Parent/Teacher Conferences

Kate is in 4th grade, going to public school for her first time since Kindergarten. The change was good for everyone. I never have to tell her to do her homework. In fact, I'm hardly involved at all. She is her own self-monitor; doing her homework, projects, logging her reading chart, and bringing me the occasional paper to sign or fee to pay... I dont' know why she was nervous to go to parent teacher conferences. Her teacher told me she has all A's and H's, is a wonderful student and artist, and is kind and sensitive to others. Then she gave her a candy to take home.
We went to the book fair after where she chose a cute little after school snack recipe book.

Brynn and Adrie wanted to hear all about it when we got home. "Do we get to have parent teacher conferences?" they asked. I think it was the candy they were after. Anyway we decided to go with it. Kate pretended to be their mom and she brought Brynn to the table where I, the teacher had laid out some of the things Brynn's been working on for 2nd grade.
"This is a sample of Brynn's handwriting-- She's doing very well at writing and memorizing scriptures in the morning like this one...
Kate mentioned that she wasn't allowed to read scriptures in her school so I explained that ours was a "special" school. That proved to be a fun theme to run with. We went through some math assignments and literature, looking at her pictures of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and read the story she finished about what she thought happened to him.
"Another one of the subjects at our special school is violin. I'm sure Brynn would love to play something for you." I winked. At that point Kate excused herself and Brynn's parent/teacher conference was over. She looked in the candy jar and got an "airhead" for being such a smart kid.

Then it was Adrie's turn. She showed Kate some of her Halloween artwork and the poem about Fall she recently made up and wrote in her sketchbook:

Red, Orange
Purple, Brown--
Leaves look pretty,
On the ground.

We showed Kate how she was learning about adding and subtracting in math. At the end of it she chose "nerds" from the candy jar.

We ended with an introduction to our special "chef" Kate that made healthy creative snacks for the kids at our special school. Brynn shouted, "Kate's the lunch lady!!" which Kate didn't like at all. She reaffirmed that she was a "CHEF" then haughtily donned her apron and got right to work with a pretzel rod dipped in peanut butter and topped with Cheerios concoction.

More Fieldtrips...

Go, Go, Go,

Have I ever mentioned that we like to jump in the car and go on field trips? We've taken a few over the last month.
First, and favorite: California beach camping trip.

Tidepools, shell-collecting, seal watching -- You can read more about it here on our family blog:
http://sweetnsassy6.blogspot.com/2010/09/beach-bums-bigtime.htmlOur Washington Online school had a free day at the zoo. We just had to take advantage of that! Cannon (2) would repeat after me every animal that we saw. His vocabulary was expanded by leaps and bounds that day, or at least for the short-term. "Lemming, cavy, ostrich, boa, gibbon, sloth."
We headed to the mountains to see the spectacular fall colors and collect leaves.

We did leaf rubbings with crayon and paper back at home.

Is there any better way to spend an afternoon than visiting friends on a farm? The kids pet the horses and rode them. They gathered eggs from the coop and chased the chickens. The brave kids caught them (brynn) and the others clutched me and screamed for dear life. They climbed haystacks, ate popsicles in a treehouse, watched the sheep and goats in the meadow, and played with puppies (again the brave ones did, while the others clutched me and screamed...)

We sampled some mint leaves and took home a bundle of fresh garlic. Farm life is so fun-- if you're not afraid of animals and you don't have to do any of the work!

We climbed the red rock hills that overlook our city and had a picnic. The girls spotted a dozen cows with their calves winding their way down a mountain trail, making their way to a meadow. The kids (even the not-brave ones) were so excited, they took off running down the mountain to try and catch up with them. What were they thinking? Are cows not scarier than puppies? And have a not mentioned to them enough times about my terrifying experience of being chased by an angry cow while jogging?!!! Cows are definitely friendlier, smaller, and safer from a distance. Luckily, we slip-slided down the rocky hills and caught up with the girls before they got too close.

Those are some of our adventures in rural UT-opia.

Crazy--LOCA !

