Onward, HO!

Life has been going along at quite a brisk pace lately. I was gone from the house for three days in a row which tends to be me on the couch in a zombie-like state. I'm okay when out of the house but by the time I'm home, I have serious function issues. ;D So finally, today I feel a little more normal.

Thursday was me and two other moms listening to drama auditions and deciding on who gets what parts in the three different plays we're putting on this year. They will all be performed at our End Of The Year meeting-otherwise known as the EOYM. lol There are 3 so that we can separate all the kids according to age. These are the plays we'll be performing. Peggy the Pint-Sized Pirate ---Tigger will be performing as Captain Soggy. And I believe that Pooh will fill in for a missing role as Grunt. The second play is From the Elephant Pit --Pooh will be performing as the Snake. Then the final play for all the older than 13 kids is Ever After. The boys are excited every year at what we do in our drama club. Pooh especially, loves being on stage. Usually by the end of the year, he has everyone's lines memorized. LOL The upside of autism. ;P

I also had a meeting with my Field Trip Committee where we discussed how we're going to use the money we raised with our fundraiser. What a privilege to be able to provide the kid's entrance fees to between 4-5 field trips! We're planning more fundraising events too!

Friday we were able to visit Old Salem in Winston-Salem, NC. This is definitely worth a drive. They had special homeschooling days this month where the entrance was only $8 each--quite a bargain compared to their regular prices. There will be another homeschooling event in February of 2009 for anyone in driving distance. The boys love to dress up in all types of period clothing which is what they got to do in the Children's Museum. Pooh was very impressed to find out that George Washington spent two nights at the Salem Tavern. :) We were at Old Salem all day and still didn't see everything, so there is plenty to do next time we want to go.

Saturday, my Latin King, wanted to go to a Spanish festival in the area, so we did that as well. It was soooo hot, though, that we didn't stay for too long. We did get to see some dancing in the style of the Aztecs and another style from a region of Mexico that produced the Mexican Hat Dance.

Saturday night we camped out in our front yard. The King and I slept on long long chairs by a little fire pit we have while the boys slept in their 'clubhouse'. It was fine except for the neighbor's rooster waking us up at 5am in the morning.

So by Sunday afternoon, I crashed while the King took the boys fishing. Even yesterday, I was exhausted although I did manage quite a new feat for me. I spent the afternoon pureeing fresh pumpkin from the garden and making two pumpkin pies. Oh My! they are good!!! This is the recipe I used. Instead of soy milk, I used a can of coconut milk. Pumpkin pie is very hard not to eat. It just sits there, tasty and yet not too sweet, waiting for you to eat it. Mmmmmmmmm.

Excuse me, there's something in the kitchen that needs taken care of. ;D

Narration at Our House

In honor of the next CM Blog Carnival, I'm putting together this post.
First I'll copy and paste a couple of things from some of my former posts
regarding Pooh's narrations. Then, I'll provide more info at the
bottom.

For those new to this blog, please keep in mind that Pooh has autism and some of what we do won't be 'strict' CM.

"I'm learning that the key with Pooh is to make sure and do shorter readings. Even the OIS chapter is too long right now for him to listen and narrate. So I take it in paragraphs. Same thing with 50 Famous Stories. I believe that Narration has to be our focus for Year 1. He's going to need to practice and we'll try to use different types of narration in the process. Oral, drawings and even figurines to act it out."

"I'm adjusting expectations that I had as regards some of our readings and narration. I've learned that Pooh needs me to stop every couple of paragraphs for a narration so that he can stay focused. If I try to do a whole chapter or too large of a section, his mind wanders to other things and then we both get frustrated that 'he's not listening'. I also see where sometimes the language used in the reading confuses him or just causes a general misunderstanding of the storyline. It takes us discussing it together to make sure he can follow along. For instance, from Our Island Story, we read A Laconic Answer. He was able to narrate the end of the story in regards to the one guy (can't remember his name LOL) wanting to make war with the Lacons (or Spartans) but didn't get all the part where it explains what the Lacons were known for and why the end had 'a laconic answer'. Which to me is the whole point of reading this story. So we had to discuss it. Basically, I have to narrate. I have found myself asking questions about the readings, which I'm trying to limit or eliminate. I even found myself interrupting to correct something. Horrors!!!! I stopped myself and said, "whoops I'm interrupting" and put my hand over my mouth. Pooh thought this was funny and smiled as he finished his narration."

As you can see from the above clips, the history narration of AO requires extra work on our part. I think we did well choosing Year 1. It's just about right for him. He loves the history stories, even though he doesn't necessarily follow them as well as he could. These are some common mistakes he makes:

1. Forgetting names. He doesn't seem able to remember them. He will even ask the same person's name several times throughout his narration. I frequently hear "What was the leader of the Romans name again?" I'm need to work on writing out the names for him ahead of time so that he can get into the habit of looking at them for reference during narration.


2. Leaping ahead. Pooh really loves the stories. He is always excited to listen to them. I think he has a great imagination in that he is really thinking about the stories, but in the sense of how he would like them to end. Yesterday we read about How Caligula conquered Britain from OIS. At the point where Caligula rows out into the English Channel and then comes back to make his speech, I stopped for narration. Pooh's narration had him on a ship back to Italy. Then at the end of the story, he told me he preferred the story of Julius Caesar because he took ships instead of walking all the way. LOL Have I mentioned before how much Pooh loves ships!?!


