Spring is Almost Springing

The wee little crocuses are sprouting in the garden and the frost is not attacking the grass and windshields...is spring springing? It's light out before seven and the birds are chirping...must be! This also brings on second term reporting....yahooooo...?

What have we been up to? Much more outside activities, more biking and skateboarding, soccer is winding up which leads us to bike racing season.

Nevaen has let his guard down and let me see a glimmer that he can in fact read.We had a date at the library, just the two of us, and he did read me a whole book. I'm certain he did this as quickly as possible to bring the date to an end and get back home to finish whatever I had interrupted. The bottom line is that I don't feel hopeless about the fact that the things I do are in fact helping.

February Fun

We started the month this month with a trip to Mt. Washington with Auntie and Nona. Aidaen and Auntie went off on their own to explore the hills with their snowboards while Nevaen and Aija each took a lesson. Nevaen did snowboarding last year but was frusterated so we signed him up, and Aija decided that she wanted to try skiing so that occupied the two young ones for the afternoon. Nona and I went on the O-Zone which is a innertube ride! What a blast...we had races down the hill and faces full of snow by the end.
We have some different Valentines activities to do..hopefully will make math a little more fun! We started out this morning reading a book together explaining some of the different theories about how Valentines Day got started, there are 4 different main ideas which I also found interesting! The kids followed that up by starting to make their own Valentines for next week.
The kids have all built a playground out of plasticine and popsicle sticks. The kids at our local primary school did this activity and I thought it looked like great fun so we decided to give it a try. It really got their fingers and brains moving...a little frusterating but we were successful and the kids always enjoy the result of building something.
I have gotten a few different computer games from the library for Nevaen. He seems to respond better to learning to read from the machine than from me! Which is fine...whatever gets him reading is ok by me!
Aidaen has started learning German through Rosetta stone...he has worked on the program only a couple times but is already remembering a few words, I am thinking of starting the other two as well...it certainly can't hurt.
Aidaen started the babysitting course a couple weeks ago and LOVES it! They are teaching first aid and all the usual things but also teaching the different stages of development so the kids will know best how to take care of and entertain the different age groups.
We have also done a couple of fun art progects which I will post pictures of as soon as I get new batteries in the camera!

Are We On The Same Page?

ARRRRGGGGHHHH Nevaen!

I do think that my middle boy and I have finally come to a meeting of ways...we are on the same page...we are dancing to the same beat...

We have had a couple of discussions this week about how we can communicate better to accomplish the work we need to do so he can be as successful as he can be! So now instead of yelling at eachother we are using our big people words to say... I'm mad, or frusterated, or I don't understand...or I just don't feel like it right now! This is one of the best parts of homeschooling is that if we are just not feeling "it" we can move on and come back to the work later.

The kids have all been busy getting their rooms organized, I told them there is no way to be happy and productive in a pig sty and funny thing since they have cleaned out I haven't seen either boy!

Aidaen was parusing his science textbook today and finding video clips on Brainpop that explained some of the topics that interested him. I will have to double check and see what it is that he watched. Now he is on the drumset....

Coming along

We had a very productive day yesterday, I love those days where school work and house work both get done and we are not totally frazzled by the end of the day! Now to just figure out the formula so that we can do this always instead of by accident.
Aidaen is such a great speller, I am thinking I may need to start using some more challenging words for him. The math is coming along, I did some reading and an hour a day consistantly should do the trick, he is starting to switch from wanting to do hands on math activities to wanting work sheets and text book questions, although I'm not sure that I totally love the Grade 5 math text we are using.
Nevaen and I hit a wall yesterday with his reading, we both got really frusterated, things got ugly and being the adult I took a deep breath and then explained to him that I am not trying to punish him by helping him learn to read, but trying to make his life better. If he would learn to read then he can learn and be anything he wants to be! What an eye opener...so we'll see how things go today, hopefully we will just find a retaining wall instead of a huge wall of china!

SNOW!!

Here on the westcoast a couple of sunny days in January can cause one to think that spring is coming and gardening books are important. So yesterday afternoon Aija and I hit the library only to wake up this morning to about four inches of snow! Nothing beats the beauty of fresh snow stuck to everything but we know just around the corner is the grey and dirty mush that the rain will cause.

This morning the kids finished their game of "life". A nice change in the start to the day, instead of television or video games. Aidaen and I spent the morning playing Quiddler which is a card game where you have to build words and collect points.

We have taken a quick lunch and will continue with some more work this afternoon and then off to gymnastics!

Monday January 7 2008

First day back to school after the Christmas break so it is the perfect time for a fresh organized start! Aija, Nevaen and I packed up our "science on a nature walk" kit and hit the trail to find some logs to age a tree, and some leaves for an experiment that we will finish tomorrow. The kids were more than willing to bundle up and head out on an adventure.
Nevaen the protector insisted on going ahead of us girls to make sure there were no wild animals waiting to gobble us up. Aija was the keeper of the tools and log book for when we found our treasures.
We finally found a suitable stump with rings that could be easily counted and aged the tree at fourty-four years old.The kids were amazed that there was a tree older than me!
It was a challenge at this time of year, but we needed green, red and yellow leaves for our next experiment, which we found.
The best part of the walk was how Nevaen was looking out for his sister, the two of them are at a stage where fighting seems the only option, but Nevaen said to me "Mama, I have to help Aija because even though I don't like Aija I still don't want her to get injured" I told him thats because even though he may not like his sister all the time, he does love her. He did grumble about that, but didn't deny it then ran off to help her down a slippery and moss covered rock!