Thank you, Honey!

I just wanted to write a quick note about how thankful I am to have such a handy husband. He is so good about knowing what to do in situations that we have not had to deal with before.

Sunday night after a long day, I decided it was time for a bath. After waiting for the tub to fill up, I went to put my foot in, only to discover that the water was freezing cold. I let Donald know, and he grabbed some tools and went to check the water heater. Yep, it was broken, he determined. So, he got on the computer, looked up the model number, diagram, and troubleshooting page. He thought it was likely the heating element that had gone bad, so the next day, he tracked down a new one at Home Depot.

After soccer practice on Monday, he drained the tank, and switched out the bad part for the new one. Within less than an hour after that, we had hot water again! I am so thankful that what could have thrown a major wrench into our holiday plans if we had needed to call a plumber or unknowingly replace the whole thing only ended up costing us less than $20. Donald, I am so glad that you know so much about things that I have no clue about, and you are very good with crisis management. I love you!

We have a new little boy in our house!

Now that he is just about 3 weeks old, I thought it was time to introduce our new little baby! His name is Koen. He is absolutely precious, and all of us already love him to pieces. He is so sweet, and I just love that he is my third son. I'm not sure if I am just getting better at knowing what to do with babies or if he really enjoys the commotion generated by the other two (or perhaps he just has a very laid back temperament), but so far he has slipped into our family routine so nicely. He seems so wise and observant, like he is already learning so much. I can't wait to watch this little boy grow up and see what he will be like, but for now, I am definitely loving the baby stage and having a newborn to cuddle once again.

First Quarter in Review

Well, we now have one quarter of Kindergarten behind us, and already I feel like we are in a much different place than when the year began. Kai has already learned a lot, and a lot about our schedule and school routine has also changed. Here is a look at where we are in each subject.

Language Arts

Reading: Kai is already reading much better than he was when we started school in September. He is catching on to several sight words, and he is reading CVC more fluently without nearly as much pause to sound them out. He is about 3/4 of the way through his Primary Phonics 1 workbook, and I hope to start book 2 right around Christmas. I am starting to introduce CVCC and CCVC words too, as well as long vowel sounds through flashcards and Step 1 readers, since his workbook is not there yet. He is picking it up quickly. He has read through all of the set 1 BOB books, and is working his way through set 2.

Writing: Kai's handwriting has improved so much! Looking at samples from just a short while ago compared to now, it's hard to tell they were done by the same person. He is all done with the lower case letters in his Handwriting without Tears Kindergarten book. We have a few pages of sentences and poems to finish still. After he is done, we have another Kindergarten book that we will go through slowly over the year to reinforce his good handwriting habits. We will also add in some copy work, and start some very short journal writing next semester.

Literature: We are slowly working our way through the books in Five in a Row, volume 1. So far, we have done The Story About Ping, Who Owns the Sun?, Grandfather's Journey, Madeline, The Rag Coat, and How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World. We have enjoyed several of the activities, particularly from Ping and Madeline. Kai also liked doing the food pyramid and planning a healthy meal activities from Sun. We also made the homeschoolshare lapbook for Grandfather's Journey. I will post about that later. We have also completed Henry Huggins as our read aloud. We still have Stuart Little to finish, and then we will begin, The Tarantula in My Purse.

Here is Kai reading his first step 1 book about Hot Wheels. It featured all of the color words he has been practicing.

Math

We are slowly plugging along in Saxon Math. We are around lesson 30 in the first grade book. Kai does very well with each lesson and worksheet. So far, he has picked up all of the ideas very quickly. He has memorized the double addition facts up to 10, and he is very proud of that. The reason we are not moving along more quickly is mainly because of me. I have found it difficult to read through the scripted lesson before we work on it and prep all of the materials the night before. I am still hoping to get better at this. We are still on track to be half way done by the end of the semester though, so I am happy about that. I have also been supplementing Saxon with addition books from Enchanted Learning and some Singapore math worksheets, so I feel like he is doing well in this subject.

Social Studies

We are about to begin chapter 5 in The Story of the World: Volume 1. We are working very slowly in this book on purpose to stretch it out over two years, study what he is interested in more in depth, and go at his own pace. Even though each section is only maybe 2 1/2 or 3 pages, I have a hard time keeping Kai's attention for the whole time. We have also been tweaking the way that he does his narrations, so that they are not as frustrating for him. I start by listening to his narration as is, then I ask the review questions for anything that he might have left out. Some things he remembers the answers to, and some he doesn't. I try to go over the answers in the reading to the ones that he didn't know, then we talk about them again later in the week.

Our favorite activities from this book so far have been an archaeology dig, making a cuneiform tablet that says "Kai," and reading through the supplemental Egypt books. We have also enjoyed a few shows about Ancient Egypt from the History Channel. We are currently working on an Egypt lapbook. I am hoping to finish that up this next week.