3. Getting mixed up. He can tend to get mixed up as to who is doing what. He knows what events are taking place but will sometimes not know which side is doing a particular thing. Today, from 50 Famous Stories, we read about Horatius at the Bridge. I stopped for narration after Horatius sent his friends across the bridge and the bridge fell. Pooh narrated that all the Etruscans crossed the bridge and died. That's the combination of his getting a little mixed up and leaping ahead in his mind to imagine what is going to happen.

Sometimes these mistakes he makes cause me to have to correct something so as not to have a complete misunderstanding of what's going on. I will also ask questions, though I do try to make declarative statements instead. How he answers the questions will many times reassure me that he's getting it, that he understood the main point of the event/motive, etc. One thing in particular I do is listen to his narration and just wait. (the RDI 45 second rule) This allows him to continue thinking about the reading and often he'll tell me more details, things I was waiting to see if he got. This would be especially helpful for any students with processing issues.

Despite these errors, I believe that overall he does pretty well. Many times he is spot on with his narrations and will even connect it with other things he's learning. Yesterday we started Aesop's fable of The Shepard Boy and the Wolf. I made the comment "I wonder what this story is going to be about." He replied, "Maybe it's like The Boy Who Cried Wolf." And he also did really well with noticing that the whole problem was that the boy was a liar. He also connected with some of our bible reading by saying that it was showing compassion--something he had seen defined on TV.

Some other info is that we do narrate from each of the reading selections and as mentioned before that may mean after each paragraph or several paragraphs depending on what I'm seeing. We did Shakespeare for the first time this week and it was a little rough. I let him draw a picture but even from that I could tell he just hadn't gotten the whole story line. Today we actually went over the book I am using for Tigger that has more pictures in it and I think that may have helped. So I will be looking into some other books recommended by some to help younger kids understand Shakespeare. Drawing has been a good way for him to narrate in the past and I will continue to use it on occasion. You can see examples of his narration of Wind in the Willows in February '08 posts.

All in all I have been extremely impressed with the value of AO's book selections and narration. I see connections being made, I see wonderment in learning and I KNOW that this method is much less stressful that other things we have used in the past. Children who struggle due to whatever kind of disability will benefit from CM's gentle learning style--narration being a major part of that.

Another tip for those working with more than one child. My boys were fighting over narrations--who went first, "he took my answer", etc. This was happening even though, Tigger, age 5, is not expected to narrate. He just wants to be part of everything and is constantly listening in. What I've worked out, that has helped tremendously, is for them to have their 'own' books. Pooh narrates as usual from his Year 1 books. Now Tigger has his own schedule of books that I read to him. These books come from the Year 0 list provided by AO. Neither one is allowed to narrate on the others books. It's worked like a charm. Now they can even take turns without fighting when we have our bible reading. They've automatically starting taking turns on who goes first without me even prompting for it. LOL I think each of them having their own thing that belongs to them, takes away the competition and allows the other stuff we do all together to run more smoothly.

As I'm typing this, my boys are in their bedroom and Pooh is regaling Tigger with narrations of the OIS stories about Julius Caesar and 'the other Romans' and their different approaches to invading Britain. How cool is that?!? History bedtime stories from one brother to the other. Pooh is even making up his own dialogue of what the soldiers were saying to each other and to Julius. Homeschooling is amazing!

I wonder if they know I'm typing about them. ;D

Deer?!?

Yesterday's adventure started with Pooh saying "I see a deer!". I thought he was quoting some movie line I couldn't remember so I ignored him. LOL Then I heard "Mommy, come here, it's at the neighbor's." Sure enough, looking out our kitchen door we see a buck waltzing into our neighbor's backyard about 50 feet from the house. Then, I saw another one, a doe.

We decided to go out to watch them when Pooh said, "let's give them an apple." Gramma and Granpa have taught them to feed apples to deer in a certain place in the mountains. So I tried tossing a piece of apple at them and of course, scared them away.

Thus we ended up tromping through our neighbor's wooded backyard looking for these deer. We found old junk tossed aside, a ravine, a bullet casing, rabbit poop and saw and heard the neighbors behind our neighbor, but never saw the deer again. We decided to leave the pieces of apple for them just in case. ;D

I'm a little amazed at seeing these full grown deer in our neighborhood. I can't imagine what they were after here. In fact, they should be down on their uh, knees? thanking God the neighbor didn't eat them. I know he hunts and even has a place in the woods for target practice.

Flee dear deer! Flee!

Format Update

I almost had it the way i wanted it, and the whole thing blew away. Now I can't even get it back to the orginal way I had it. I no longer have the option to upload my saved template either. (hair is littered around my chair from all the pulling!)

Sorry this may be a pain to come and view it 5 thousand ways before i settle.
:O

Pardon Me

I'm trying to figure out how to customize my blog a bit, so I'll be messing around with some different looks.

Pardon any inconvenience while I sort through it all.

Grasshoppers

This week we decided to find crickets, but ended up with two grasshoppers. That would be because mom knows nothing about the differences in the two and if I HAD known, I would have known that I wouldn't have been finding crickets so easily in the middle of the day. LOL



This "cricket" we found is actually the Red-Legged Grasshopper found in the Handbook of Nature Study. Another new thing we learned was that grasshoppers lay their eggs in the ground.

We also found a spring green colored little grasshopper with no other markings. I'm thinking maybe it was a young one that just hadn't gotten it's full colors yet, because I can't find a picture online to identify it.

We'll see what Nature brings us this week!

