Leaflet Academy | |
Well, I got the book! Finally...Yesterday was a mess. I got so excited because I found out that our local university's library has a copy of 'Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons' which I used partially but successfully with Jasmine.So I sent Ken out to uni with instructions to get the book. Jaidyn was in bed, Jasmine was at the table doing her bookwork, and I was watching Savannah in the bath. Perfectly fine until Savannah decided to play with my razor. She'd cut herself before I could get it off of her. And it didn't stop bleeding. So I tried to call Ken at uni, and he wasn't answering, and then when I finally got hold of him and told him what happened he said he'd come right home. So he came home and of course got her to stop bleeding right away, put some antiseptic cream and a bandaid on and she was fine. He missed his meeting but he'd gotten to speak to a group member first so that was ok. But he didn't get the book. I still had to go out and buy stuff for tea so he said I could get the book while I was out. I wasn't a uni student but I could take his card and use the automatic book checkout thingy. SO, all excited, I went to the library. And couldn't find the book. So I asked a librarian and she went and helped me find the book, which was in a special room. And I got the book out. Yay! I didn't end up with time for a lesson before church yesterday, so I just did the first lesson with Savannah this morning. She kept saying she thought it would be hard but she could do every single activity there, even 'say it fast', which surprised me. She did really well. Now she's chucking a tantrum because she thought one reading lesson would teach her how to read her favourite book, 'But no elephants'. I've promised her I'll read the book to her as soon as she calms down, but honestly. Actually, we went off our low-salicylate diet when we found out I was pregnant, and it's making life hard for her, poor thing. I can't stomach failsafe foods right now, and I don't have the energy to cook two meals for everyone. Hopefully in second trimester my tummy will settle and so will Savannah. Yay for Jasmine!Well at playgroup the other day, a mother questioned Jasmine's presence. "Isn't she school aged?""Well yes, she's in grade one, and we homeschool." I actually asked permission from the organizer of the playgroup to keep bringing Jassie, but I didn't mention that. "Oh," the other mother continued. "I was talking to her earlier and she knows her addition in subtraction! Is she only in grade one?" It's moments like that that make me feel it's all worthwhile. Actually we were very lucky; last year, just before we started purchasing curriculum, we stumbled upon Prof B's Arithmetic curriculum, and we were hooked. It's the one curriculum that we will NOT change because it works. It's just that simple. This morning Jasmine came out of her maths lesson with Daddy (he does the verbal lesson before he goes out in the morning, and I look after the written part of the lesson) with some exciting news. She counted up to 120! Actually, she wasn't supposed to count to 120 by herself. She was supposed to understand how to do it, and then practice by counting smaller sections (like 47 to 63, then 91 to 103 etc.) But Ken just couldn't stop her. She counted to 100 twice, and to 120 once. And just a couple of days ago she said that it would be too hard! Soon she will be able to theoretically count to the trillions, while never counting a large amount of numbers at a time, but just choosing a small section in there that she can count between easily because she understands the process. Anyway, it's just so good to have some validation right now. I didn't expect to spend our first year of homeschooling pregnant, and I'm feeling a bit less than productive right now. So any encouragement is good! Savannah's worldRecently Savannah came into the kitchen with her brother's toy fire truck. "Look Mum, it makes fire! Swoosh!"I explained that fire trucks don't really make fire, they make water to put fires out. I think I just succeeded in ruining a fun game. Silly Mummy. -------------------------- On Thursday my doctor (who I don't like, by the way. Anyone else want her? lol) confirmed my pregnancy and then told me to go get my blood tests done and then come back in a week so she can check my blood pressure and stuff. None of my other doctors did this, but anyway. So I got home and told Ken that I wanted him to drive me to get the blood tests, since I have a history of feeling faint afterwards. So we told the kids about the pregnancy and then Ken took them to an ice creamery right next to the pathology lab. When I got back from the blood tests, Savannah looked at me and grinned, "Mum's back! Now we can go to the shop to get the new baby!" -------------------------- And yes, I know it is too early for little kids to be told about a pregnancy simply because it is a long time for them to wait. We told them for one main reason: I really