Homeschool and Beyond

Dec. 26, 2006

Christmas!

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...many pictures of Christmas day!

I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas and are still finding lots of time to relax and enjoy yourselves. We had a delightful time, even though David woke up feeling very sick Christmas morning. No one likes to be in painful tears before opening presents, but Advil worked its magic, and we were back on the road to a happy day.

The first picture is of Sibling Night, which was last Tuesday. I have pictures of Christmas morning, but I like this one better.

We opened presents at our house and then headed to my mom's house where we had our usual lunch of ham, cornflake potatoes (mmmm!), and crescent rolls. Although we got so many wonderful presents, I won't fatigue you with all the gifts. Here's a pictorial representative sample.

David got an Ipod. (So did the Hunter.)

Here's the mighty hunter with his quarry, a Snapalope. (My mom made it. She's cool.)

Lovely LibbyK models a shirt that her brother got her at Disney. It's another Sibling Night shot, but I didn't think anyone would mind.

LoeschDogg may be a bloody-toe athlete, but I've got a Mathlete!

My mom got me this pie plate. Er, pi plate. She also got me a Jane Austen stuffed doll, and you can see Jane and me in my bio picture.

Michael got two new Gameboy games, so he spent most of his time at my mom's house taking advantage of the "no time limit" playing time.

Rachel was thrilled to pieces to get American Girl Doll Bitty Baby Twins and a double stroller. She named them Daniel and Sarah.

This afternoon, we packed up the presents and our diseases and came home. David is still coughing badly, although the fever seems to be gone. Rachel is now coughing, and I'm still going strong, too. Thankfully, I feel just fine. We enjoyed ourselves and watched Sahara tonight. I'd seen it before, and it contains one of my favorite lines of all movies, but the line is in the deleted scenes. If I can quote it correctly, it's, "You know, I've been thinking about the funny part. We're oceanographers, and we're probably going to die in the desert chained to truck parts. So, when they write our obituary, that will be the funny part." (It's much better spoken. Really, it is. I promise.)

Tomorrow, Libby, my mom, and I are going shopping again! This time it will be to return the "don't wants" and "don't fits" and spend the $30 coupon I got at Kohl's (clothing store) which expires in a week.

What fun plans do you have for the rest of your Christmas break?

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Comments

Dec. 27, 2006 - Gifts and stuff

Posted by OurLittleSchoolRoom

We open gifts from family at New Years, rather than Christmas--a tradition we started a couple of years ago. We also don't exchange gifts ourselves--rather buy things throughout the year as we need them. Birthdays are for the special things on the wish list--the stuff we wouldn't just buy. In my family we draw names for gifts, in-laws included. My gift from my brother hasn't arrived yet. My sister got DH's name, and I think she is giving him pajamas--which he needs.

Your stuff looks great! Belle would love the American Girl twins too.

On the dyslexia stuff: We haven't done formal testing or evaluation yet. We would have to travel hours to do it, and it is very expensive. I did speak to someone who does testing, and she said I was doing the right things with the reading--that it would just take time, and I am seeing a lot of progress there. With the math, I am not sure what to do. She has trouble remembering steps for multi-step problems: when I remind her of the steps, she can do the work with no problem. She has always had trouble with numbers sense to some degree--reads them backwards a lot, has trouble with adding more (subtraction not as bad), ideas of quantity--how much more or less. But she does seem to catch on to new things quickly--just gets bogged down in the math facts, and has very little confidence--guesses a lot. That is why I am thinking trying a different approach may help. She is a bit young for third grade, and can afford to slow down. What do you think?

Are you familiar with Math U See? I was thinking of that because they do have a placement test, it is DVD based, and is not graded--you start where you place, not on a grade level. I also may be able to borrow the manipulatives, rather than spend the money for them.

Long comment. Hope you don't mind.
Karen

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Dec. 28, 2006 - Merry Christmas!!!

Posted by totustuus

Those are all such great pictures!! I especially love the pi dish. I've always had a fascination with pi for some very odd reason.

Oh, and tell Nathan and David that I've very jealous about the iPods! ;)

I miss you guys...hope you have a happy new year!!

Love,
Sylvia

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Jan. 2, 2007 - Blog entries

Posted by OurLittleSchoolRoom

Last night when I read bloglines there were something like nine entries from you that I hadn't seen. I had wondered what happened to you. It was fun catching up.

It has been crazy around here. Up half the night again with a sick child. Now I am washing sheets and stuff.

Hope your day goes well,
Karen

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Jan. 4, 2007 - huduhansumman?

Posted by Ulmdog

I know for a fact that Jesus had wiskers and so did all of my other heros of that day, JTB, Joseph, Simeon, Simon Bar-jona, ect. Now my favorite math luminary is finally starting to try to be more like the early Christians. Tell James I LOVE the facial hair.

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