Nov. 1, 2009

My email

Ive been having trouble with people accessing my email. Here is the direct email address

kaliforniachristine@yahoo.ca

Thank you!

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Oct. 30, 2009

Halloween Party Pictures- Bobbing for Apples

Scary Connor vampire!!

!

Connor kept going down and taking a bite of the apple, instead of grabbing the apple!!

Fionnula won scariest costume!

Omar, my cutie pie!!

Justin and Connor, my scary vampires!!

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Oct. 29, 2009

Halloween Party

      We had the Halloween Party and it was a lot of fun!!

Here is my favorite little buddy. He was in a very cute pumpkin outfit, but wasn't too happy in it, so his mom had to take it off. But, he's still adorable.

It's taking me awhile to load all of my pictures, but I am rather pleased by how everything went tonight. The only thing I would change is to have something besides Goosebumps playing as the movie, because no one seemed very interested in that. The older kids liked it, but everyone left. A cartoon would be better. Everyone in the compound seemed to participate, so that was great!! I really appreciated that.  

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Oct. 29, 2009

Homeschooling kindergartners

     I received the following comment:

 
I am an Indian living in SaudiArabia and while looking up for homeschooling groups in this region i happen to hit on your blog. I have 2 daughters, a 5 yr old and 10 months old. I have just began homeschooling my elder one and as a beginner have many concerns and queries like what methods to follow and how to deal with issues like group activities and socialization. I would appreciate if you, as an experienced home schooler can advice and help me out.

First of all, thank you for your comment. I may be able to hook you up with other people who are homeschooling in your region if I knew more details. Feel free to email me if you want. For a kindergartner, it is best to concentrate on the language arts. Kindergartners don't need a lot of time yet. You could give her a one on one reading lesson while your other daughter is napping. I use How to Teach Your Child in 100 Easy Lessons. Connor really enjoys it. All of my boys have been different in their reading abilities. Some needed a lot of attention, but Connor can practically do them on his own because he knows I am busy with my other three. Kindergartners love to color and do crafts. I would recommend using Singapore Math. But, if you don't want to buy it right now, you might want to just look at what they are teaching in kindergarten and find worksheets for free online.

Socialization may be a challenge for you living in Saudi Arabia. If you live on a compound with other kids, it shouldn't be a problem. She will have plenty of kids to play with when school is out. But, if you live in an apartment, you may have to work a little harder to find people that you and your kids can hang out with. It's very important for you as well to find other women who share your interests and who you can laugh with here. It can be lonely for women if you don't make the effort and reach out to others.

Homeschooling is tough for anyone when starting out. But, it is well worth it. If she learns to read during kindergarten, then you are doing very well. You may want her to learn Arabic as well. Rosetta Stone is good. I would spend the quality time that you have with her alone, teaching her to read and then, reading to her. The most important thing about kindergarten is that it should be fun and instill in her a love for learning. If a lesson is to hard for her, then, go back and review and try it again in a couple of days. The most important thing that I have learned is that kids may fight you about learning something, but if you keep trying they will eventually get it and will get so excited about it. They'll get it when they're ready. Don't give up!!

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Oct. 26, 2009

Halloween and Puppet Show Pics

Saturday, I went to Panda and bought 4 gallons of ice cream so that they could decorate the leftover containers for their Halloween candy. Justin and Alex decorated theirs right away with tissue paper and black marker. Very simple, but will do the trick. Of course they didn't eat 4 gallons of ice cream in one day. What mother would let their children do that?!! Not, me. Nope.

And we carved our pumpkin at 7 am because the boys just couldn't wait any longer. We are yet to carve faces in them though. We just dug out the pulp and seeds.

We don't wear shirts when we play in the pumpkins.

We also made some construction megaphones for Catechism. The boys loved doing this. They were supposed to yell about how they feel about God and their family in these.

More puppet show pictures:

The Tikki Tikki Tembo puppet show went so well. It was so funny. It was really good for Robby. He learned how to emphasize certain words to add humor and drama to the story. It was great!!

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Oct. 25, 2009

Adventure Projects

     We are loving the Adventure Projects in Eastern Hemisphere Explorer with Sonlight. Robby has designed his own island resort, made pavlova, and now he created his own puppet show while learning about Japan. He is doing it to Tikko Tikko Tembo and we have some traditional Japanese music to set the mood. Robby created all this on his own. I was very impressed. I never could have imagined it turning out better.

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Oct. 24, 2009

Homeschooling and Living in Saudi

     I receive a lot of questions about homeschooling and living in Saudi. Homeschooling in general isn't legal in Saudi. However, I know many expats who do it without any problems. I love homeschooling here and have had a great time doing it. It was tough at first because I had to adjust to not having a library. But, the internet has so much available now, that I don't even think about it anymore. I use Sonlight and I haven't had any trouble having that delivered here. The cost of shipping is very expensive for anything here, but that is also something that you get used to. I like having everything shipped at once.