Tigger's CM Kindergarten

Tigger is 5 1/2 years old and this is his Kindergarten year. I'm keeping in mind the Year 0 as presented at Ambleside Online, but with a bit more structure. The reasons are these:
1. He wants to be doing schoolwork and has asked since he was three.
2. It fits in with what Pooh is doing during the day.
3. I need the structure to ensure I'm providing him what he needs.
4. Nothing he is doing is strenuous and we are following the CM method of short lessons.
5. He was trying to take over during Pooh's readings, so I figured I better ensure he has his own.

I set Tigger up with his own school bin and binder system with weekly planner. It's set up just like Pooh's schedule to mark things off as we finish them. In it he has his own little things he likes to do on his own. He has gone thru one of those animal sticker books where you put the stickers on and read a little about each one. He just finished his 1-25 Dot to Dot book (and is anxiously awaiting another one.) Each day he will do one page of Math-U-See Primer (if he's having trouble focusing, we just close it up and finish that page the next day.) As soon as I get it ordered, he will have the beginning HWT printing book and possibly the Get Set for the Code series.

For Phonics we've been doing a letter a day. I have some letter cards from LetterLand that we go over. They're really cute. They use mnemonics such as Red Robot the theif for R that are supposed to help. (They then go on to include stories about the letter characters like Arthur 'Ar' the apple stealer who works for Red Robot.) I didn't buy the whole kit though, just the cards. Then I have two ABC type books that you find pictures on the page starting with the letter. One is an ABC I Spy book that i used with Pooh. Then he has a coloring book that is a letter per page and you find anywhere from 11-28 items on the page starting with that letter. We just finished Letter Q, so that gives you idea of how far we've come.

We are using several books to rotate reading from each day. They are:

Winnie the Pooh
Shakespeare (a kids book i picked up at B&N.)
Mother Goose
The Adventures of Chatterer the Red Squirrel from Thorton Burgess

I borrowed Jump-the stories of Brer Rabbit from the library. I also have two of the Among the ________ People books that we'll go through.

Other than that, he joins in for bible time, composer, artist, nature study, etc. He kept asking me this week to have a painting session to do Van Gogh's Roses because we weren't able to get to it on Tuesday. LOL This Tuesday that's what we'll be doing for sure!!

So that's it! It's a pretty lite schedule for him but satisfies his need to be doing things. Hope this info helps some others looking for a CM Year K.

Pooh's Year 1

I've got to get down to business sharing what we're doing everyday. Admittedly, life has been crazy around here lately, but at the very least I would like to share our schedule so that it can hopefully help others. I know I am always looking at other's schedules for ideas. So, here is what we're doing with Pooh this year.

This schedule is in my school binder. (Not quite how i view it but this is the way I can copy and paste it. It fits on one page so I have 36 pages for the 36 weeks.) I check things off as we go along. We are currently on Week 6 of AO Year 1. I don't really worry about what day of the week we start a new week. I just move along as the schedule allows.

Week 1



Daily Text:     


Bible Reading:     

Phonics: - Explode the Code   
-Letterland


Math: -Math U See    
-Game

Poetry: - A Child Garden of Verses (poem each day)
-Treasury (poem each day)

An Island Story: ch 1 The Stories of Albion and Brutus

Aesop: - The Wolf and the Kid (pg. 7)
-Tortoise and the Ducks (pg. 8)

Parables From Nature: A Lesson of Faith

Just So Stories: Whale

Baldwin's 50 Famous Tales: The Sword of Damocles (Greek)

Paddle to the Sea: ch. 1

Once A Week:
 Mapping
 Nature Study
 Craft
 Composer
 Artist
 Spanish

Copywork

 Poem
 Aesop’s Moral
 Story Quote
 Bible Verse


Notes: ______________________________________
______________________________________
______________________________________
______________________________________
______________________________________

Trips:
______________________________________
______________________________________
______________________________________
______________________________________


Year 1 has 36 weeks. I plan on finishing Term 1 by the end of October, Term 2 by the end of February and Term 3 by the end of May. That gives me wiggle room for vacations, field trip days, etc.

Each of the boys has their own school bin that has their everyday things in it---Math book, dot-to-dot books (their choice), E.T.C. for Pooh and other little things like these. They also have their own binders. The binders have a pencil holder in the front followed by a weekly plan page (I'll try to put that page in here as well.) Then there is a section for Narrations (this will be for the days I want him to do a picture narration.) and a section for Copywork. This is part of another "Habit" I'm working on with the boys. After their morning routines and morning chores, they should go to their binders, look what is for that day in their planner and start on the things they can do themselves. I'm hoping that by starting this habit early in their lives, it will help to give them a better sense of self-discipline and order and save me a big headache in the future.

I can't figure out how to paste my Excel page in here, but this is the idea....In a landscape view I have the title "Weekly Assignments". Under that is the place for the week date and the child's name. Under that are blocks under each weekday that allow me to write in what that child will do each day of that week. I usually plan for the following week on either Friday or Sunday evening. The boys cross out stuff as we do it and I think that's part of the appeal-they can see what they've accomplished.

We did Cornelia's Jewels yesterday from 50 Famous Stories and the boys loved it when I called them my jewels. LOL I can see how Pooh is really developing a relationship with the stories. He even remembered the basic story line of the first chapter of Parable of Nature after not having read it for weeks! (I had introduced it earlier to see how he would respond.)