This week we picked up where we left off a few months ago in memorizing chunks of The Family: A Proclamation to the World. I figure if we work on a bit here and there then by the time the girls graduate from high school they will have at least the last paragraph memorized...

We tried a couple of new things this week:

1. Instead of me reading their literature aloud to them, I gave each of the girls a book. They read it quietly on their own then narrated it back to me. Josephina and the Story Quilt and Clara and the Bookwagon were the two selections. The next day they traded books and did the same thing.
2. Our neighbor and I combined forces. On Thursday he taught my girls science. Adaptation was the big word they learned there. On Friday, his kid joined ours for Art. Worked wonderfully...and in that hour that they were gone to science lesson---I got so much done--washing windows, folding laundry, sweeping. I think if my kids were in school all day I could have a very clean and organized house!

We made hair bows and watch bands for Art, while listening to Vivaldi.

One of the best stories to teach compassion and kindness for those who are different is Crow Boy. After we read it aloud I asked each of the girls to pick one person they knew who they could be especially kind to--by inviting them over or including them, a friendly wave, etc. Each day I've been asking them to report on how they've done. Now that we've tried that for a few days, if any kid from the neighborhood comes over wanting to join the girls and their other friends all I have to do is (quietly ) mention "crow boy" and with a knowing look they will be quick to reach out and include the new person.

For nature day each girl chose from a selection of books we got from the library about various animals/insects. They were to read over it and the next day be prepared to share a few things (according to their ages) that they learned.

Brynn chose a book about SNAKES. She is 7 so she picked 7 things to tell us about snakes.

Adrie is 5. She shared 5 things that she learned from her DOLPHIN book.

I told them I had 32 things to share about my book. They gasped. Ha Ha!

They drew pictures and wrote about their project in their sketchbooks.

Adrie finished another unit of math and earned a prize from the prize jar. Brynn is almost done with her unit on telling time to the nearest quarter hour and counting dollar bills and cents.
She got a prize for spelling her weekly list of words like butterfly and sailboat correctly.

While the girls were eating lunch with a friend over I tried the Spanish immersion thing. I asked them in Spanish what kind of sandwich they wanted and if they wanted to drink agua or leche. The girls' friend looked at me like I was completely LOCA! My girls already know I'm crazy. Too fun! We reviewed colors using their cups and plates, and of course we covered different sandwich fillings like jamon and queso.

Kate was at public school while we were having all this fun this week ;) She rides her bike with her friends and stops for a free cookie at the grocery store. She gets to have recess and is learning what it means to have homework?!

Untitled
by Christina Rosetti

Hurt no living thing:

Ladybug nor butterly

Nor moth with dusty wing,

Nor crickets chirping cheerily,

Nor grasshopper so light of leap,

Nor dancing gnat nor beetle fat,

Nor harmless worms that creep.

We memorized this poem this week in place of a scripture. It went along well with Nature Wednesday's theme: BUGS
After reading about them I sent the girls off with whatever bug collecting tools they could find: tweezers, jars, magnifying glass and --safety goggles? That was Brynn's idea.

The "pest control guy" came to spray that afternoon (I've seen way to many black widows lurking about). I realize writing this how much that is in stark contrast to above poem....

Anyway, turned out to be a perfect day for the girls to hunt. The bugs came out of their creeping places by the dozens to die...and be collected as specimens. Beetles, crickets, a praying mantis, and a (ackkk!!!) black widow were found--to the delight of the kids. This project may be ongoing all summer long.

For literature this week we read some of Aesop's fables and one of our favorite books, Sam, Bangs and Moonshine. Brynn and Adrie both finished a unit of math, earning them a prize from the prize-jar. We worked on spelling and handwriting and reading aloud.

Today was Art and Cleaning Day...It is 3pm and Brynn still hasn't mustered up the will-power to finish cleaning the bathrooms...

A couple of neighborhood girls joined us for today's Art project: paper houses. The Little Hands Art Book by Judy Press has tons of cute ideas like this one.

