Jun. 4, 2008
Review and Wrapping Up Kindergarten, and starting Summer
It's hard to believe we've completed a whole school year! We took this week to finish up Beyond the Code 1 and the last bit of the 1st grade Horizons math workbooks. We skipped a few of the last lessons and went straight to the final test, which Ted aced.
Our friend Karen gave us a couple extra "Me" posters and Ted and Maddy had fun coloring (or scribbling) on these. Ted worked especially hard to do his own writing when he could.
On Wednesday Aunt Tammy babysat so I could go to an appointment, and she spent much of the time painting suncatchers with the children. They loved it, and the suncatchers are still hanging in our dining room window.
We also spent some time practicing for Ted's graduation ceremony .. they selected Genesis 1:1 as the class verse and "Jesus Loves Me" as a song to sing. We 'finished' school on the 16th of May with over 180 school days.
On May 21st we got to visit a fire station with our playgroup co-op. It was very exciting. The fellow leading the tour shared how he got to visit the very same fire station when he was in 3rd grade and got to slide down the fire pole (back when such things were allowed), and now that very same fire pole is right beside his bed. Our tour was briefly interrupted when the team had to respond to a call, but they were back quickly and demonstrated all the layers of gear they have to wear. After the visit we fed ducks at the park across the street and then headed home.
Mommy and Daddy got to have a date that evening, going to see the new Prince Caspian movie, with Grandpa Glenn babysitting. It was nice to go out on our own, though I was disappointed in the movie and came home with a big headache.
Graduation was on the 29th, and the kids did wonderfully.
We also got to observe some baby blue jays (none of whom survived, sadly) and dig up some very tiny potatoes from our suddenly dying potato plants. I think they were eaten by bugs. Anyway, we've got some very cute little taters that we're going to cook up in a mini-meal one of these nights.
We spent the week after 'school' building a Lego city on the dining table, we're reading aloud a Robin Hood version by Ann McGovern, and we've started both VBS and Summer Reading this week. Busy busy! But lots of fun.
Jun. 4, 2008
When I Was Young in the Mountains
Posted in FIAR book activities
This was a nice title to lead up to Mother's Day. The kids enjoyed finding all the old-timey things in the pictures, and shuddered at the large snake. Ted picked a spot on the Appalachian Mountains for our story disk.
Storytime was the last one for the semester, with a Mother's Day focus and a cute flower planter craft.
Our curriculum orders came (yay!) and the kids had fun playing with our new bucket scale. We also had a lesson on safety and calling 911, to go with the story in our Beyond the Code workbook. Ted is annoyed ... he thinks it ought to be pronounced nine hundred eleven, or written with spaces between the digits. :)
The Lowe's craft on Saturday was a memory box. Teddy gave me the one he built, and Maddy saved hers for Grandma, who's recuperating from surgery. The surgery was Wednesday and went well. (I got to visit several times, which was very reassuring for me.)
Jun. 4, 2008
Mirette on the High Wire
Posted in FIAR book activities
We had a lot of fun with Mirette on the High Wire. Europe is getting pretty crowded on our map, but we managed to squeeze this story disk in too! And for a laugh, there was a picture in our newspaper of someone driving a car across two high wires in China. We practiced walking a 'tightrope' by following the pattern on the edge of our living room rug.
Storytime was the book Nothing by John Agee, and the kids made musical shakers. Afterwards we made a quick stop at a local playground to try out their balance beams.
Math and reading continue to progress.
This is an article from another source, found via browsing the web(http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2833838.html):
A Chinese man performed a breathtaking stunt by driving a car across two steel cables suspended 150ft above a river.
Liu Suozhu, 48, of Henan province, completed the 750ft journey over Miluo River in Pingjiang city, Hunan province.
Liu, who is nicknamed the Car King in China, drove the motor from a platform in front of tens of thousands of cheering spectators.