don't believe we can keep it a secret from people who know us (I'm only six weeks or so but when I tell people they say, "I THOUGHT SO!" - I'm very small and have shown earlier with each pregnancy). And we didn't want other people to work it out and mention it to Jasmine. So we shared first. I know that's different to what others would do, and I know there are negatives as well as positives to it, but it's just what we decided to do. Anyway - the purpose of this was just to show you a little bit about how our darling Savannah sees the world. She's a handful at times, but she adds a lot of beauty to our world. Yay for Savannah!I have been doing some very relaxed phonics with Savannah. She is able to recognise the names and sounds of about half the alphabet at the moment.In particular she loves the letter 'S' because, of course, it's 'her' letter. The letter that starts her name. Yesterday she sat down at the Mega Sketcher and 'wrote' me a book. It had one letter on it. 'M' for Mum. It was possible to recognise that it was an M. This is the first letter she has ever written, and it didn't come from any curriculum or lesson, she just wanted to write my letter. I was so proud of her! Jasmine also had a productive day. I decided to teach her to read music. It's been on my mind for a while now, and yesterday I decided to start. First I showed her some score, and got her to count the lines. Five. Well that was easy! Then I explained that there are only seven letters used in music to name notes, A-G. Then I showed her a treble clef, and pointed out which was the top and which was the bottom. Then I showed her that notes were made with little circles and could go in the spaces between the lines or on the lines themselves. Then I started with the acronym FACE which covers the four spaces between the lines on the treble clef with F starting at the bottom and E at the top. Then I showed her some flash cards I'd already put them on, and tried to trick her up. Couldn't do it. Is it really possible for a five year old to learn to read four notes in one session? She did really well. So we'll keep practicing with those flash cards this week. The point is that FACE helps you remember it, but when you're playing music you don't have time to think through all those little mnemonics. You actually have to be able to look at the note and know what it is. I'm not as automatic as I should be, and it causes me problems. I think I'll practice with Jasmine's cards! So yeah, five minutes of practice each day this week, and then I'll add some more notes in. The mnemonic for the lines starting at the bottom is Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit, and I've decided to break it in half, so we'll learn EGB next week, and then DF. Once we've learned the full treble clef I'll show her how the notes are arranged in alphabetical order, and about ledger lines. Then we'll start the bass clef! When we have finished all this, I'll start keyboard lessons with her. I must say, I thought teaching her to read music would be difficult, but now I don't think it will be. Jaidyn's ill warning: grossWell it's 2am, and I'm sitting up with a sick little bub, poor guy. He woke up with a temperature and vomitting about two hours ago and he hasn't been able to keep much down since. He does seem to be picking up now, which is good, he's having a drink from Mum, which he hadn't had for a few days (we're weaning, but he needs fluids) so I was surprised he's getting anything.Oh good, apparantly Savannah's also feeling sick. Lovely. To tell the truth I'm not feeling very well either but I think that's just that feeling you get when you've been sicked on and then you feel like you're sick but you aren't really. Oh, Savannah seems to have gone back to sleep happily and without actually being sick. Let's hope she doesn't get sick. If anyone happens to be up and reading this, could you please pray for us? Pray for healing, for strength to deal with this, for wisdom to still act in love towards our children tomorrow (instead of letting tiredness get us grumpy). I love my little boy. He's worth all this (and far more). But I don't like seeing him like this! Christmas GoodiesOne of the benefits of Christmas is all the crafty toys my husband's family tend to give the kids for Christmas. We've tried to give the girls one 'messy' Christmas present activity thingy (I hope you know what I mean) a day since Christmas, and it's been great.So far Savannah's done some painting, and both the girls have worked on some Disney posters, and Jasmine did some egg art, and then they played play dough today. Only Savvy got new play doh, but Jasmine played with the stuff we already had, and then halfway through Savannah kindly offered to swap toys. So the kids are doing messy-creative stuff which I think is good. I'm normally not very messy-activity friendly, but as we get ready to add in some more subjects I'm trying to get more organised and activity-focussed with my kids. And I think