We're usually done by 1pm. That's including the fact that somedays we get started late, the kids snack, have lunch and includes the 'extras' such as composer study. It takes 2-2 1/2 hours to get through the complete process. The one thing I haven't added in yet is Instrument. We have a keyboard for Pooh to practice with piano, but I feel a bit inadequate teaching something I don't know much about. I think that's why it hasn't been a priority yet. We'll get there though.

Well, that's our basic day. Today Pooh will be going to Art class and we have a few errands to run so we'll be doing our school work in the late afternoon. Yeah for flexibility!!!

Why Did Beethoven Go Deaf?

Wait for it.......



Tigger: "Because his hair got in the way."


That's your funny for the day! LOL My King informed me that Tigger gave him this interesting tidbit of information after discussing yesterday's composer. We listened to Beethoven Lives Upstairs. I have no idea why he thought this but it was too funny to forget. Now it's a memory I can cherish through the wonders of blogging. ;D

Habitry

Ok, so I'm coining a new word for myself. I know that CM advocated working on one habit at a time. As of yet, I've found that a bit difficult. Therefore, 'habitry' has become something that I've been intertwining throughout our day and life. The habit of cheerfulness that we work on seems to tie in greatly with respect and kindness. So how do you differentiate?

Perhaps things work a little differently in our family due to Pooh having autism. I'm not sure. He's my oldest so it's a little hard for me to judge. However, I work on the attitude that is displayed all throughout the day. So, for our family, it means working on the habits of Cheerfulness, Respectfulness and Kindness all together.

When I ask the boys to do something, we have since toddlerhood taught them "Yes, ma'am. No, Sir". Now that doesn't mean they aren't allowed to ever say anything else. They may say "Oh, I did that already" or "But I need your help." That's okay as long as it's said in the appropriate tone of voice. What we've been having to work on for quite a while is the 'tone' that we get back. "Well, fine then!" or "Yes ma'am, moommmmyyy!" When this happens I have them 'try again' until they get the tone back to a respectful one. This may mean they do it 5 times before it's correct. We'll also do this if someone stomps off angrily or bangs the door shut. We have a 'try again' until the feet walk softly and the door shuts quietly. They must come all the way back and do it over.

It's common for some of us to get the whiny, complaining attitude as well. I used a bible example with the boys that did make an impression. Our family study last month was about the Israelites and how they reacted to things in the wilderness. I overemphasized what they were saying: "Ohhhhh! We should have stayed in Egypt!! Why did you bring us here to die? This manna is soooo boring! Waaa, Waaa Waaa!" Then I asked them who they thought sounded like this sometimes. "Uh, us?" Right on! LOL So now when the whininess starts, I may something like "I think I hear an Israelite." Usually I get a little smile in response. Even when I don't get the smile, the whining stops. Ahhhh, sweet relief. LOL

Another thing I do is when the question is coming out whiny or complaining, I smile at them. With Tigger this works really well, as he finds it funny and will smile back. That completely changes his attitude. Pooh will at times give me the evil eye in response, but will then lean against me and at least won't be as aggressive with his complaining as he was initially.

I've also been known to break out in song when I hear a rotten attitude. Suddenly singing loudly songs such as "A spoon full of sugar" and "Put on a happy face" tends to take the focus off of themselves. They're too busy trying to get me to stop singing. he he

I do believe that one of the biggest and easiest ways to help with attitude issues is to get outdoors. Being out in nature soothes the savage beast in all of us. So if you're having a bad day, week or month, start making regular times to get outdoors. It doesn't have to be formal nature study. Just take a walk. Visit a new park. Find a stream to explore. Just get outside regularly. I'm still working on this myself so don't feel like you're alone. It does work though. I've seen it happen. I was also struck by an example a friend told me about. A couple of years ago she was watching one of those shows where the family tries living in another completely different place or time period. (Remember the pioneer living one and the one where they lived in victorian england?) Anyway, the one she saw was a family living in Africa alongside another African family. They were living in the bush somewhere. I'm sketchy on the details but the point of it was that the Dad and son were just having a hard time. They were constantly arguing. The African father sort of stepped in and just took the son for a walk. When they came back, the son's attitude had changed. Sometimes we just need a change of scenery and the best kind is of nature.

All in all, it's up to us as the parents, to set the example. Keeping our tone mild and kind and showing them respect, while not a cure-all, does go a long way into helping them see a goal to work towards. They just don't know it. ;D

Music to My Ears

Well, 'pass the salt and call me a slug', I couldn't believe what I heard come out of Pooh's mouth yesterday. We had had a bit of a lag with schoolwork due to lots of goings on and outings and yesterday we sat down to get going again. He asked (With Excitement!!) for Our Island Story!!!

The last two times we've read it, we've had a bit of a struggle because I think he was starting to tune me out. His narrations were weak. That's why it was such a surprise that of all the books for Year 1 he asked for that one.

It wasn't on the schedule for yesterday and actually he's got to wait about a week and a half before the next story from that book. (I love the anticipation factor in the AO schedule). Hopefully, the addition next week of the James Herriot stories will allay his calls for OIS. I can't wait to read Moses the Kitten. I remember watching All Creatures Great and Small on PBS with my dad when I was a kid. (My Dad is British so we watched a lot of PBS. LOL I've even got The King--my latino hubby--hooked on Masterpiece Theater now.)

I'm learning that the key with Pooh is to make sure and do shorter readings. Even the OIS chapter is too long right now for him to listen and narrate. So I take it in paragraphs. Same thing with 50 Famous Stories. I believe that Narration has to be our focus for Year 1. He's going to need to practice and we'll try to use different types of narration in the process. Oral, drawings and even figurines to act it out.