During his 30-minute journey, Liu communicated with the performance host via radio, which was broadcast to the audience.
"The cables are a bit shaky, not very stable... the slope is very steep," the showman said, to more cheers from the crowd.
Liu says the last few minutes were the most difficult and dangerous because the steep slope blocked his rear view. He stopped several times during the last section of his journey.
Jun. 3, 2008
The Carrot Seed
Posted in Before FIAR book activities
We continued our spring fun with the Before FIAR title The Carrot Seed. We also used a go-along from a Brighter Vision pack, Bear and Bunny Grow Tomatoes. We planted our own carrot and tomato seeds in big bins ... we're trying container gardening this year. (So far, it's much easier to keep watered and weeded, though the carrots never did sprout.)
We browsed YouTube looking at butterflies hatching, spurred on by a link posted on the FIAR forums, which was pretty cool. We missed storytime due to illness but still had plenty of fun.
Friday was the Webkinz Day celebration in stores, so we took a field trip with our friends Amy and Jennifer to our favorite Hallmark. (Unfortunately our accounts are still a bit messed up ... it was about two weeks at this point and has now been near two months.) But the activities and sales were great, and the kids each won some fun prizes, like animal crackers and a Webkinz mouse pad.
Saturday we did a Lowe's activity, and I got to attend a curriculum fair ... bought some fun materials but not anything major, as we'd pretty much decided what we wanted and it wasn't there.
Jun. 3, 2008
Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car
Posted in FIAR book activities
We hopped back over to England to enjoy
Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car. We also worked some more on our Webkinz Stargate script for Script Frenzy (yep, this is Teddy's story!) and enjoyed a storytime of the rather odd story
Hey, Al. Over the weekend cousin Joey came to spend the night, which was fun for our kids. Also Daddy mixed up cement and drilled new holes in our swingset frame and we got to anchor the set and hang new swings on it. MUCH safer now, and nicer too. We'll wait till next summer, or later, before investing in newer playground equipment... it's so expensive to get a really nice set, and they all seem to be a bit grown up for our three year old. So we'll wait another year or so. Our toddler and young kid swings and our plastic climbing playsets and slides will do for now. (Gotta love secondhand stores and yard sales!)
Jun. 3, 2008
Miss Rumphius
Posted in FIAR book activities
Our next spring title was Miss Rumphius. We enjoyed this book, especially talking about making the world more beautiful.
Storytime was Swimmy by Leo Lionni, and a fishy craft that didn't quite float right in the tub, but which the kids loved anyway.
We were introduced to the "Eagle Cam" at http://chil.vcoe.org/eagle_cam.htm by a mom on the FIAR forums, and had fun watching that over the next few weeks. Once or twice we even saw the eaglets being fed!
Over the weekend we started our Script Frenzy project (www.scriptfrenzy.org for adults and http://ywp.scriptfrenzy.org for students), and made stepping stones with jewels (which later fell out) for our garden. There was enough in the kit for each one of us to make an individual stone. Not real impressed with the kit overall, though, so won't post the brand here.
Maddy started working hard on writing letters, and Ted and I had a big bedtime discussion on oxygen (and why we shouldn't wrap our heads in blankets to sleep!) ... went well with our plant parts lesson, at least. LOL.
Jun. 3, 2008
My Spring Robin
Posted in Other book activities
To kick off April, we read My Spring Robin by Anne Rockwell. It's not a FIAR title but a sweet little book anyway. And as a bonus, most everything pictured in the story can be found in our backyard or neighborhood, which makes it a perfect spring title for our family.
We did more Brighter Vision pages, progressed further in math and phonics, played with some other workbooks, and tried Usborne's I can draw people for fun.
Storytime was a book called Pedro the Brave, and Miss Mary helped the kids make a medal to wear.
We watched Peter Rabbit some more, and also some Magic School bus videos. They love these!