it's paying off pretty well :) Anyway, we're having some fun. And the furniture is surviving. Next fortnight we're going to purchase our English and SOSE curriculum for the year, and when that arrives we'll start adding that in. Hmmm.... that'll be fun. I wonder how Jasmine will take to that? Well!Well. Starting school at home with a five year old. Fun stuff, hey? Funny thing is, Jasmine loves learning. She catches on quickly and loves getting things right. Being 5, she's also a bundle of emotions at times, and hates getting anything wrong.She's a funny kid. Once she attempt something, she almost always gets it right. But sometimes she'll look at something she can do and think it's too hard, and just shut down. The other factor, of course, is that she's never attended school. She has no idea that in the real world kids have to do maths every school day (+ homework) and if they don't do it the teacher may well yell at them or punish them in some way. Or be like my old grade one teacher, who pulled my hair when I did something she didn't like... We just say, do your maths. If you do it quickly you get free time. If you don't, you miss out, sorry. You know, the natural consequences of her own actions. Of course, if she's actually having trouble with something, we'll either help her or shorten the lesson into bite sized pieces that she can handle. We're not heartless. So yes; the thing about school is that Jasmine has to learn that this is school, and school isn't a game. Well, except when we play Monopoly, or educational computer games, or watch Dora the Explorer and practice some Spanish, or... Well, you get the picture. We're trying to make school fun and appropriate for a five year old who needs plenty of free time to pursue her own interests and play with her siblings, while covering the material that, as parents, we deem important. It's a tough call sometimes. We finished the day today well. Jasmine had done her maths, and some handwriting, and we left the reading lesson until her siblings were in bed, so it could just be Mummy-Jasmine time. She crowed about how she was doing so well she would finish the book in one night. She didn't, but we had a lot of fun reading. This is just the beginning of our journey, we'll obviously have some hiccups, but I honestly reckon we're on to a good thing. Busy Day!Well it's a good thing I got some sleep last night, cause today was BUSY!We don't have all our curriculum for next year yet, but instead of naming a date and starting a full-on timetable at once, we are simply ordering curriculum as we can afford it, and adding it in as it arrives. Today we did reading (we are nearly finished our reading curriculum. Yay!) and maths (she started subtraction today) and we did our first lesson in Science today. Jasmine is doing the 'flying creatures' book from Apologia, and we started by looking at the concept of zoology and taxonomy. Taxonomy was a bit difficult, but she loved looking at the chart of the different groups that animals were in, so that's ok. I bought some drinking straws so we can do the first experiment later this week, she's really looking forward to that. Actually, she really will enjoy this text, it's just there are a couple of preliminaries to get through first. I haven't even told her yet that there's a scavenger hunt to do - she'll just be so excited! I went to the library today to get some more library books for Jasmine too, which she was excited about. She seems to like 'Miffy' at the moment. It's funny, she's reading at a fourth grade level, she can sit down and read a chapter book if she wants to, but really she enjoys reading short books she can read through quickly. The reading level and the physical age of the child are different, and I've had to learn to get out more short books than one or two long books. But I got out five books for her today, and she still read them all in an afternoon. This is too many trips to the library! I don't know what we'll do. I also got out 'Charlotte's Web'. She saw an ad for the movie and I promised her if we read the book first we'll get out the movie. I warned her it's a bit sad, though. I also explained that when we eat meat we are eating an animal. She actually coped with the news pretty well, considering how tenderhearted she is. So I read a couple of chapters to her tonight, and she loved it, she didn't want me to stop. Then tonight we did art by making some Christmas cards. The girls both drew pictures for five cards each, and I glued them onto some green cardboard. I'll write on them in gold pen and post them tomorrow. Actually, that counts under 'socialization' as well, since socialization is the process by which people learn how to effectively socialize with others, and since sending Christmas cards to others at Christmas time is an established social tradition in our country it is important for the girls to learn about it all. See? I might be a newbie, but I'm learning the lingo, lol! We had a really good day. I got stuff