I almost feel like we're developing a rhythm with our schedule. Whaddya' know?!?

Nature-Tigger Style

One nice thing about Pooh taking art on his own, is that I have one on one time with Tigger. Forty-five minutes of activity. Tigger wouldn't have it any other way.

When we first started taking Pooh to art, I would take Tigger to a used book store or maybe Target to look around. I still do that every once in a while, but lately have been taking him to a nearby Botanical Gardens park. It has a really nice walkway that's mostly in the shade. It's very windy, so Tigger never knows which route we'll take from time to time but he does recognize certain areas. There's also a foresty type section complete with forest floor full of dropped seed pods and pinecones. Tigger has started a 'collection'. Every time we go he brings home about 5-6 new little things.

On our walks I'll identify a plant here and there, have him smell a flower or herb, watch the bird antics, name the birds, see how close we can get to a bird, rabbit, squirrel or chipmunk and watch Tigger walk the stone walkways for some serious sensory input. (he needs it) None of this is planned. We just go, walk and see what's interesting that day. We even discovered a garden area with a copper music stand and who's music happened to be engraved on it???? That's right, Beethoven! Moonlight Sonata. Tigger got a stick and pretended to be a conductor.

I think for us a combination of a scheduled nature study and casual study works well. I do, sometimes, need the structure of saying "Okay, today we'll study Robins." But what cements those structured studies is the unstructered time of just enjoying what we see. That's what brings it all together.

As we're back in the van, I'm about to turn left to leave the park and I hear Tigger's little voice pipe up from the back, "Nature stuff is cool, Mommy"

Yes, Tigger, Nature stuff is very cool!

Books and Art--Pooh

Pooh is coming along in his reading. He flies throught the level 3 readers he finds. He likes the ones about whales, sharks and dolphins. (of course! anything to do with the sea remember) He likes to read his favorites over and over again and since he does those on his own, I let him do that.

After last weeks dental appt (which went great, I'll blog it!), we went to Barnes and Noble because he really wanted to get Moby Dick. Well, I just had no idea the size of this book!!! LOL For some reason it's never appealed to me to read it. I think because I've seen parts of movies that just didn't do it for me. Anyway, we found the unabridged book and Pooh flipped through it. He was upset that it didn't have any pictures in it. He got a little ticked off at me about it, so I said we'd just put the book back. "No, I want the book." Ok.

Well, as I'm walking through the store I kept thinking about it and what to do/say to him. I finally decided to just explain to him that I thought this book was too big for him, that it was a book for older kids (it was in the adult section after all). His response, "You're trying to trick me, Mommy." ROFLOL We worked it out. He very calmly accepted that perhaps he wasn't ready for Moby Dick and we ended up with Stuart Little. Whew! Dodged that bullet!!

I wanted to slowly start working him into chapter books, which is why I went looking for Stuart Little. The chapters are short and the reading is on the easier side, but still challenging for Pooh. He's not quite ready to read it all on his own, so our 'scaffolding' is to have him read one chapter each night to Dad. That way he's doing the reading and just getting help on those few words he has trouble with.

Pooh's art is coming along nicely as well. He's been going to an art class about 45 minutes from here. I drive all that way for the teacher. She is great with him. He only is there for an hour each time because the normal 2 hours is just too much for him. Mrs. K has had 2 boys herself and has many students somewhere on the spectrum. She's very flexible. For instance, with Pooh, instead of presenting to him what to do (ie fruit, vases, etc) she lets him look through her art books and choose the picture he wants to do. Each time he goes now, he known what he's working on. I don't think that showing up and being presented with something uninteresting to him would have worked long-term.

He's been working in watercolors lately. The last picture he did was of a ship, a whale and a small rowboat. It was a whaling scene. It was great and I just got it framed. Today he finished a watercolor of a grey wolf howling. Mrs K said she's had adults see it and ask "Who did this?" because it's pretty good. She told me that she hopes I'll frame the wolf too. I'm planning on it. He's got another ship picture on tap for next time. It's a good thing I love the ocean theme too. he he

General Update

It seems as if the blogging world has slowed down a bit now that it's summer. Some are on vacation, some have poison ivy :D, and I figured all the others are just busy. It's the same with us. We've actually still been schooling between all the other things we're doing.

We're now working on week 3 of AO's Year 1 schedule. That schedule I made up before isn't getting followed because, as usual, it was overly ambitious. So right now, we're just trying to do our work but in a casual manner. I'm adjusting expectations that I had as regards some of our readings and narration. I've learned that Pooh needs me to stop every couple of paragraphs for a narration so that he can stay focused. If I try to do a whole chapter or too large of a section, his mind wanders to other things and then we both get frustrated that 'he's not listening'. I also see where sometimes the language used in the reading confuses him or just causes a general misunderstanding of the storyline. It takes us discussing it together to make sure he can follow along. For instance, from Our Island Story, we read A Laconic Answer. He was able to narrate the end of the story in regards to the one guy (can't remember his name LOL) wanting to make war with the Lacons (or Spartans) but didn't get all the part where it explains what the Lacons were known for and why the end had 'a laconic answer'. Which to me is the whole point of reading this story. So we had to discuss it. Basically, I have to narrate. I have found myself asking questions about the readings, which I'm trying to limit or eliminate. I even found myself interrupting to correct something. Horrors!!!! I stopped myself and said, "whoops I'm interrupting" and put my hand over my mouth. Pooh thought this was funny and smiled as he finished his narration.

