Jul. 13, 2007 - Discovery Store is Having a Great Sale!
This is a fantastic time to stock up on DVD's. This is a huge sale that Discovery Store does only twice a year. You won't want to miss it! We've been anxiously waiting for its arrival and are planning on buying several to go along with this years teaching. Enjoy!
• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link
Sep. 25, 2006 - Read to Your Children - Guide
It’s never too early to start reading to your baby. Reading should be a fundamental part of your child’s language development.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends reading aloud daily to your baby starting at 6 months of age – about the time when he’ll really begin to enjoy looking at books with you. There is no “right way” to read to your baby. The idea is to share the story and enjoy the experience. Your child just wants to be close to you and to hear your voice, which is one of the most powerful tools for creating a comforting environment. The most important thing is that you both just have fun with it. Relax and enjoy this time!
Reading to infants requires that you give them your full attention. You can’t be walking around or engaging in other tasks at the same time. It also encourages you to hold your baby where he or she can see your face: in your arms or on your lap, tummy up. This position offers lots of opportunity for eye contact, says Clarie B. Kopp, author of “Baby Steps: The ‘Whys’ of Your Child’s Behavior in the First Two Years.” As she explains, when face to face “babies can see the different expressions on their parents’ faces, while parents can observe infants’ reactions to sounds and visual stimuli as well as their need to move or to sit quietly, and their attention span.”
Hearing stories lays the groundwork for language development. Infants pick up the sound of language, its rhymes, rhythms, and intonation patterns. We know that very young children are sensitive to these sounds, in part because the onset of language has been seen to occur earlier in youngsters who have been read to.
Reading to your baby will help build his vocabulary, stimulate his imagination, and improve his communication skills. In fact, the more you speak to your child from the beginning, the better it is for his growth and development. Studies have shown that language skills – and even intelligence – are related to how many words an infant hears each day. In one study, babies whose parents spoke to them a lot (an average of 2,100 words an hour) scored higher on standard tests when they reached age 3 than did children whose parents hadn’t been as verbal. A running commentary on the state of the neighborhood during your walk and naming your child’s body parts as you bathe him are good ways to chat. Reading is one more fun way to add variety to your verbal interactions.
Prior to 6 months, your baby will enjoy listening to your voice and making the positive association between your soothing voice and books. Your young baby will enjoy this wonderful time spent together and will particularly enjoy the rhythm of rhymes, lullabies and poetry. The young baby will also enjoy looking at books with simple black-and-white patterns or bright colors. However, don’t over stimulate baby with pages that are cluttered with visuals. Keep the books simple with one or two large illustrations per page. For obvious reasons, cloth, plastic and sturdy board books work well for this age.
Let your child set the pace. While it might seem logical to you to read a story from beginning to end without interruption, this isn’t always the best experience for your child. When you let your child choose the pages and set the pace, you work with your child’s attention span. And focusing on the parts of the book that are most interesting for your child is the best way to foster a love of reading. Sometimes your child will want to go slow, and other times fast. Sometimes your child will want to start in the middle of the book and just look at favorite pages. Other times your child will want to spend the whole time touching and discovering all of the sounds and sights on just one page. Anything goes!
At about 6 months your baby can concentrate a little longer and will be able to inspect objects for a longer period of time. Your baby will love to explore textured books and will enjoy seeing colorful, realistic illustrations and photographs of familiar objects. Books that encourage you and your child to make animal sounds and other noises are great choices for this age!
Reading fosters a baby’s ability to pay attention – to temporarily stop exploring the world in order to settle down and attend to something of interest. Early reading can also subtly reinforce children’s social skills because being exposed to a wide range of books gives them access to a wide range of emotions, as well as the language to express how they feel.
Language skills develop rapidly after your baby’s first birthday and books become much more important than they were during his first year of life. He is no longer the passive baby who will sit quietly while you read to him. He wants to interact with books turning the pages, examining the illustrations, and pointing out the objects he can identify. Lift-the-flap books work well now.
At about 18 months your baby is ready for you to begin to introduce concept books. These books help children understand numbers, letters, shapes, colors, textures, actions, size, direction and parts of the body. These books will help convey the message that books and learning are FUN! Books with big detailed illustrations captivate a toddler’s interest. By age two most children can follow a simple story in a picture book and are happy to flip through books on their own. Let your child be the judge.
Babies need to feel an emotional connection with the words being spoken or they simply filter out the language, so steer clear of books on tape, as well as radio and television. “As with all activities parents do with kids, its how attentive parents are to their kids’ responses that is so critical, says Betty Hart, professor emeritus of human development at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. As for videos, experts say most are best reserved for children over age 3.
When you read to your young child, focus on the pleasure at hand, not the alphabetical learning experience. An early emphasis on teaching letters, sounds, and syllables can sap the enjoyment of story time. If you read to your child enough, he’ll eventually – when he’s ready – make the connection between the sounds of words and the letters on the pages. In the meantime, teaching him to enjoy reading is a much more valuable lesson than learning his phonics at an early age.