Here are a few pics from our archaeology dig we did to go along with the introduction, while we were learning how people learn about history. Kai found several things that Daddy hid that represented what a typical family from today might leave behind.

Science

We have been working our way through the Evan Moor Read and Understand Science series in addition to the science from our My Father's World Kindergarten curriculum. So far we have learned about the sun, moon, shadows, why we have day & night, and leaves in both programs. We have been going very slowly through MFW, partially because we've been busy, but it has also been nice to stay with the same topic in both of these.

These pictures show the progression from our sun experiment, how grapes turn into raisins. I did not take a photo everyday (we put them outside everyday for two weeks), but you can get a good idea of what they started like and how they ended up.

First Day of School

This post is so overdue, but I wanted to get it up here before doing a quarter review or a new baby post. :) So, here are a few highlights from Kai's first official day of Kindergarten back in September.
Both kids got a little backpack full of new school supplies and a few surprises in them. Kai got a new calculator, a little white board, some dry erase pens, a ruler, a pencil box, and a little notebook. Kael got some chunky crayons, his own little notebook, a board book with velcro pieces to pull off and stick on, and a creation themed tot book, so that he could be included in our 2 week creation unit to start off the year. Unfortunately, almost all of the pics of them opening their surprises are too blurry to share, but here is one of Kai anyway because you can still see the excitement on his face.

After they opened all their goodies, we went over our new weekly schedule and discussed our family rules, which are:

1. Listen, and Obey your Parents!

2. Be respectful and courteous.

3. Be honest. Always tell the truth.

4. Love one another.

5. Always try your best!

6. Be helpful.

Next, Kai filled out an "All about Me" worksheet. He did most of the writing himself, which I was very impressed with. We spent most of the rest of the day just introducing ourselves to the new curricula and beginning our creation study. Here is a picture of Kai filling out his worksheet at his brand new (to him) desk, something he specifically requested. Donald spent much of the summer sanding it and chiseling the old paint off, then repainting it, complete with chalkboard paint for the front, and restaining the wood.

We finished things off by taking weights and measurements, so that we could remember how much Kai and Kael weighed and how tall they were for the first day of Kindergarten. Kael did not want to stand right in front of the growth chart for his picture, oh well. He was 31 inches tall and weighed 24 pounds.

Kai was 46 1/2 inches tall, and weighed 45 lbs. That's a five pound gain for him since the beginning of the summer!

There were a few meltdowns throughout the day, but I suppose that is to be expected when a five year old is adjusting to a new schedule and new expectations. All in all, I think he did very well, and will be excited to see what the year has in store for him.

Summer Report

This summer report is pretty late, partially because it takes so long to upload pictures to my computer and partially due to business. Anyway, better late than never..... Here are some fun learning activities that Kai did this summer.


We started off the summer early with a trip to the Wild Animal Park, where Kai fed the Lorikeets and learned the size of a gorilla's arm span. Our focus for the summer was primarily on animals, so this was a neat way to kick things off.



Next we were off to Washington, DC. Unfortunately almost all of the pictures from the trip ended up blurry, so I am only sharing a few. Kai's favorite thing was visiting Mount Vernon and learning all about George Washington. He particularly liked the film they showed before the tour and hearing about how George Washington died (strep throat).


It was raining almost the entire trip, so we weren't able to do as many things as we wanted, but of course we visited the Smithsonian. Kai's favorites were the Air and Space museum and the Natural History museum. He loved the bug exhibit at the Natural History. The butterfly room was really cool. They had all different kinds of butterflies coming out of their chrysallis, and they were flying everywhere. Kai also really enjoyed the Sea animal room and the African animal room. In the picture below, Kai is standing in front of the Wright flyer at the Air and Space museum.





Upon returning home, we all had a great day at the final big event of the year for Kai's charter school, Science day! Kai built a little electric car. He had a really fun time with it, and when we came home, he and Daddy experimented with how to make the motor stronger and faster until finally it burned out. Here is Kai holding up the fossil he found along with his little homemade lava lamp (colored oil and water). It was really hard to get a pic without his eyes closed.

We also built and launched a rocket, made a flashlight out of a battery, tinfoil, and a lightbulb, listened to a discussion about space, and mixed our own silly putty. The last activity in this very fun day was making a sun print.
Both Kai and Kael enjoyed several library story days as well as their corresponding arts and crafts projects. On this day, Kai was working on a caterpillar on a leaf craft.

Kai got in lots of big brother practice, too. He really loves his little brother. He is very helpful and patient with him, too. This picture is one of my favorites.