I've started reading Tigger his own books and that's working out better for both boys. I found The Adventures of Chatterer the Red Squirrel by Thornton Burgess (used book store) so that's one of 'his' books. I also read him Winnie the Pooh, Mother Goose and I have a very simple Shakespeare for kids book that I may start with him as well.

I still have some ordering to do. I need HWT copybooks for both boys. I am planning on ordering Sequential Spelling for Pooh and the next Explode the Code book. He'll be starting in #3 so I'll go ahead and order #4 when I make their school order. I'm also going to order a simple workbook for capitilization and punctuation for Pooh. I know, I know, we're not supposed to be doing grammar yet. However, he and I together just need a guide for getting those two concepts. Capitilizing holidays, days of the week, etc. That type of thing I'd like him to practice without having to hunt down some copywork that includes it. I found a workbook at Rainbow Resource that I think will be simple and we can just take our time with it.

I found Beethoven Lives Upstairs cd from a used book store and we've been listening to his music. I also have another regular cd of his music. Both boys will periodically talk about Beethoven. We even heard a doorbell at Lowes today that played Beethoven's Fifth and Tigger knew it right away.

We've been to see Wall-E with some friends. Very cute and has an environmental message. I thought it was better than the last two Pixar films (Ratatouille and Cars) but not as good as Monsters Inc and Finding Nemo.

This week is a dental week. I went today for my cleaning and checkup. I have to have a minor thing taken care of soon. Pooh goes tomorrow for a stainless steel cap put on one of his molars. Ughh! I think we're both nervous. He receives medicaid so it will all be paid for but the whole process wiggs me out. We also go to the only dentist in town that lets parents go back with the kids. (I just hate that all these docs and therapists think of the parents as a nuisance and evict them from the rooms!)

Today we did some Nature Study with the sunflowers that came up from fallen bird seed in our yard. I brought 3 of them into the kitchen in different stages. One where the flower just opened, one with the seeds starting to form and one where it was old and most of the seeds were gone. We examined them, talked about pistals, and seed formation, discussed what happened to all the missing seeds from flower number 3 and then did sketches in our nature journals of the flower and seeds and a leaf rubbing. Then we put the flower petals and a few leaves in our flower press.

We've been to a couple of pools, ice skating and parks. I spent the 3 day weekend doing a lot of gardening that included weeding (loads of it), pruning, pest squishing and organic fertilizing. I pruned back a load of Carolina Jasmine that was taking over the driveway from the fence running alongside and discovered a nest. I think I discovered it a little too late and I don't believe the parents have returned to care for the two little eggs we discovered there. Sigh. I bought an owl today to hopefully help scare the birds away from my developing grapes. I have tons of green tomatoes out there, peppers and eggplants are coming and have gotten one zucchini and a cuke so far. I've already discovered a couple of my squash plants invaded by the squash vine borers, so I split the stalk open to get the borer out, squished it and then covered the damaged stalk with soil. I'm hoping that the plants will continue to survive that way. My basil is all of a sudden growing like gang busters but I'm afraid my melons may not be coming along fast enough to get a harvest before the cold weather. We shall see.

I've discovered a new blog that I've fallen in love with. At this point in my life, I can't live exactly this way, but it's a dream to do it. I've been gorging myself with reading from there. I think that I have learned in my adulthood to do some things that I never knew about in my youth. I wasn't taught gardening, crocheting, sewing, preserving etc. None of it. I wasn't even taught to cook anything. My whole adult life has been a learning process with all of it. So to me, I'm accomplishing major stuff by doing what I am doing. I picked up a bread machine for a $1 at a yard sale, so I can make fresh bread. I still haven't gotten the whole by hand thing down but I still try here and there. I make our own pizzas for boys' night Fridays. I'm gardening and from that, learning to freeze and can food. I haven't gotten to the point of pressure cooking but maybe one day. It's a little by little process. I make our own scarves by crocheting and have been slowly crocheting a black shawl type thing. Add to all this learning stuff, that the older I get the more ADD I think I am, and you have a very interesting life. :D

I haven't been doing any official RDI lately. However, I'm still mindful each day of how I can be declarative, non-verbal and illicit more gestures from Pooh. I just don't know if we'll ever be able to keep up with life and RDI the way that we should. Sometimes I get freaked out by all that is involved in being a mom, but I try to just take one day at a time and do what I have to do for that day.

I need to get some other things accomplished this week like sending out invites for the boys' party, contacting one of those book clubs that don't realize I keep returning their automatic shipments and getting a flyer ready for our Yard Sale Fundraiser that I'm in charge of for our homeschool coop. Eeeeeek!!! One day at a time, breathe, one day at a time....

The War

I'm happy to say I'm winning!!!! I have a WAR with Japanese Beetles every year. They usually win by eating every rosebud in sight and demolishing the leaves of many of my plants including (but definately not limited to) grapes, morning glory, roses, rose of sharon and canna lilies.

This year I was proactive in starting my spray program. It's even ORGANIC!!! I have a two gallon sprayer on wheels with a battery operated sprayer that I put Neem Oil in with a little dish soap. I still see a stray beetle here and there, but the diffence is amazing. I'm using it on my eggplants too, to detract the Flea Beetles. (another extremely damaging bug!) Neem Oil is very inexpensive, but you have to just get out there and spray it. It will help save your veggies and plants.

