Learning to Read!

Mason and I have been working from the book, "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons". I wouldn't say that he loves it but it seems to work. My sister-in-law Silvia used it with her 5 homeschooled children and was quite successful with it. I can't believe how far he has come since September. He is quite comfortable with all of his sounds. In the fall we were lucky if we did one reading lesson a week but since Christmas we've been doing one a day sometimes more. He is gaining confidence with sounding out his words and is reading some sentences. Today he read his first book. He doesn't have a lot of tolerance for boring so the early readers are going to be a struggle! He seems to like the pictures in this reading instruction book so that's good. He's also doing super with the words in his word box. They're not easy words either but he's really picking them up. Some are sight words and others he's sounding out. Yeah!!

We've also been working on addition. I think that this is going to go more smoothly than the reading, although bribes work awfully well when it comes to reading. It's amazing the progress he makes when smarties are involved. Mickey is ready to start but I'm holding off because I don't want her to surpass Mason! It's possible.

I've also introduced the clock this past week and he has a good grasp of telling time on the hour.

Should have gotten the flu shot!!

Well I guess I should have gone for the flu shot. Last week we were hit hard with the stomach flu. Mickey came down with it on the Saturday and I was just feeling quesy. Probably from all the clean up! She was so sick. All she did was lie in bed all day. I think she was achy and feverish. Sunday everyone seemed o.k. Through the night though I came down hard with it. Monday was horrible as Mason became ill as well. Lucky for me though I had my fantastic husband around to care for the two of us. There was no way that I could have made it anywhere other than my bed or bathroom. The aches and pains with the fever were horrible. Anyhow, it's taken both Mason and I almost 6 days to feel like ourselves after this. Anyhow, we have lots of work to do this week.

A Valentine Day with Grannie

Grannie wanted to do something special with the kids for Valentine's Day so I suggested Build-A-Bear after Mason noticed it in the mall the other day. We had lunch out together and then one at a time Grannie took them into the store for the Build a Bear experience. Mason went straight for the dog with the floopy ears and bypassed all bears! An employee took him over to the stuffing machine and they went through the whole process of choosing hearts and kissing the hearts and then putting them inside the bear. She stuffed the bear and then sewed it up. She then sent him to the washing station where he was able to fluff up his teddy. Then he chose some clothes (a car shirt and jean shorts) and was able to put them on in the dressing area. Grannie suggested that he get glasses as well. After that we made up a birth certificate and he chose the name Spot!

It was Mickey's turn next. She had originally chose a bright pink sparkly bear but then she saw a purple and blue hippo and it was love at first sight. She was insistent and would not change her mind. We all couldn't move fast enough to get that hippo stuffed! After the stuffing she picked out a pink outfit (skirt and top) and we made up a birth certificate for the name Lily. The bears were put in boxes and off we went. They played for 4 hours with these teddies after we got home!! It was a great Grannie fun day!

Valentine Prep

Today was Valentine Prep day. I was off work today as I was recovering from my third kidney stone attack. I rested in the morning while Heinrich was at home and then after lunch Mason and I got down to business - while Mickey was sleeping of course!! What am I going to do once that child stops napping!! It's so nice to have alone time with Mason to get some "work" done! Anyhow, we did 2.5 solid hours of crafting. We made valentines cards for Grannie and Daddy. We made a thank you card for Aunt Candace and lastly we made a Valentine Tree for grannie. He got lots of printing practice in doing all of these cards. What I loved about these crafts was that he did most of them himself. I got him started and then he took over.

Rainforest Day

After gymnastics we went to a friend's house and spent the afternoon studying the rainforest. We're doing an Around the World Expo with our larger homeschool group and our family has chosen Peru as our country of study. Because our kids like Diego so much I thought that Peru might be a good choice and it might be fun to focus on rainforests. Our friends are studying Brazil. I didn't have a lot planned but did want the kids to get a feel for the different layers in a rainforest and the species that live in each layer. As you can see by the photo I had little to do with the results. I cut out a few trees and a few of the animals after they were coloured but other than that, both kids did all the work themselves. Once again Mickey had her own agenda!!

Anatomy

Today we were at another mom's house for our co-op and she did a lesson on anatomy. She put so much work into our day. Our kids played for a good hour and got that out of their system and then two other children joined us. We delved right into the lesson. First she talked about what's on the outside of our bodies and then they were able to draw and construct their faces. Mickey's of course was a masterpiece disaster. She always managed to beat me to the glue and scissors! After this we had our lunch and celebrated one of the girl's birthdays. After lunch she gave each of them a take apart body with each of the organs being held on by velcro. She went through each of the organs she chose and had some neat demonstrations to enrapture the children; an active lung (balloon in bottle) and waste travelling through an intestine (a tennis ball travelling through a sock)! Oh boy were we toast after this one! Home we went to have dinner and then off to swimming.

Eat, See, Hear, Taste, & Feel

As you can tell, our co-op day today was on our 5 senses. Our leader led us through an activity filled exploration of our 5 senses. I couldn't believe how much we covered. We even looked at anatomical illustrations of the ear, eye, etc... The two favourite activities were probably putting the flame out with wave vibrations and tasting the 4 different flavours using our taste buds!

After lunch and the last two senses we ventured outside to enjoy the snow before it melted AGAIN! A thaw is coming! We went toboganning which was loads of fun. Mickey was having a very hard time being patient. We then went trekking through the woods with a few sleds for the little ones. Beautiful walk! Of course the moms ended up being reindeer and having to pull one, two or sometimes three kids!

We hurried home around 3pm and had a quick dinner and got ready for parent's night at swimming lessons. I was pleasantly surprised to note that the water was WARM. Whew! Mason has apparently really improved and Mickey is good at putting her face in the water. No fear!