Videos from our trip

Abigail, Gracie and Sophie get a moment with Goofy and signatures in their Disney autograph books:

Miriam's enjoys playing the Goofy piano: 

The fish swimming just below our glass-bottom water taxi at Cabo San Lucas:

Waves from the Pacific Ocean crash through an inlet into the Sea of Cortez: 

Family Reunion Carnival Cruise

Our trip took us from beautiful San Diego to Cabo San Lucas and Ensanada. Click the picture below to start the slideshow.

Click here for the full size album.

Disneyland

We're back from our trip to Disneyland and our family reunion Carnvial Cruise. It was a great time with family and the kids! Here are some pictures from Disneyland, click the picture below to start the slideshow.

Click here for the full size album. 

MINE!!

Miriam stands here trying to bite a stick of string cheese through it's secure plastic wrapper.  Each time I offer to help her open it she pulls the cheese to her side with both hands, and with the suspicious air of a seasoned CIA agent, yells "MINE!!".  The world is out to get her cheese, you had better watch your back or yours could be next.

Kodak's reading lesson

Miriam sat down next to Kodak and tried to "read" to him.  He didn't really appreciate her efforts but it was cute!

Weekly Report 3.3.2008

This week we finished up our study of Kenya/Africa.  We are working on lesson twelve in Latin for Children and equal fractions in Math-U-See.  Abigail has been going over the sample pages from a young children's Latin program that I hope to get her.  It will be avalible by the end of the month.  She is excited about it and has learned all of the vocabulary from the first 3 chapters we have as a sample. 

  The last two posts have been school things the kids were working on.  Abbie just wanted to write a story of her own creation and David is working on a basic five sentence paragraph format that will eventually grow to full essays and research reports.  Miriam is learning to glue so here is her contribution to the weekly report.

The Sahara

The Sahara  is 2 million square miles and is the largest desert in the world. It can get colder at night, but the main idea is that it's  hot. The average rainfall is ten inches  in the Sahara. Other than sand, the hot desert  also contains areas of rocks, gravel and volcanoes. I think that the Sahara is a bad place to be, but a good place to hide.

-By David

Princess Maya and Queen Abigail

One day while princess Maya and Queen Abigail were walking in the woods they found a baby without her mama.  They were so happy they wanted to bring her home but instead they went to find the mama with the baby.  The mother was not around, anywhere.  They understood that the mom was dead and so the brought  the baby home and called him Joseph because they noticed it was really a boy.  When they got home they built him a crib with steel bars and a comfortable mattress.  One day the baby's father came home and it was the same day that the queen and the princess got the baby.  the father was so happy he jumped up and down.

Then one day when joseph was growing up his father taught him to carve wood.  He made a little toy boat for his little brother because his new mother was about to give birth.  When the new brother was in his bed his mother and father gave him a new bed, a bunk bed.  The little boy was so happy he jumped up and down and the little sister was so happy she jumped up and down because she knew someday she would be on the bottom bunk.

Then the mother and father built a family boat. A few days later when the baby sister was grown up, she was six, they all went on the boat together.

~ by Abigail

The Survey

Have you ever tried to get inside the head of a quiet ten-year-old boy?  I did.  The boy is getting rather old now, double digits and all, so I decided it was time he had a little more input into school.  In true Modern-Mom fashion I emailed him a survey.  If I was really good I could have used survey monkey but these were mostly open ended questions anyway.

The things he likes about school are reading, some Latin and sometimes Math.  I have to say I was surprised at the last two.

When asked what 3 things he would change the answers amounted to different ways of saying he would like less schoolwork.  Hey, it's worth a shot right?

He would like to learn about (surprise, surprise) the ISS, the galaxy and the solar system as well as programing games.  So I am looking into focusing our science studies and finding a kids video game programing guide.  I did find one book and put it on his Amazon wish list.  I don't know if it is the best thing or not but it is a start.

David's mom and I will talk this weekend about the plans for 6th grade.  It is bound to keep me challenged but first I need to make it through this year!

~ Christina

Weekly Report 2.26.2008

Why don't toddlers stay in bed?  Or at least not scream when you lock them in their cage, er... um... crib?  At first the big girl bed must have been a fun novelty but that has worn off because it is no longer interesting enough to keep her there.  So after a warning I put her into the dreaded pack'n'play where she screams,  and then screams some more, and then some more.  Sometimes she actually cries for a bit and ends up falling asleep but today it is just righteous - toddler indignation.  No tears need apply.

Getting onto school.

This week we continued working on Kenya and got some great pictures emailed to us from Grandma Sherie.  I can't believe she was close enough to take those pictures, wow they were great!  The local zoo has a homeschool day coming up.  David's mom is planning to take him to that so he will be able to see the animals we are learning about up close.  

The girls and I whipped up a batch of play dough and they made animals, ok mostly "snakes" but big brother declined the invitation.  He is after all 10 years-old and far to mature for purple play dough.

David learned to add and subtract fractions  with the same denominator this week.  It sounded scary to begin with.  Quite intimidating in fact. But once the girls were quiet long enough for him to hear the whole explanation all was well. Fractions are defiantly better than division and the new manipulatives are cool.  After 18 months of division math is back to being something less than torment.  I am as glad as he is for the change.

That leaves us with Latin.  Latin for Children lesson 11 on adjectives is complete.  Parsing is still no fun but he needed very little help with it this week and I am impressed with his vocabulary.  Way to go Buddy!  

Thursday I will be going to an informational meeting about a new classical co-op starting in town.  I am optimistic and hopeful that this will be productive and we may get a regular activity out of it.  It would be lovely to be with people who don't look at me like I have two heads for teaching Latin.  Just in case any readers wonder why I choose Latin, there are some good reasons here and no sense in me reproducing them.  There are many good articles about teaching Latin but this one is short and sweet.

~Christina