Mar. 1, 2008 - Updates on the pumpkins
Just some updates on the kids:
Jonah is 11 months old now. He'll be one in just a few short weeks! Yikes, I don't know where the past year went! He is standing well on his own for long stretches of time and has even taken a few wobbly steps here and there. He is so proud of himself when he does this. When he gets into a standing position all by himself, he always makes sure his "audience" is paying attention. The kids love to praise and admire him! It is such a beautiful thing to witness :) Jonah says "hi" and waves, but that is his only word so far. He is beginning to understand more and more words, however. For instance, he will find a ball on the floor when I ask him to, and splashes in the tub when I ask him to show me the water. He knows the words "baby" and "puppy" as well. I hope to give him a "Froggy" themed birthday party.
Elijah is my wild, expressive, emotional, funny little boy. He is rowdy and boisterous one moment, charming and lovable the next! But I wouldn't want him any other way! He finally has the attention span to sit still and listen to stories. In fact, it is hard getting him to bed now because he just wants to keep listening to books! I know it has improved his vocabulary and helped inspire his imagination. I often overhear him acting out different stories he's heard with his toys. He loves to talk about the "gruffalo" from the book by Julia Donaldson. He even remembers and repeats the descriptions from the book (like the sharp, purple prickles). I have started the Letter of the Week preparatory curriculum with him. This past week we read lots of books about cows, did a cow craft, started a number book, learned the letter A (I put up an A poster and also did some fingerpainting with him), and had "cow spot icecream" (chocolate chip, LOL).
I am wondering if Elijah has eczema. When he was a baby, he would sometimes get red, blotchy patches on his face and bumps on his upper arms. This went away for a long time. Occassionally it comes back, however. I honestly don't know much about eczema at all, but I've heard it can be caused by food allergies. I took him off cow's milk for a long time and he never had any break-outs during that time (he was drinking only soy). Recently I tried the cow's milk again and his face was red and blotchy for about a week. So it certainly seems like the milk was the culprit, but I'm going to keep a close eye on his diet and watch his skin for any changes. In the meantime, I'll be doing some research on eczema.
Savannah enjoys helping me teach Elijah. She is a fantastic reader, but also a superb storyteller. She puts more passion and enthusiasm into her reading than most adults! Honestly, she understands that different characters speak differently and seems to enjoy giving them individual voices. She adds emphasis in the right areas and builds suspense when it's called for.
Savannah turned five in November. She loves her fish and her hermit crabs. I wish I could give her a farm to grow up on! I always dream of owning dogs and cats and other critters. Unfortunately it isn't possible for us right now because we live in the city and are very cramped already. Cats would be OK, but my husband is allergic to them :( I do miss having animals in my life.
Noah is seven now! He is such a big help to me and always looking out for the younger kids. It is nice that I can trust him to keep an eye on the baby while I run downstairs to do the laundry or dash outside to check the mail. And I know it gives him a feeling of accomplishment.
Noah is reading Stuart Little right now. He does about two chapters a day - one out loud during school time, and another on his own before bed. He still gets stuck on words, but is really doing so well with it! He is also enjoying the High Rise Private Eyes series by Cynthia Rylant.
Noah is finishing up Spelling Workout A. I hope to get him and Savannah started on Book B in a few weeks. I haven't given Savannah any of the work pages from Book A, but she picked up the words anyway (and mastered them!) Spelling is SO much harder for Noah. I don't know why. Savannah just seems to have an intuitive sense of phonetical rules and also seems to have memorized many words just from being an avid reader. Right now I'm concentrating on Noah's trouble words from the first book. I wrote down some funny sentences made up of words with the same letter sounds in them to help him. Like this: "Wow! How did you get down from the brown cow?" That is helping a little :) It's frustrating because he often seems to have mastered a word, but later forgets it. I'm not sure what to do about this, other than constant practice.
For writing I have been using ideas from About the Authors: Writing Workshop with our youngest writers by Lisa Cleaveland and Katie Wood Ray. Basically I use children's books to teach the kids about punctuation, capitalization, sentence structure, descriptive words, story structure, etc. Then the kids go off to make their own books! It has been a lot of fun. They are beginning to pick up on lots of the clever things they see "real authors" doing in their books, like using repeating lines and so many other things. They are trying different types of punctuation and different patterns for their own books. Noah and Savannah also do copywork and lessons from A Reason for Handwriting.
Noah is almost done with the first grade half of First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind. So we'll be doing lots of review and refresher lessons for the rest of the year. I think I'll have him spend more time perfecting the poetry memorization so he becomes good at reciting them. And maybe I'll come up with some lessons of my own here and there.
Math and Science are going well. Math has always been a breeze for Noah, which is a relief to me! I'm still very happy with Saxon, although I haven't found it necessary to review as much as the book requires.
I'm enjoying Story of the World so much and Noah is getting better and better at doing narrations. We just finished learning about Athens and Sparta. On Friday we read about the Trojan Horse. Noah really loved hearing Homer's story about Odysseus and the Cyclops a few weeks ago, and was excited to learn that Odysseus also came up with the idea of the wooden horse. So we did the Greek paper dolls from the book and Noah decided that one of his would be Odysseus. Savannah made hers into Helen of Troy :)
Well, those are my updates. Hope it won't be so long between posts next time!