Gardening Tip of the Summer :D

Sad News

I tried posting this over the weekend, but my post got eaten by something and I was too tired to do it all again.

The babies died. All of them. I knew the little one was going to die. It passed the day after the fall. Then the second one was almost dead the last time I saw it. The next morning they had disappeared. I'm not sure if the mom got rid of them or something came and ate them or what. The strongest of the babies was still in the nest which is why I'm thinking it must have been mom who did it. The last baby died by day 3.

I'm not sure why, but I believe the mom (or dad, you can't tell male/female titmice apart) gave up on the babies. The feedings were few and far inbetween. I watched for 20 minutes straight at one point and never saw them fed. I wonder if the fact that only one parent was doing the work was what made the difference. The last time we helped out a fallen baby, there was only one baby and 2 parents. Maybe 3 against 1 was just too much.

So nature has taken its course, sadly. One positive note is that within that time, I saw another Titmouse parent teaching it's young one to eat at the feeders, so we'll have plenty of future Titmice around.

Kitchen Explosion!!!

This is to inform those of you who haven't yet learned this by experience...Turn Off Your Stove Burners!!!!!!!

I decided that to be more frugal in this now very expensive world, I would make my own granola bars. I usually buy Kashi bars for me and the kids because they are relatively healthy and an easy snack for all the grab and go occasions.

It turned out to be a not so frugal move on my part.

Oh, the bars looked beautiful when I pulled them out of the oven. However, one mustn't eat granola bars with an extra layer of GLASS! Sigh Yes, I left the burner on after heating the honey, brown sugar and peanut butter. Yes, I set my glass casserole dish on top of the stove to cool. No, it didn't cool, but in fact got very hot. Yes, the whole thing exploded and shattered all over my kitchen. No, no one got hurt in the process (THANK GOODNESS! I seriously would have had to go to the emergency room if anyone had been in the kitchen at the time.) Yes, I just wasted more money than a box of Kashi bars. Yes, the boys thought it was cool. After all, there was a "volcano" in the kitchen. What boy wouldn't find that cool?!?

Yes, I'll try it again after I've had time to recover from the trauma. And buy a new casserole dish. (There goes frugality! I'm heading to Goodwill in the hopes that one will be there.)

Bird Rescue

Those Japanese Beetles are here!!! They're attacking my grape vines and my rose bushes. So I got out my sprayer and hosed the plants down with neem oil in the hopes that it would get rid of them. We'll see.

So after being out in the hot sun today, I needed a big glass of ice water in the shade. As I'm peacefully sitting there, along with my trusty timer to let me know when the tea water will be boiling, I look to the left of our swing and see a little baby bird on the ground just wriggling away. I was horrified because he was a teeny tiny thing. Still all pink. Then I'm even more horrified to realize that there's not just one of them, but THREE!! Someone must have attacked the nest. Grrrrr!!!

About 4 years ago, we found a sole baby bird too young to fly under the trees. The King took one of those tiny plastic tool caddys that they sell for kids, drilled holes in it for drainage, hooked it to a stick with a long shoelace, filled it with pine needles and inserted the stick in the ground. We put the baby bird in that and don't you know that the parents found him and fed him until he was old enough to fly away. Too Cool!!

We still have that stick with the caddy attached, so I put all three baby birds in it. I watched for about 20 minutes but nobody came to the rescue. I thought for sure the birds were goners, maybe the parents were dead. A few hours later, I was eating a snack looking out the window and saw a bird go to our Homemade Nest. I got out my trusty telescope (can't use binoculars because of my vision) and discovered that they are Tufted Titmouse babies!!!! I love the titmice, they flit around so fast like they are ADD or something. LOL

There only seems to be one parent feeding the babies. I'm guessing somebody got eaten and the babies dumped in the process. Hopefully, they'll survive. There is one I'm especially worried about as he was the most listless. Thankfully, I was sitting there and got them when they were still in decent shape. And before the dog ate them. Ewwww! As soon as I picked them up, they opened their little beaks and started squawking for food. You can sometimes see the little heads come up from the top of our Homemade Nest because they are hungry and want something NOW. he he I don't think they're being fed fast enough.

I did what I could. Now it's up to momma (or perhaps Papa- I can't tell the males and females apart)

Goings On For This Week

First I have to tell a funny. Last night, during our family bible study, we were discussing the story of the Israelites worshipping the golden calf. Towards the end, Tigger starts talking about how a king killed some of the Israelites.

Me: You mean Pharoah?

Tigger: Yes, I mean no. Another king.

Me: (in the interest of trying to figure out which king he meant I proceed to ask) When did this happen?

Tigger: Uh, 1845?

ROFLOL. He is such a hoot, sometimes. Later that night, when they were having their before bed snack, I heard something drop but it didn't sound like breakage, so I didn't think anything of it. Next thing I know, Tigger is snuggling up to me and in a very little voice says, "Pooh broke your cup and he's very very sorry." Then I see Pooh standing there with a very sad face. All was well and I reassured them I wasn't upset.

Thankfully, it was an already cracked cup. LOL

For the rest of the week, I'll be squeezing in some school work with getting ready for this year's District Convention. I have clothes to get ready, food to organize and prepare and keep up with the regular routine as much as possible. Pooh also has an early morning dental appt on Thursday. I found a piece of one of his molars missing last week and it wigged me out. Eeewwww! I hate the dentist anyway but am trying to keep a calm demeanor for his sake.