As your child’s first teacher, you lay the foundation for learning to read and for becoming a good reader. Learning to read and wanting to read are two separate issues. Reading starts in the home, the center of a child’s world for learning. Wanting to read depends in part upon encouragement from parents.
Reading aloud to your child may prove to be the single most important activity for building the knowledge necessary for reading.
TIPS FOR READING TO BABY:
Though it can feel slightly foolish at first, reading aloud to your baby is beneficial in several important ways. She is listening and learning, even when her responses are limited to cooing, drooling, and babbling.
Read together every day if you can. Even if it’s just for a few minutes, you’ll see enormous benefits from reading together. By establishing a reading routine, you give your child special time to look forward to each day.
Read at different times. If your child associates reading with going to bed he will not want to read when he does not want to go to bed.
Hold your baby close when you read.
Make sure your baby can see the book clearly. Your view may not always be the best for your baby.
Turn the pages slowly to allow baby to focus on the illustrations. At 15 – 18 months let your baby turn the pages.
Change expressions and use different voices to dramatize the story.
Be interactive. Talk about what is happening in the book and point out objects and identify them. Ask your child questions and respond to his comments.
Reading should be fun! Don’t end up drilling your child.
Follow your child’s cues and stop reading whenever he seems tired or looses interest. Most one-and two-year-olds can sit still listening to books for only 10 to 15 minutes. Never force your child to read.
AGE GUIDELINES FOR READING:
Wading through the wealth of behavioral science about reading to infants can be daunting for new parents. To help you decide what to read to your child during his or her first year, parent educators and researchers offer the following guidelines.
Newborn Through 5 Months
When it comes to reading aloud, the early months are the toughest because it is hard to judge responsiveness: young babies are essentially passive listeners. At this stage, focus on the experience of spending time engaging in a directed activity with your child. In the first two months, a baby can absorb facial expressions, sounds, and smells, and learn to distinguish between parents and caregivers. At 2 months, there can also be “vocal volley”: the parent makes a sound, and the baby responds with a sound. At this stage it may not matter what you read. Just keep the reading short and your voice animated. If your baby looks away or fusses, stop.
6 to 8 Months
Around 6 months of age, babies begin to look to the outside world, and they start to understand that the people around them have feelings and states of mind. Now you can both look at something, look at each other, and share a laugh. Six-month-olds also learn to distinguish greater degrees of detail. They hear intonation in the speech of their culture, and their babbling reflects it. Choose books with few words and plenty of bold, bright pictures that help describe baby’s world – the roundness of an apple or the yellow of a daffodil.
8 Months to 1 Year
This age signals the great leap forward in cognitive and motor skills. Infants experience major growth in recall memory – the ability to recall something without cues; for example, they can remember what mommy looks like when she isn’t there. They begin to associate some sounds with objects, and their utterances reflect the rise-and-fall intonation of adult sentences. Babies nearing age 1 are moving around all the time – crawling, even walking in some cases. “Sitting down and reading aloud can supply some much-needed brakes.
1 Year and Up
Having developed fairly good motor skills, year-old babies eagerly explore their environment, picking up objects, tasting them, and turning them over – which is why they may not want to sit still for a story but also why, given their ever-increasing powers of concentration, perhaps they should. The ability to concentrate is fundamental to learning, and it can start with reading aloud. Choose picture books depicting categories of things or storybooks.
• 1 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link
Jul. 16, 2006 - Ashlee
Ashlee,
You will be missed more than you could ever know. Your family is now "crushed", but your spirit lives on. You were such an amazing girl, beautiful! I love that smile and wish it hadn't dimmed. I know your pain seemed too much, I've been there....I am there.
I pray for your family, especially your mother and ask God to be with them and give them peace. The days to come are going to be difficult. I'm going to try to get back to Minnesota to be with your mom and have one of our "talks".
Love you & Miss you! 
• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link
Jul. 14, 2006 - Teen Suicide
It's another sad day in our home. The 19 year old daughter of my long time friend (35 years!) just committed suicide. I can't even imagine what could be so horribly wrong in a young persons life that would bring them to the point of taking their own life.
Witnesses say they saw her car parked by the train tracks. She waited until the warning lights came on and the safety gate started to come down and then she pulled out onto the tracks and stopped her car. She was apparently on her cell phone at the time. What a violent and tragic ending to a beautiful young life.
Ashlee must have felt desperate. Please listen to your kids, give them a hug and be there for them. Ashlee left behind her infant son, sister, parents, and many aunts, uncles and cousins.
Please pray for the family as they struggle to cope.
• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link
Jul. 4, 2006 - Happy 4th!!!
Today is a day for family and fun. I hope everyone has a great 4th and enjoys their time spent with loved ones. My kids won't be with me today, but I will have them on my heart. I will miss them so much! I'm not really sure how they feel about the change in our routine and tradition for the 4th, but I hope they enjoy the day anyway.
Today typically has very special meaning for us. Four of my children were born in Vietnam and it was a long hard struggle to get them to this country. We were so happy the day they received their US visas and especially the day they walked through immigration in LA. That was the point where they became US citizens! Thank you God for bringing us together and for your perfect plan for our lives.