Miss Jennifer took them to the park, and they tried to play tennis. :)
Jun. 3, 2008
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
The kids really loved this book, and now they have added a whole slew of imaginary pet bunnies to the collection of imaginary friends. :)
We had some nice coloring and sticker books to go with it, as well as a nice British animated movie. And Maddy started really getting into doing schoolwork, so we pulled out a lot of old Brighter Vision workbooks and let her do those.
Storytime was a book about seasons, and some Wind activities.
We had fun with gardening, and planting more potatoes, and filling our bird feeders yet again ... the birds have a tremendous appetite! We also tried doing more nature drawings, but we're not very good at this yet. (On a later note: I've now discovered Jane Lambert's nature studies, which have nice worksheets for the kids ... wish I'd had them sooner! They're available at ww.fiveinarow.com with the other digital items.)
Ted added a new playmate ... the grandson of our neighbors spends his after school time at their house, and has taken to coming over here to play. The kids love this.
On a health note, Ted had a dentist appointment early in the week, and then ended up with a pretty bad case of pinkeye later in the week. That was rough to treat, and he hated every eye drop, but finally we got through it.
Jun. 3, 2008
Spring Break, March 17th - 21st
We had a pretty busy Holy Week and spring break. Storytime was a picnic theme, with Miss Patsy instead of Miss Mary ... very different styles but fun either way.
We went to the Maundy Thursday service but couldn't quite manage the Good Friday one. Sunday, however, we attended church as a family, and the kids had an egg hunt during the children's part of the service. I got to go to sunrise service all by myself ... it was cold but good. We also played with our set of Resurrection Eggs. At home, we had our own egg hunt, and Grandma and Grandpa Glenn and Aunt Karen joined in.
Saturday's project at Lowe's was a wacky golf game, which the kids had fun with.
Posted in FIAR book activities
This past week we read Wee Gillis. The kids didn't like it as much as I did, but I think they'll enjoy it next time around. Of course, we snacked on shortbread cookies while reading! And we placed our story disk on Scotland.
This website has some nice snippets of bagpipe music: http://bagpipes.com/music.html
Storytime was Night Cat, and afterwards the kids made cat-ear headbands. Miss Mary even painted their noses and painted whiskers on their cheeks ... my kids were cats for the rest of the day. Miaou!
Yesterday was going to be a mini-curriculum fair at my house, for our play co-op, but illness and other reasons caused several families to cancel. Since we woke to pouring rain and my plan had been to have the kids all play outside, this was probably just as well! Not sure what happened to the other families, but only one mom and her kids ended up coming. We had a lovely time, though, and got to share what we each use. I know I got some good ideas, and my kids had a blast having playmates over.
Next week is officially Spring Break around here. We'll probably focus on Bible stories and church over the week, and pick up lessons again the next week. We're not going to be doing the Reading Rainbow contest after all, but that would probably have to be mailed soon.
NaNoEdMo is going on ... I'm behind so far, due to laptop dying and internet constantly crashing, but I am struggling to make up the hours! And I'm definitely making progress on my book. Much better than last year, in that respect, even though this year has been ten times as frustrating.
A FIAR mom posed the question regarding first grade math, about whether the kids knew even/ odd, and whether they could correctly tell how many pennies were in $20. For fun, I asked Ted about the pennies (he's done even/odd for a while now). Astonishingly, he was able to work it out, and said two thousand rather than twenty-hundred (which I had expected). Yay Ted! I actually took longer to think it out than he did. LOL.
Mar. 15, 2008
Make Way for Ducklings
Posted in FIAR book activities
Our first unit of March was Make Way for Ducklings, always a favorite. We have the book and the Scholastic video, which was a nice change-up. We put our story disk on Boston. Coincidentally, the newspaper had a story this week about the Old North Church, so we looked at those pictures and then saved the article for when we do Paul Revere.
