edge of the skirt was so finished. It turns out that she took a t-shirt she had and cut the bottom off and made it into a skirt. I am thinking I need to collect a few items from Goodwill so that she can practice redesigning clothes.
















The photo of fabric scraps is the beginning of her latest creation. I'm not exactly sure what it is yet, but she said something about a quilted camera strap. She never ceases to amaze me.

Kid Quote

Bobo: I want to be a vegetarian when I grow up!

Dad: What will you do when you are a vegetarian?

Bob0: I will help sick animals.