     Living in Saudi is a challenge at first. Saudi Arabia is the complete opposite of America and it took a lot of adjustment. But, I have adjusted just fine and I enjoy living here. Some compounds may have church services, but it isn't very common or easy to attend. It really depends on which city you live in. There have been rumors that King Abdullah has had discussions with the pope about building Catholic churches here, but it's a long way down the road.

   There is a new university, KAUST being built here and everyone is really excited. It's going to be something that Saudi Arabia has never had before. It will take some time of course, but I think that university will have a little city and compound in it that will be a lot more like what Westerners are used to.

    I have a link to my email on my sidebar. Please feel free to email me if you any more questions. It is easier for me to answer questions if I know more details. Saudi Arabia varies throughout the country.  

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Oct. 23, 2009

Making Pinatas

     One thing about my boys is that sometimes they just surprise me. They get an idea in their head and then, there is no stopping them. When I woke up this morning, Robby was already wound up and ready to go. He wanted the craft glue so that he could make a pinata for the Halloween party on Thursday. I am impressed when he takes initiative like this. So, I looked up how to make the paper mache. It's really very easy. I don't know why I avoided doing this so much before. But, all they had to do was mix  2 cups flour and 3 cups water. Then, they dipped 1 inch pieces of newspaper in that mixture and then, put it all over their balloon, leaving a hole at the top. They will let that dry and then, repeat it tomorrow and on Sunday to make sure that it is strong. Then, they can decorate it on Wed., the night before the party. They did a great job.

This is Justin's, which is almost done. I had them do all this in the laundry room in hopes of containing the mess.

This is Robby's. They both did a really good job.

I'm really glad that we figured out how to do this. Pinatas are very hard to find here. I used to pay someone to do it for us, but she moved away. It's a lot easier than I had imagined and the boys loved doing it!! I can't wait to see the final product at the party. Everything is really coming together.

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Oct. 22, 2009

Book of Service

    For catechism this week, we created a book of service. We are going to dedicate Saturday catechism to doing something for someone else. Each week, the kids will make something for somebody or do something for them. We have lots of opportunities here to help people. We know how intimidating and lonely it can be moving to this country and some of the people who live here are older and all alone. The first thing we will do is have the boys deliver a movie and shows that my husband got for one of our friends here who just had surgery. She's a very nice lady and has been very good to our family. It's very easy to do something nice for her.

     Next week, I was  thinking that it would be better to make some cookies or do something nice for the man who cleans our porch. He is from Pakistan. We don't interact with him very much because he doesn't speak English. But, he is all alone here too and helping him would be more selfless. He probably doesn't get homemade cookies very often either. I'm glad that we're doing this because it just makes us think about what we can do for other people a lot more. It makes it more of a habit when we have to come up with something every week. I bought smiley faces to put on the sheet every time they write something in it. I was reading an article about how important praise is to our children. Sometimes, I do get wrapped up in criticizing what they do and I forget to tell them how great they are doing. It's something I will have to work on. I'm going to have to start recognizing the problems they get right and make more of a point letting them know how great that is, instead of focusing on the ones that are wrong.

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Oct. 20, 2009

Halloween in Saudi

    Saudis don't celebrate Halloween. So, we have to be extra creative. Rob ordered some costumes a couple of weeks ago, but we're still waiting. Mail service is not the best here. When we were in Turkey, we decided to unload some of our things so that we didn't have to carry them around with us. Well, we sent it in July and we just got it last week. But, we're hoping. Either way we are planning on having a good Halloween. Rob and I went to Tamimi today and bought 2 big pumpkins. They were expensive (about $30 a piece). But, what's Halloween without a pumpkin? So, I make sure that I use it up completely. We eat the seeds and make pumpkin puree out of it. I love the Living on a Dime newsletter. It gives recipes for puree and instructions on how to cook the seeds. I had also picked up a small pumpkin for a game at the Halloween party we are going to have. We will use the small pumpkin for pumpkin bowling. I'm going to use empty 2 liter soda bottles, decorated with orange construction paper and let the kids roll the pumpkin and see how many "pins" they can knock down. My husband is going to email everyone in our compound and encourage them to have candy and leave their light on for the kids. I hope a lot of people participate. It should be a great time anyway. The important thing is that our boys know how hard we tried to make it a good Halloween for them. Also, we're going to use old ice cream containers that have the handle and decorate them with felt. I'm really looking forward to this. Robby doesn't think the containers are big enough. But, you can get quite a bit of candy in there. I really hope each boy doesn't eat all that candy. Either way, they can reload if they get that lucky.

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