We got an email from Grandma in Hawaii, very exciting! And more dear friends, Tim and Karen, had their third child, a boy named James. Welcome, James! Two new babies to cherish ... very exciting. The kids can't wait to play with them. We got to see baby James at the hospital, visiting very briefly after storytime.
Storytime was Jerry Pinkney's The Little Red Hen, accompanied by butter making. She had two large jars of cream for everyone to take turns shaking, and then bread to snack on with the butter, after. Yum! We've also been checking out Magic School Bus videos from the library; this time the kids picked the one on Bees.
Friday was a t-shirt decorating party for our play co-op. A little chaotic but fun. Ours didn't get properly ironed (I was hasty, as there was a line) and I've learned a valuable lesson ... do not put wax paper over it to iron it down further at home ... the wax paper gets glued to it. A few trips through the washer helped the paper come off, but the lettering isn't as good as it should be, now. Oh well.
Over the weekend was another Lowe's workshop, this time building a periscope!
Mar. 15, 2008
The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge
Posted in FIAR book activities
This was a fun book! We really enjoyed this week, so much so that we ended up spending two weeks on it. Ted's on a New York City kick, so he loved doing a story set there. Not only did we read The Little Red Lighthouse, but we also tossed in some go alongs. One big hit was a very old easy reader called The Secret Three by Mildred Myrick (I think). It involves boys on vacation who meet a boy living at a lighthouse, by solving his secret code message in a bottle. Since then, we've been doing a lot of secret codes here. Even a kindergartener can handle the 1=A, 2=B sort of code. Ted loves it. We also read Beacons of Light by Gail Gibbons; her books are always a nice addition to a unit study. Friday we downloaded the Fold-N-Learn (a lapbook) from the FIAR site and tried to assemble it. Maddy had fun cutting and randomly pasting, but Ted tried to do his more deliberately. It took us most of the next week to finish. It was nice, but a bit over Ted's head, and the map currently in it is inaccurate (they are going to fix it).
Wikipedia has a nice article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Red_Lighthouse for pictures. It really shows the scale of the lighthouse, which I thought the book had to be exaggerating. Apparently not!
Over the weekend and also this week, we have been finishing up a science kit we got at Target some time ago, "My First Science Experiments" or something like that. It's all colors and light and water, very simple but fun. The equipment it came with is pretty sturdy, too. And for phonics, we've still set aside the Explode the Code workbooks and are using Beyond the Code book 1 ... Ted has really enjoyed the change of pace. He likes the stories and the worksheets, especially the art ones (completing the illustration and then coloring.)
Tuesday, Daddy took off work to be with us. In the afternoon was our cover school's ice skating party. It wasn't quite what we expected ... we didn't know any of the other families there ... but the kids had a surprisingly good time, in spite of the fact that neither can ice skate. Daddy and I got thoroughly worn out, as a result. That morning, though, the kids and I went to storytime, where we heard Frederick by Leo Lionni and made mouse finger puppets.
Saturday we had a real treat of an opportunity ... picture book author and illustrator Denise Fleming was speaking at our main library. In spite of much confusion over the tickets and the suggested age ranges, we ended up attending the afternoon showing, which was supposed to involve hands-on art. If you want to see how she actually creates her picture books (it's an amazing process), check out www.denisefleming.com for the details. Anyway, the event started off with a puppet show by some branch librarians, a very exciting adaptation of In the Tall Tall Grass, and then several slides by Denise Fleming which included childhood art (and discussions of possible story ideas from them, and how anyone obviously can grow up to be an artist, LOL), pictures of the nature in her backyard and of her pets (who give her much inspiration), pictures from the books, and lots of very funny anecdotes. Well worth going to see. The group art ended up being a giant mural, construction-paper collage. Very cool. We also got to speak to her personally, and get books signed. (I was actually in line too long, while Ted was finishing his art ... one of the librarians had just gone to check on him, though, and he was brought to me before he could get too upset... poor guy. He knew where I was, but forgot, and I was just out of his sight.) Here is some of Ted's art:
(The rest of the pictures came out blurry. I got a video of the whole mural but am not sure how to do those.)