There was LOTS of soccer practice, too. It was a great way to make sure that he could burn off all of his extra energy a few times a week.

We did the African Savannah unit in our Winterpromise Animal Worlds curriculum. Kai loves animals, so it was pretty fun for him.. plus there were lots of crafts. Here he is making an alligator out of a toilet paper tube.

He worked on this animal puzzle quite a bit.

We finished off the African Animal unit with another trip to the Wild Animal Park...San Diego's home for African animals. It was so much fun to show him all the animals he had been learning about in person. He surprised me with several facts that he remembered, too. While on the safari tour, he told us that cheetahs were the fastest land animals. He was also able to identify the different types of giraffes and pointed out the decorative termite mounds, which the rest of us would've missed. Thankfully, we were there while Dino Mountain was open, too. So, he and Daddy went on that tour.

Stamping his dinosaur passport.




Kai also learned how to tie his shoes and worked quite a bit on improving his handwriting. We also learned about the five senses, and did a couple of activities to learn more about summer. Kai seems to have really grown and learned a lot, and I am excited to see how much growth the new school year will bring.

Now, if I can get to our First Day of School post, I will feel satisfied. :)

Combining...

I haven't been very good about updating more than one blog at a time, so I think I am just going to combine all of my blogging efforts on this blog. So, expect to see some upcoming homeschooling posts about what Kai has been working on this summer real soon!

Tot School

17 months old.

We don't have too many photos this week. A lot of our activities were outside, and I forgot. Oops!

Kael did a fabulous job of steering his race car shopping cart around Home Depot, while we picked up some projects for Kai (to practice his handyman skills). Kael enjoyed looking all over the store, helping pick out parts, and watching the wood get cut.

There were many trips to the park this week. Here is one of my favorites from our playdate with the Hansen's.
This next activity was sort of designed to serve two purposes. The first was just to enjoy playing with water and noticing the difference between the warm bowl and the cold bowl. We are really trying to increase Kael's baby sign language vocabularly though, so I thought this would also be a good way to work on the "hot" and "cold" signs. He did watch while I repeated the signs over and over, but he did not try to copy them yet. He really liked splashing around and dipping his cars between the warm water and the ice water. I tried to find our little cars that change colors with different water temperatures, but since Kai was not at home on this particular morning, I couldn't tell which ones they were.

After he was done playing in the bowls, he rolled the wet cars on his body. He said "voom, voom." It was so cute!


Another trip to the park. Lots of gross motor practice on this day.

The steering wheel is by far his favorite activity.



He also enjoyed some finger painting.


Here's his final product.

We spent a lot of time working on body part identification this week, but I did not get very many pics. Here are some of the things we used.

Kael loved the face plate activity from Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready despite Mommy's primitive drawing abilities. I touched a part of his face and named it, then drew it on the plate. He thought it was hilarious.

He also enjoyed the body board book. He seems to like the DK board books over actual stories right now, I think because he enjoys seeing pictures of real babies. We used the Linguini doll to name his parts.

So far, "nose" is the only body part Kael will point to, but I think he is close to doing "hair" and "bellybutton." We are also working on getting him to point to other people's noses in addition to his own.


To see what others did for Tot School this week, go here.

Tot School

We worked a lot on animal sounds this week in tot school. We took the kids to feed the ducks in hopes of inspiring Kael to answer "What does the duck say?" When prompted, he did say "ack" once, but he hasn't done it again, so I'm not sure if it was just a coincidence.

Playing with play-doh at home.

We ended up doing several field trips last week, mainly because my sister was in town. These pictures are from Legoland. Kael has been there several times before, but he is just getting to the age where he is really start to appreciate it all and engage himself in the activities.

After we got home, we also played Legos. In this picture, Kael is waiting for Kai to finish building a tunnel for his little car to go through.

After the tunnel, he decided that the tub was more fun than the blocks.

This next activity was recommended by Kael's developmental therapist to help with his self-feeding. The idea is to dip the spoon in peanut butter, so that the cheerios have something to stick onto making it easier for him while he uses a spoon.

He did pretty well with the concept and was successful in getting several Cheerios to his mouth. However, it didn't hold his interest for long..I think partially because he doesn't really like Cheerios all that much. He was more interested in feeding Kai and Mommy. I think next time I will try some Honey Nut Cheerios to add a little more flavor.


Here Kael is touching the ice wall in the Arctic exhibit at Sea World.

Kael played with several balls. A ball of any type is by far his favorite toy.

We tried the pom pom fill and spill that I have seen on several other blogs, and it was by far the hit of the week. Kael did this activity for at least a half an hour.

Kai wanted to try this out too. So Kael put some of his pom poms into his brother's bottle.

My favorite pics of the week:

See what other little ones did for tot school this week.