Well, I have stopped maintaining a journal of our homeschooling activities.  I figured that this journal and our calendar of activities is enough.  One less thing to do-how wonderful!!! 

Anyway, I haven't been on her in over a week so get to up-date about our activities.  On Friday, 8/26, we went upstairs to our neighbors for the evening and had a potluck dinner.  It was very nice.  The food was great and the girls are welcomed even though they are the youngest and the busiest    Our neighbor has two adult males that live with him.  He mentors these gentleman in how to live in the community.  They are from board and care facilities.  One man has been living there for 3 yrs and the other has only been there a couple of months.  Anyway, it is great for the girls to experience and the household likes the girls visiting.  It reminds me of the past work that I have done and reminds Mark of when his brother, Rick, was alive and living with Mark.

On 8/27/05, we went to Barnes and Noble and the girls got to "cash" in their incentive charts.  We started doing incentive charts over a month ago.  It seems to be working well.  Jessica has 5 categories-making her bed, brushing her teeth, helping, cleaning, and reading a book.  Reading a book means for Jessica that she needs to attempt to read some of the words in the book we are reading.  Angelina has 4 categories-wearing a eye patch (she has to complete 2 rows regarding this), brushing her teeth, helping, and cleaning.  The girls love picking a sticker to put on the chart and when it is complete, they get a reward.  Jessica picked a mix & match dinosaur book.  She made her on made up dinosaurs with this and even traced about 6 of them.  Her abilities at drawing are blooming!!  Angelina picked a box called "How To Be A Ballerina."  Angelina loves anything regarding dancing and will only wear leotards or dresses at this moment in her life.  She loved this reward.  I have read the book many, many times this week that came with this box.  Angelina dressed up in the tutu and fuzzy hairband.  After going to Barnes and Noble, we went to the Discovery Center for 3 hours.  The girls have so much fun there.  It was a great day when we discovered this place less than 5 minutes from home.  We also got some Five In A Row (FIAR) done.  We are working on the book called "Lentil."  We did art:detail, social studies:geography, social studies:history, math, and social studies:human relationships.  The girls love this curriculum as it is centered around reading a book.  I love it because it covers 5 areas and the activities are all planned out for me.

On 8/28/05, we went to church.  We also did some more math and some science regarding Lentil (FIAR).  We finished doing activities with this book today.  The girls and I also made some candied nuts and Mark made cornbread muffins for our Felicity Tea Party.  The candied nuts actually baked too long so didn't taste good but the muffins and actual tea party was a success.

On 8/29/05, we read the book, "Degas and The Little Dancer."  This resulted in us talking about the artist Degas and I had a coloring page for the girls to color.  It showed one of the actual pages that was in the book.  Both girls loved being able to color a page that was in their reading book.  This was a huge success.  I need to look for more children books like this.  The girls also had their annual physical today.  Mark, the doctor and I all noticed that the girls are growing up.  They did almost everything that was asked of them at this appointment.  They got stickers and lollipops as a result of doing so well.  Both girls even got a shot without too much fuss.  Never fun doing this   The girls had to trade in their lollipops.  Even though they were sugar free, they had red dye in them.  A definite no-no for both.  They weren't too heartbroken in getting vanilla ice cream in return!

8/30/05, Tuesday, was a blast.  Auntie Catherine came to visit last night and today we went to Murray Farms.  Been there before to just buy fruit but never for the day.  We got to go picking on the farm.  We got a flat of peaches, nectarines, apples, and pears.  All were hand picked by the family.  We also bought a seedless watermelon.  This farm had a place that the girls could dig in corn kernels (big pool of corn kernels).  Jessica buried herself in corn kernels.  We also went to the petting area there.  There were goats, pig, sheep, ponies, roosters/chickens, pigeons, and peacocks.  Not all were for petting but enough to make the girls happy.  The last thing we did was a hay maze.  That was great fun for the girls also.  We are planning to return end of September as we want some more apples.  The fruit was delicious!!!  Jessica was coloring that night and got to do a mini lesson on primary colors and how you can mix those to make other colors.

Wednesday, 8/30/05, we got to go to Fresno for Angelina's eye specialist appt.  She is doing great!!!  We are now allowed to reduce the time of wearing the patch from 2-4 hours to only 2 hours a day.  In November we get to do annual testing.  It's hard to believe but we have been going to this place for one year now.  They wanted us there at 7:30AM the Monday after Thanksgiving weekend.  I made the clerical person call someone of authority as it would have meant no trip to San Diego and getting everybody up and out of the house at 4:30AM.  I told them no way would they get any good test results from Angelina with that early a wake up call.  We are going on 11/30 at 9AM-still early but it will work.  After the eye doctor, we went out for lunch and then to our favorite place, a library.  And not just any library but a new one.  We walked out with 3 of our 4 library cards maxed out-only 90 books, books on tape and videos    It was great!!!  Jessica listened to the first book of Josephina from American Girls.  Oh yea, Angelina had a break through.  For the first time, she mixed her food.  She found out that peas and tuna taste good together.

September 1st, I got to go back to work after being off since Friday.  We started our first official day of school.  That sounds so funny as we homeschool year round.  But anyway, Mark played a reading game with the girls.  The girls had gymnastics and we all went to a baseball game.  The girls again showed us how much they are growing.  They stayed for the entire game and had a blast playing with the other children that were there.  We had free tickets from the Book Blast.  The girls read books and got the tickets for it.  We had what ended up being a minor incident.  The girls were playing with other children.  Angelina fell and ended up rolling which resulted in falling under the bleachers.  I have never seen Mark move so fast.  He was up and over the railing and picking up a crying Angelina before I had even reached the railing.  End result was two minor scratches from Angelina's glasses on her face and behind a ear.  She also got a knot on her head.  She went back to playing once the scare was over.  She got a free baseball from her incident.  We also got a frisbee with a coupon for 10 free tokens at John's Incredible Pizza.  Mark won a t-shirt but gave it to one of the children that the girls were playing with.  It was all round fun.  As we left the girls got a bag full of goodies-baseball cards, coloring books, pencils, and coupons for free food.

Yesterday, the girls and I went to American Girls at Berean Christian Bookstore.  They made little ladybug coin purses.  We also went to the bank, took some money out but most important we donated money to the American Red Cross to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina.  The girls and I decided to not buy two games and a book from Scholastic.  They also found some pennies.  The end result was $20.05 being donated.  Jessica had been seeing the pictures on the news and understood the idea that the families had no homes and needed food and water.  Simplified it for her but she did a good thing when she understood.  Angelina doesn't understand the idea of a hurricane but she did understand that some children needed food and water because they can't get to their homes.  We all felt like we did something good.  I wish it could be more!!!

Anyway, that's our homeschooling journey up to now.  Hope you enjoy the reading-Christina

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