The next week we continued with the lighthouse book. We also played around with compasses and stuck a potato in a glass of water to see the eyes turn into leaves and roots. (We've since planted the potato in a bin of dirt and are curious to see how it grows.) We also got a good art lesson out of Beyond the Code. The instruction was to draw another cup or two in the picture, to show the ones Zack the dog knocked off the shelf. Ted didn't know how to draw a cup, so I suggested he draw a cylinder. Amazingly, that simple instruction worked, and he was SO PROUD he learned how to draw something. He's not much for realistic art. Then he learned how to draw a cylinder rounded at the bottom to make a teacup.
For storytime, the librarian read the pop-up version of Horton Hears a Who. The pop-ups are quite impressive, but the story was too long for most of the children to sit through. She then let them make Who-Horns, out of individual soda and water bottles with the bottoms cut off (all thoroughly washed). They decorated them with foam stickers.
Wednesday it actually snowed again, so the kids got to enjoy that. And we started reading out of the first CLP Nature Reader. Those are nice simple books, but it was more about wasps than I ever wanted to know. We haven't picked it back up again yet, but we will.
Thursday we took some of our work and went up to the church, to see if it was possible for me to accomplish my job as church librarian with kids in tow. They handled it for a little while, then got antsy. But we hit on the idea of taking a stack home each week to work on, and bringing them back all nicely labelled and pocketed to swap for another stack. This may work.
Friday the weather was nice again and we started planning our gardens. The weather is completely nuts. :)
Oh, and some of our dear friends, Greg and Anna, had their first baby, a boy they've named Eric. Welcome to the world, baby Eric!
Feb. 15, 2008
Valentine's Day
Posted in Ramblings
This week we’re just enjoying Valentine’s stories such as Valentine Bears, The Story of Valentine’s Day, and Lilly’s Chocolate Heart. Storytime ended up being cancelled, so we visited at our friends’ house, where Karen was doing a science experiment for her two children. We all had fun with that! Oh, and of course we did graphing, for math, with our conversation hearts. Always fun!
For phonics, we’re playing around with Beyond the Code book 1 and otherwise just taking it easy. Math progresses as usual. So far so good! I’m also researching to see what we might want to do for science next year… there are a lot of confusing choices.
To go with Ted's math interest, Daddy has been introducing square numbers to him. Glad we got that multiplication poster! Sea Squares by Joy Hulme is a neat story to go with the concept of square numbers. And we've also been introducing negative numbers ... Ted likes to write up his own plus and minus equations, and he couldn't quite understand why it mattered which way you wrote the numbers (he wanted to read one right to left instead, because it was prettier, LOL). He had fun with that too, with a chalk number line on the patio today.
An added bonus ... while browsing a couple secondhand stores today, I found two pairs of strap-on roller skates! Both are pink, but oh well, it'll do till we see how much the kids use them. The larger pair can convert from roller skates to inline skates, and the smaller pair is like a training set of inline skates, with the backmost wheel actually two side by side. Both kids had fun trying those out today! I couldn't believe I actually found two sets, in the right sizes for my kids, of strap-on skates. What a nice unexpected blessing. (And you can't beat paying $5 for both!)
For writers: National Novel Editing Month is almost here! Check out www.nanoedmo.net and dust off those manuscripts!
Feb. 15, 2008
Follow the Drinking Gourd
Posted in FIAR book activities
Next we read Follow the Drinking Gourd, by Jeanette Winter. We went light on the schoolwork at the beginning of this week because we were all sick, and we missed storytime too. We worked on signing Valentines cards for the two parties we were attending, played around with www.bookadventure.com, and finished up Explode the Code book three. He did reasonably well on the end of book test. Not sure where we want to go with phonics yet … he’s not quite ready for book four, the information needs more time to settle in his brain. He does well with the workbooks, but it’s not carrying over into most of his daily reading quite yet. Not a problem, since he’s only in K, so no need to push on either. We also caught up on our story disks (behind on placing them on the map), and we celebrated Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Ted and I both went to church that night. We attended the short service Sunday morning, a brief Lenten Communion too, with both children … I think it was Maddy’s first Communion, and she did well.