done. I feel great. Now Jaidyn is already asleep in his new bed for the night. I pray that he will stay asleep, or at least do what he did last night and just wake up once, before I go to bed. Good night, all. I AM SO HAPPY!Guess what?????Last night.... I GOT TO SLEEP THROUGH THE ENTIRE NIGHT! And do you know what is even better? I WASN'T WOKEN UP BEFORE DAWN EITHER! No, we didn't adopt the kids out :) We did make some changes. I'm currently in the process of weaning Jaidyn, for one. Then we moved Jasmine back into Savannah's room (at her suggestion) and gave Jaidyn her room. So now Jaidyn sleeps in a sleepout just outside our bedroom door. Just so you know, we've never bought a rail or anything when our kids move into a big bed for the first time. We simply pull down the bedframe and make up the mattress on the floor. Yes, we're weird, but it saves money, works fine, and the kids love it. So anyway, Jaidyn slept through the night, and when he woke up in the morning, instead of being bored and demanding attention he simply got up and played with some toys in his room happily. Now if you're wondering why this is such a huge thing to me: We've been married for six years. We have three kids five and under. I have spent the last six years either pregnant or breastfeeding - and getting up through the night regardless. Now this is a sacrifice I'm willing to make. I do know about the child rearing philosophy that says you should just refuse to feed a baby in the night. As far as I'm concerned that's neglect - with a newborn at least. If you don't want to have your sleep disrupted, don't have kids. Yes my kids shouldn't have been waking up in the night for as long as they have, but I honestly believe that's because of my caffeine addiction, which is not their fault, which I think is evidenced by the fact that they miraculously sleep through the very night that they get weaned. I did actually manage to go through the withdrawal process and give up caffeine at one point since I've had Jaidyn, but then Ken brought some Coke home and that was that. ((N.B. Please, please, don't let your kids have caffeine. PLEASE! Not in soft drinks, not in coffee. If they're older teens or adults, they can make that decision for themselves, but please keep your children safe! My parents were caffeine addicts and when I was a kid they let me make coffees for them... when I was about ten I just started making one for me too. I didn't know I wasn't supposed to have coffee. They didn't know until I was addicted, so they just let me have one cup a day. PLEASE don't let them start in the first place!)) But Jaidyn may be my last baby, so I've been putting off the weaning process even though I'm tired. It's hard being tired for so long, but I only have babies for a relatively small time of my life, so it's worth it. But that doesn't mean I can't rejoice when I get sleep, blessed sleep! LOL! I mean, I got to sleep through the night, I got to sleep in till 7:30 (without kicking Ken out of bed with the kids) and for once I woke up well-rested and feeling like singing. Yay! So yeah, in case you haven't worked it out, I don't want comments about how you got your six week old to sleep through the night. If you did, I feel sorry for her. I'm happy today, rejoice with me or keep your mouth shut! YAY! Yay for Jasmine!Well I'm too busy to blog (can't you tell) but I promised Jasmine that I would do a blog entry for her. We are very pleased with Jasmine. She is five years old and has just finished reading 'Amelia Jane Again' by Enid Blyton.This is the first BIG book that she has picked up that she has had trouble putting back down again, she gushed over how much she loved it, she just couldn't wait to read some more of it... So of course we had to reward her... I went to the library and got out 'Naughty Amelia Jane', lol. And Jasmine was so excited she acted as though she'd just had a birthday or something! She's in bed right now, reading it. Well, I'd better go get busy! 'Night. For the love of a little girlOk, I can't sew. Not at all. I once tried to sew an outfit for Jasmine that actually fell apart the first time it was worn. I can't sew, I can't mend. I am actually about to learn to, some women at my church have started holding monthly lessons. But... right now I can't sew :)BUT last night something devastating happened. Baby Doll got a tear. Baby Doll is the favourite doll of my middle child, a precious little three year old called Savannah. She is a total tomboy. Can't sit still, always climbing on things, happy, couldn't care less - but she loves Baby Doll. Actually, she has two favourite dolls. Baby Doll and Plastic Dolly. Yes, those are their given names. Aren't they creative? SO Baby Doll got a hole. This is a pretty big problem. The obvious worry is that if left alone the hole will tear worse. The other problem is that Baby used to make sounds (the batteries got removed once the poor thing was trashed enough that it would just continually cry) and there are