August, 2009

Well, we have completed our first full month of homeschooling for this school year. :)

Even though Miriam is only 4, I decided to start her in a kindergarten curriculum since she is starting to read already. I felt like if we go slow she can handle it. So far it looks like I was right.  I decided to use the My Father's World From A to Z which is the kindergarten level for My Father's World (MFW) curriculum. I am very excited with how MFW has everything set up. It's easy for me the teacher. It's interesting for the kids. It is a mixer of a number of different styles of homeschooling all of which I really like. It is 100% Biblical world view. They even teach Creation Science!  

Anyway, we spent the first 2 weeks on a unit about the days of Creation. The last two weeks we have been working on unit 1 which is the letter "S" and a study of the sun. We didn't do all the activities they suggested but we did go out an play with our shadows. We even outlined them and watched how they changed over time. The kids loved that. (See picture below.)

Some people have already ask me, "How do you homeschool Miriam with two other little kids??"  Well it really isn't hard. The lessons are short, only take 30-40 minutes a day total. Evan often joins us for the lesson. I don't require that he does but when he does, I focus on letter recognition, learning colors, shapes, and counting for him. So I focus the easy preschool stuff to Evan, and the harder stuff to Miriam. When he doesn't want to do school, he plays quietly or he does Starfall on the computer. Evan LOOOVESS to do "ABC's" on the computer. (See picture.) Now Katie is bit trickier cause lit' Miss isn't missing anything! LOL Usually though I can convince her to sit in a chair and "color" or  put the crayons in and out of her bag. After awhile of that, she comes and sits in my lap as we finish up. It's really not bad at all.

As I mentioned, I am slowing the program down a little since Miriam is a year younger then expected. Each unit is designed to be 6 days. But I decided to make it into 10 days or 2 weeks.  So we do Lesson 1 on Monday. Lesson 2 on Tuesday.  Wednesday is storytime at the library and we do a worksheet or catch up if needed. Thursday is Lesson 3. And Friday we do Lesson 6 which is actually reading a book and doing activities around it.  Then the second Monday is Lesson 4. The second Tuesday is Lesson 5. Wednesday is library again.  Second Thursday is Lesson 6 again but with a different book (they give you 2-3 options each unit).  Then the second Friday we can catch up anything we need too or do other worksheets or games.  So far, so good! I may speed things up though as Miriam gets better at stuff and more used to the routine. We will see! Tomorrow we start the "M"/moon unit. Should be fun!

We were very blessed to be able to make an all expense paid trip to Dollywood this month. Brian's employer has a Family Day there as part of their yearly employee appreciation week. We got free admission for the whole family and a free meal. Since all our kids are young, we took our time getting there and didn't actually get into the park until about 11:30. Still we had a wonderful day.

There were a lot of rides even for our little kids. Besides the kiddie rides, Miriam was actually tall enough to ride all but 8 rides in the whole park (not that we even came close to riding all she could ride!) We did some for the whole family like the carousel. Miriam was standing in line for it when she spotted THE carousel animal she HAD to have. Yeah, a chicken!! LOL

Even doing kiddie rides, we soon learned that Katie liked the rides ONLY if she was with Momma or Daddy. If she wasn't the tears flowed.

We also learned that Evan is much like his father. He doesn't much care for fast, high rides. In fact Evan hates heights. So I think he only rode about 5 rides all day. We tried, he preferred to sit it out.

Miriam on the other hand... well, we couldn't get a ride high enough or fast enough for the little adrenaline junkie!! She wasn't tall enough for a real roller coaster which I think she would have loved. But she was just tall enough for their indoor roller coaster. If you ask her what her least favorite thing about Dollywood was she would say the fire in the roller coaster. The theme of this ride is that you are a firefighter rolling through the back hills of Tennessee putting out fires. It scared Miriam. However, if you ask Miriam what her favorite ride was it was also the roller coaster. Cause little Miss Fearless might not have like the "fire", but she DID like dropping 50 feet into pitch blackness at 45 miles an hour. Yup, that's my girl!! :o)

All in all, it was a really fun day! Hope we can go again next year. And maybe Miriam will have grown 6 inches. :oD

Katie told me, "I love you" this morning for the first time. I know she knows what it means because she followed it by running over and giving me an unsolicited kiss.

Evan also have a cute way of saying I love you. I often say, "I love you little dude" to him. Now he responds with, "I love you Momma dude"!

Well, Miriam and Evan had their 4 year and 3 year physicals the other week. I am happy to report they are basically healthy and certainly developmentally on track! LOL  Miriam weighted in at 38 1/2 pounds and is 42 inches tall. That puts her around 50th and 89th percentiles respectively. Evan (the dear boy) weighted in at 40 pounds and is 38 1/2 inches tall. That makes him about 60th percentile for height and somewhere around 99th for weight. They did a BMI on him which of course was off the charts. I think this is a case of US growth charts not being the best measurement of little Guatemalan boys. Thankful my Pediatrician agrees. Seriously, dude is not fat... he is just a TANK!!

Well, we originally though that Katie was going to be missing 2 teeth in the front where her cleft is (the second incisor and the canine). A few weeks back I noticed that the canine was squeezzzzzing it's self in at a slight angle. Then tonight I thought I saw something else while brushing Katie's teeth. I stuck a finger in and yup, there was the bud of the incisor waaaay up in the cleft. What do you know? She got 16 teeth now!

Miss Miriam has always loved the color pink and is quite fond of princess things. She likes "pretties" but doesn't mind getting covered in mud.  So I don't know that I would call her a girly girl. However that may be changing. Sunday, in an attempt to trim her horrendously long toenails, I agreed to paint her toenails for the first time. She LOVES it. Unfortunately, Momma didn't have pink polish so silver had to do. She was still VERY please. Something tells me pink polish has been added to the shopping list!!

We've had a lot of rain the last month. I finally got tired of being stuck in the house so out we went. I think they had fun. :)

Miriam has become the queen of crazy stories lately, and today she tried her hand at illistration. Take a look.

Awhile ago I made up a silly song for Evan, and yesterday inspiration struck again!

Here is "Does Your Katie Growl?" (to the tune of "Do your ears hang low?"):

Does your Katie growl? Does she
fuss and does she howl? Does she always want up? Does she never go
down? Does she holler? Does she scream? Does she often make a scene?
Does your Katie growl?? .... Mine does