The first party was roller skating again, and this time we tried the snap-on little kid skates that fit your regular shoes, rather than the boot skates. Much better for both children! Maddy was zipping around all over the place, hardly getting upset when she’s wipe out. Ted did just as well, and had a blast. That night we used a Crayola cooking kit to make cinnamon buns … a blast to make, but not as tasty as I hoped. The next day was our smaller co-op party, and then a visit from Aunty Kelley that evening. Busy busy!
I also got to read Cay Gibson’s book Catholic Mosaic this week … I won a copy in one of her blog’s bookwalks. http://caygibson.typepad.com/cays_cajun_cottage/ his her blog, a wonderful delight to read. Her newest book is A Picture-Perfect Childhood, another book on children’s literature and life. I can’t wait to read it. Catholic Mosaic, though, I found especially touching. We’re not a Catholic family, we’re Methodist, but I always look for more books to draw out the liturgical year. I find myself wishing someone would write something as wonderful as her resource, for Methodists. I might have to do it myself… (said the Little Red Hen…)
Feb. 15, 2008
Harold and the Purple Crayon
Posted in FIAR book activities
The week of January 28th was Harold week, with lots of purple. We enjoyed reading the story, an old favorite because we have the Scholastic DVD of the books. We created our own mural; Ted added both book elements and his own creative touches (like adding a ladder to the apple tree to reach the highest apples). Maddy copied his work valiantly and it came out quite well.
Then she took it the next step further … and now she has a Harold mural on her walls. We have yet to scrub it off, because it’s going to take a very long time. In amongst the scribbles you can make out her renditions of windows and ladders, very cute. (Yes, I took pictures, when she wasn’t looking.)
We took a trip to a teacher supply store (looking for Valentine goodies to give out at a party) and ended up purchasing a planets poster and a multiplication chart poster. The space one is in Ted’s room, and the math one in the hall for reference. He’s loving both of them.
To go with Harold’s pie eating, we pulled out a set of fraction circles from my teacher ed days. Both children enjoyed mixing and matching the pieces to see how they could go together.
Storytime was about groundhogs, and the kids made cute little pop-up puppets of fuzzy balls on sticks, in paper cups.
Posted in FIAR book activities
The week of January 21st we focused on Jane Yolen’s book Owl Moon. Online we found a few nice birdcall websites where we could hear the great horned owl’s actual call.
http://www.kidwings.com/teacher/coloringpages/greathornedowl.htm was a nice coloring page. We also later the following week watched the movie suggestion “My Side of the Mountain” … a big disappointment if you like the book at all. Also not at all geared to a small child’s interest level. I love the book and was upset at how much they changed.
We did some cookery, watched some Magic School Bus videos, and tried out our Karate lesson DVD we got for Christmas. Maddy started wanting to learn to write letters (she does quite well) so we pulled out the Kumon uppercase letter workbook, and she goes through that at her own pace. Ted also plays Nick Jr.’s habitat game Diego’s Animal Rescue.
Speaking of Owls, the Great Backyard Bird Count is coming up:
On another exciting note, author/illustrator Denise Fleming will be coming to our area, and we purchased tickets for the afternoon hands-on showing. Can’t wait to see that!