electrical wires and things inside, which for some reason were accessible by the hole. I had a lot to do, the hole was noticed at bedtime, so I substituted another couple of dolls, promise Baby could go to the doctor soon, and tucked Savvy in. Well I hadn't really intended to do it today, but poor Savvy was just so sad! She actually wanted to go to my table to just hold Baby Doll's hand for a little while. So... I took a deep breath and got out my mending kit. Savannah stood by watching the whole time. It was a huge deal for her. Now the mend doesn't look neat - I'm afraid Baby Doll will always have a scar; but Savannah doesn't mind. Baby has been returned to her! Savannah is happy, the two are inseparable, and Baby is getting a lot of cuddles and attention to make up for her ordeal. And although I love Savannah every day, my heart is just a little bit full for her today, after being able to see a little bit of the depth of her love. She's a precious child. To me, anyway :) Just StuffWell, we had another busy day today. Both the younger two have been feeling slightly unwell, but both are happily asleep now.Jasmine is desperately unhappy with me because I've said she can't start maths until next year. Well, we don't have the curriculum yet. She's only in prep, so we didn't want to do too much this year, but then we were so relaxed, it looked like we'd run out of time anyway. So I started saying that she just had to do a little reading and a page of handwriting a (school) day. Well, she did about five pages of handwriting today (each one only had about six letters on it) and then when I refused to let her do any more, she got a blank piece of paper and started practicing letters by herself. We were hoping to buy some curriculum next fortnight; we might buy the kindy maths as well as the first grade stuff and let her at it a little earlier, I don't know yet. I'm so glad she wants to learn, I don't want to waste this time, and I don't want to force her into something that she's not ready for... She had a swimming lesson this morning. She likes it except for when they go underwater to get the coloured rings. I think she would like some swimming goggles. Hmm... We are hoping to spend a little more time at the pool so that she can get in a bit more practice. Savannah is doing excellently with her toilet training, it's pretty much normal now, and she's insisting on using the toilet, not a potty, which she calls 'the old toilet' because, of course, we had it before we bought her little potty. She has learned to use a computer mouse, and loves starfall.com, which she calls 'the songs' because she mostly likes the vowel songs. However, she has been learning the sounds of a variety of letters. When all my assessment is in, I will sit down and work out just how many letter sounds she knows (I know some for a fact, of course, I would like to just go through the alphabet and work out how many she has learned incidentally). For now, of course, she is having a lot of fun, and knows she is perfectly clever, so her world is pretty sunny. Oh yes, and how could I forget the leaps and bounds she has been making in her drawing and colouring in efforts? She is almost able to colour in the lines, she certainly isn't just scribbling on paper any more. And today, she drew two roughly parallel lines, and asked me what I thought she'd drawn. It was, of course, a road! What an excellent idea! Then of course, she proceeded to draw a car on the road, and it was a lot more scribbly. But it was a lot harder to draw, too! All three of my kids love drawing and colouring in; I can't wait until we can start a proper art curriculum together, since I think this might be a particular interest. Jaidyn is my ratbag. I do not know if anyone in the world is offended by that word, but my children are regularly told that I love ratbags very much, and probably think it is a compliment - in fact, I'm not so sure that it isn't. My life might be a lot easier if they were all better behaved, but my ratbags are mine, and unique, and they are precious to me (I'm afraid LOTR has forever ruined the word 'precious' for me!) Anyway He also loves Starfall, although he loves anything musical. The difference is, being one, he cannot use the mouse, or at least, he can click on any number of things he isn't supposed to, but cannot use the mouse to tell the computer what he wants. Therefore, if his sisters or I are not at the computer with him, he will cry every time the song ends. Maybe they should put out a cd :P He has been a bit out of sorts today, which we suspect is teeth related, as he is nearly finished the teething stage. Yay! So yes, I have had many beautiful cuddles. He is getting better at communicating, both verbally and by pointing. His favourite word is 'yay', and he does a beautiful little dance while he says it, that you can't possibly think he doesn't understand what it means! Ah well, it's late :) Good night all! |
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