I'm going to post a couple of verses that were part of my Bible reading this morning:
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
James 1:2-4 NIV
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
And we know that in all things God works, for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28 NIV
My children and I continue to struggle, but we know that God has a plan. These verses remind me that our suffering is for a purpose. I pray constantly and guard my heart in my response to all things. We must always be ready to watch our hearts and remember to respond to our adversaries in a way that would be pleasing to our Lord.
A Happy & Blessed 4th of July to Everyone!
• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link
Jul. 1, 2006 - Time for a New Year!
Well, it's almost time for the new school year to begin. Our school district is on a year round schedule, so we like to place our "official" start date of the new school year to coincide with the public schools. We actually homeschool year round anyway, but we have to have some place to cut it off.
It's been a long and busy day. I've been trying to catch up on some much needed housework after being sick for the past several weeks. Ryan has been sick with some stomach virus which has kept the whole family pretty close to home this past week. Everyone is getting tired of being cooped up and they're all starting to act cranky and whiney.... not a good scenario! 
And tomorrow I need to figure out how to keep them "sane" in church. Eeeeeks!
I'm going to spend the rest of the evening putting some finishing touches on our school schedule for the coming year and figuring out what to do with the younger ones. Nicholas is still so immature in some ways, he's just not ready to participate at the same level as the girls. I'll have to find something that will keep his little fingers occupied. He has a tendancy to want to mess with the other kids and their things. His way of getting attention from them.
Sometimes I feel sorry for Nicholas. He's not officially my middle child, but it seems like he is. Sarah is 3 months older than Nicholas and Allena is 1 month younger, and of course Ryan and Jacob are (almost 9!!!) and 5 years. Anyway, Sarah turned 4 last month and thinks she's all grown up. Her and Allena are VERY close and are always playing Barbie and tea party, coloring, cutting, pasting papers together and other pretty tame stuff. Nicholas wants to be in on the action with the big boys... Light Sabres, Darda cars, swimming, running, wrestling basketball and other physical, testosterone kinds of things.
The big boys don't always want to include Nicholas because he has a tendancy to cause problems and they think he's too young to play with them all the time. The girls are way too tame for his liking, but he does find it fun to get them riled up. He seems to wander around getting into trouble trying to occupy himself. I'm working on some of his behavioral issues, but it's a struggle!. Anyone have any suggestions? He'll be 4 in August.
I've got to pack an activity bag for church and start pulling out books. Time for a "special moment" and a quiet cup of coffee. My favorite time of the evening.
• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link
Jun. 25, 2006 - Sunday
I almost didn't take the kids to church today. We got up and I was so tired and everyone seemed to be extra cranky. Must be from the big day we had yesterday. I guess it didn't help that we got home late and still had to do baths and get everything organized for church. I NEVER go to bed Saturday night without having all of the kids clothes set out, including shoes, socks and underwear! We also make sure to have our snacks, activities, etc. all ready to go. It's much too hectic and stressful in the morning to try and get the kids ready while looking for shoes or clothes. It has to be done the night before!
We got home just before the rain came. We're going to spend a quiet afternoon in the house and hopefully I can get some work done (and maybe a itsy bitsy nap :O)!
• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link
Jun. 24, 2006 - St. Pete
We spent the day at Mai-Ly's house in St. Pete. It was a suprprise birthday party for Dave! There were a lot of people there and we had a great time. I couldn't believe how much food they had. There was definitely a fantastic layout and they even had a caterer bring in BBQ in the afternoon. A big storm came up suddenly and drove everyone inside for awhile. It got pretty bad out for awhile, very windy and lots of rain. Luckily it cleared up before we had to head home.
Mai-Ly's mom was visiting from Vietnam and it was great to get a chance to spend some time with her. She invited me and the kids to come and stay with her in Vietnam for a while. I would really like that. If Bruce doesn't have a problem with it, I would love to take the kids over there for a year or two. I can't believe it's been over 3 years since we were there. I guess everything has changed quite a bit. Time to go back for some good food and relaxation!
I took this picture of Ryan and Mai-Cal out on the dock. Mai-Cal was catching fish with a net....very little fish . 
• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link
Jun. 23, 2006 - Cars
Today I took the kids to see the movie Cars. We're not big movie people, but it was OK. There were definitely some scenes and language that I wouldn't want to hear repeated from my kids. Some mild inuendos and such. It's almost impossible to find a good clean movie for the kids. This movie was rated G and for the most part I would not hesitate to let the young ones see it. It seemed like it went on far too long, but then I'm the mother of several small and impatient children.
Nicholas Allena Jacob Sarah Ryan
**********************************
• 2 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link
Jun. 22, 2006 - God's Plan
As we do God's work and move closer to Christ, Satan loves to bring the family under attack. My family has been experiencing this attack for the past year and we ask for your prayers as we struggle through this painful period. God is working wonderful things in my life....even if I don't understand it yet! I keep myself in His Word and in prayer and know His blessings will come.
• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link