Feb. 15, 2008
If You Give a Moose a Muffin
Posted in Other book activities
Our next book was supposed to be Katy and the Big Snow, but ended up being If You Give a Moose a Muffin. We had slacked off on the ‘fun stuff’ for the past few weeks, and I was trying to rejuvenate our lesson plans. I think we pulled it out because we were cooking a batch of muffins. Of course then I had to hunt up some jam to eat with the muffins…
We also did a lot with space this week. The Messenger probe reached Mercury that Monday, and we looked at it in the paper. Then we talked about the order of the planets, and how the planets orbit the sun. Fun ensued as we sat Maddy in the middle of the rug to be the sun, and had Teddy walk around her in circles to be different planets. Then I went around Ted to be the moon, as he went around Maddy. Then we had to try spinning while orbiting. It got crazy fast! We all took turns being the different parts. Later in the week we pasted a set of Wallies on Ted’s wall; I’d been saving them for a while. It was a whole solar system set, and the kids had fun matching the Wallies to the pictures in Ted’s space book (a Christmas gift from his aunt Tammy) to see what order they should go in. It was also a nice counting lesson for Madeline, as we soaked them in water for the required number of seconds. (And Ted learned how many seconds make up a minute, a fact which he surprised me with some days later, when he multiplied three minutes times 60 and told me how many seconds it would be, timing a recipe we were cooking.)
Storytime was fun, a snowy story set. Zoo Flakes ABC was a big hit and very cute to look at; highly recommended if you’re into snowflakes and your library has it. Later in the week our friend Jennifer came to visit, bringing her violin and giving the kids mini music lessons on violin and piano while I went grocery shopping. They loved it. Ted learned to play Hot Cross Buns on the piano.
Feb. 15, 2008
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
Posted in FIAR book activities
We started our school year back on January 7th, right after Epiphany. It was nice to have the whole Christmas season fit so well with the school year. Our snow book was fun, even if the weather didn’t oblige by producing actual snow. We again made online snowflakes at www.popularfront.com/snowdays.
Ted picked up a pen pal (or e-pal) this week; on a parenting forum I frequent, another homeschool mom was looking for a pen pal about Ted’s age. They only corresponded a few times, and then we never heard back, but it was fun while it lasted. Ted hasn’t seemed to notice, at least.
Ted has also been playing around with Microsoft Word, and he’s teaching himself to use the clip art feature. He does fairly well, though he can’t always spell the keywords he needs to search for pictures, so I help him with those. He loves to print up pages of clip art and words and then cut them all out. I have to be careful he doesn’t paste them to the wall!
Feb. 15, 2008
Our Christmas
Posted in Ramblings
The rest of Advent went pretty well. We got to go to a party for our cover school, which ended up featuring roller skating. This was the first time on roller skates for both children. Ted loved it, Maddy didn’t quite. Those big heavy boots were a bit too much for her. The party was very nice, though the kids melted down at the end because they didn’t want to leave.
We got to visit the lights display at our Botanical Gardens one night as a family. It was impromptu, and a lot of fun. Daddy was on a lot of business trips, so one night when he ended up working late and we had to pick him up (his car was being serviced) we just decided to go and have a fun night. Beautiful displays. Ted especially enjoyed it.
We finished the first math workbook but not the phonics one. That’s okay; it’s been slower going.
Maddy had her birthday and had a blast; she loved Bitty Baby’s new birthday outfit and all the other gifts she received. Some were at Christmas, since we doubled up holidays a bit.
Overall the holidays were pretty good. Lots of family, lots of presents, lots of yummy treats. Ted and I both went to the Christmas Eve service at church. He did very well holding his candle, till the wax dripped on him. He gave it to me after that. :)
Dec. 10, 2007
Prince Caspian ... the date is set!
http://www.walden.com/walden/properties/caspian/
That's the link to Walden Media, where you can view the trailer. The release date seems to be May 16th, 2008.
I just joined up to browse their forums, and boy were there some heated opinions about Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising, which apparently was botched badly when they turned it into the movie The Seeker. So glad I didn't pay to see that one yet ... the book is great. Let's hope the quality of Prince Caspian is at least equal to that of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe!