Before starting I introduced the girls to Vivaldi's Four Seasons and we listened to it while the girls worked on their projects. They chose a couple sheets of construction paper. One of them they used to cut out the shape of their house. Then they cut out windows and doors and garages and placed them on the 2nd sheet of paper as background.

We talked about different kinds of houses people live in and we practiced knowing our home address. One girl chose to make an apartment, the rest made little replicas of their own house. They scoured magazines, ads, and newspapers and cut out faces, pets, etc. to paste in the windows and make their homes look "lived in."

It was back to the fairgrounds again this week. For Wild Wednesday we read a picture book about the FAIR and then went to our own county FAIR. Pigs, sheep, cows, chickens, bunnies, and roosters--what a hullabaloo! Kate is absolutely sure she would never want to live on a farm.

The girls had fun seeing the exhibits they entered with winning ribbons on them. Kate won a red ribbon for her photograph of Cannon. Brynn won a red ribbon for her painting and a blue ribbon for her modeling clay sculpture of a bird. Adrie worked really hard on her painting but was not allowed to enter it because the cut-off age was 6. Wahh. She did her best to be a good sport but I could see she was disappointed. I hung her picture up and home and let her choose a prize from the prize jar.

Week 2 of school has gone well--not perfect--but well enough. Adrie and Brynn each finished about 10 lessons of math on the computer. Yesterday we finished our Literature selection, The Bears on Hemlock Mountain. Brynn narrated the story back to me. Adrie did the same only in shorter segments throughout. They each came up with an idea for a final project and carried it out.

Adrie (5) gathered "nuts for the squirrels, crumbs for the birds, and carrots for the rabbits. She set them out on the porch and waited for them to come.

Brynn (7) took to the stage. She found our largest pot and tried to hide under it while the bears, Cannon and Adrie, sniffed and pawed around at it. Brynn enlisted Kate to be the father who comes and rescues his son. She took the liberty of "shooting the bears" but didn't want to follow the script and allow Brynn to give her a big hug for rescuing her. Brynn did get her line in "THERE ARE BEARS ON HEMLOCK MOUNTAIN."

Kate sketched a picture with the caption "There are no bears on Hemlock Mountain." The power of a good story is when kids can identify with the characters and apply the story in their own life I knew Kate had done this when she showed me the other half of her sketch. It was a picture of herself surrounded by unfamiliar faces and the caption, "There are no bullies at P-- school."

She is headed off to 4th grade at P--- school in a couple of weeks and we all hope she will have a good experience transitioning from homeschool to public.

Like I said the week wasn't perfect. I tried my best to do the language immersion thing and speak Spanish the latter half of the day. Only problem was by afternoon they were all ready to take off and play with friends. "Adios" was all we got in some days. Other days we did a little better. We used a book from the library about the different members of the family. Now they know what I mean when I call them "mis hijas" (my daughters)

Lastly, they had to finish their Friday cleaning. For Adrie this meant scrubbing the toilets. Brynn, dusting, and Kate, folding laundry.

Today was also the day for passing off this week's scripture:

And whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is right, believing that ye shall receive, behold it shall be given unto you. (3 Nephi 18;20)

I'm going to be asking for more patience!

Tarzan and Cattails

It's Day 3 of school for us. Today was the best of them. Of course!! It was Nature Day. After math, handwriting, scriptures, clean up and a violin lesson we packed a lunch, invited a couple of friends over and headed out for adventure.

One of the little treasures of our town is this park--actually it's the fairgrounds. No metal swingset, plastic slide, or monkey bars here. The fun is all in the trees, and there are 5 HUGE glorious ones! Lovely large weeping willows they are. The park also boasts a vast expanse of grass. Best of all-- no one goes there?!! For those reasons it has become our adopted backyard.

We found cattails on the drive over so we stopped and picked some. We learned from our nature guide a little about them and on the drive home we reviewed...

What can you use cattails for??

"FOOD, SHELTER, FIRE !" came the shouts from the back of the minivan.

Adrie (5) piped in, "and for putting in baby's diapers!"

(A little tidbit we learned from our American Indian unit last year. )