Well, I must go finish cleaning up all the glass in my kitchen. I just about half an hour ago (in the middle of blogging) heard a crash. I had put my glass pan of freshly made granola bars on an evidently still on burner. Result: a glass explosion. It is swept but needs vacuuming. So toodaloo!!!

My New Habit

As part of our new schedule, I'm trying a new habit for myself. Early Rising. Anyone who knows me will get a good chuckle over this one. I'm terrible at waking up. I don't hear alarms or the sound gets incorporated so well into my dreams that I end up punching a dresser. :O

My goal is to be getting up at 6:30. Yes, this is early for me. I usually am a 8-8:30 kind of gal, but by then the morning is half over. So The King and I have devised a little schedule of sorts for getting us both up and going in the mornings. His new summer schedule at work is to go in for 10 hours 4 days a week. That means he has to be up at 5:30 (his alarm goes off and no I never hear it). He gets ready and wakes me at 6:30 when he's ready to leave. His waking me is just enough so that when my alarm goes off (NPR), I start hearing it and the news stories wake me up. Buzzers just kill me. I hear them, bang them, then ignore them. It has to be a very loud NPR.

I actually did very well this week. I was up between 6:30 and 7:00 every morning except this one. I think the week caught up with me today and I had an allergy thing start during the night, which always throws my sleep off. So I feel fairly successfull at my new habit. I was even vacuuming before 8am the first two mornings!!!!

Our problem now is getting in bed at a decent hour so that this habit doesn't cause a lack of sleep. Life just seems to make early to bed very difficult. I'll let you know if I can figure something out with that one.

Ahoy Maties!

The boys love anything to do with pirates. They dress up all the time and find all sorts of items to change into pirate-looking costumes. They've been known to walk through Walmart and visit the post office in full gear. When they're dressed up and in a store, I'm the captain and give orders for helping load the ship. ;D I've been known to order them to 'swab the deck' ie mop the floor for all you landlubbers. Pooh's favorite author is Robert Louis Stevenson because as he says: "He loved pirates too!" LOL Earlier in the year they memorized the poem Pirate Story and they love Treasure Island and Kidnapped. They haven't yet heard the story Kidnapped but Pooh watched a version on PBS with The King last year.

This year, in honor of Tigger's potty training, he got to pick the theme for their summer party. Pirates!!!! Of course. he he So, I've already found some of the supplies at the dollar store and will be getting supplies for making a pirate cake (too expensive to buy one and they just don't look as good as some I've seen on line).

Here are a couple of pictures for your enjoyment.








Just for fun I'll give you a couple of photos from last year's summer party with the theme of Space. There was an Earth cake and Alien cupcakes.

Best Buddies

Even though they harrass each other, threaten bodily harm and a lack of brotherly feeling at times, they do love each other and these photos are proof that I can show them! ;D

Side Note

Just in case any of you caught that Tigger (who is only 5 years old) is trying to do Pooh's narrations, let me reassure you that I have never either asked him or encouraged him to participate in this stuff. He just doesn't like to be left out of anything. That's another reason I'm trying to get them a little separated, he needs to stay young as long as possible without trying to be in on older brother's EVERYTHING!

Today he was just sitting beside Pooh while Pooh was drawing. I suggested he do his own drawing. "No thanks. I just like to watch Pooh!"

Sigh

Scheduling!!!

I'm in full scheduling mode. I'd actually like to create something that is workable and not overly ambitious. (Wouldn't we all! LOL) As homeschoolers, we do tend to be overly ambitious and most of us really get into the paperwork of scheduling. Putting it into practice is where I tend to start falling apart.

This year I'm planning on adding in separate times for Tigger to receive readings. I think he needs his own time. One, because he's five and craves the attention. Two, because he is taking over Pooh's narration time. They inevitably argue over who narrates first, how long each one is taking and "he said what I was going to say!". It doesn't exactly promote brotherly affection.

So, I've been pouring over the books I have, Year 0 Ambleside Online suggestions and googling to my little hearts content over how to incorporate their schedules so that we don't have interruptions, both are getting what they need, and I still have a brain when we're done.

I'm hunting down ways to go over character/habit training too. I saw a cool idea (don't know that this will actually get done but it's a good idea!) for a Tree! You could call it a 'value tree' or 'quality tree' or whatever. The basic idea was for a classroom. You have one of those trees on posted on the wall like what public school teachers use for names or whatever, but instead you have leaves for each quality you will discuss. One week per quality. You could conceivably make as many of these leaves as you want and have one separate one for each week of the year. As I said, I like the idea, I just think it might fizzle out as the year goes on. However, we might could just post the qualities somehow. If I presented it as a ship with sails and having good qualities as a sailor, that would go over even better with my boys. LOL

Today we actually tested out a little schedule that I've come up with. I'm going to continue it for a week or so before posting it here. I want to make sure it doesn't fizzle out like so many things. It went really well today. Very short lessons. I knew what was coming next and it didn't take an incredibly long time. It actually went a little quicker than what i had down on paper. Woo Hoo!!!

Our one big problem is getting going in the mornings. We have morning routines posted for the boys. They have breakfast and then are supposed to start on their chores. These aren't complicated by any means, but it seems to take them a long time and I'm constantly having to go behind and keep them moving. I have to make a rule for Pooh that there's no book reading until he's done. He'll just stop for a while and look at a book if I don't keep on top of him. Tigger is known to be found staring at the list for a good length of time without actually moving. When he is moving, it's in the wrong direction. He keeps coming to tell me every little thought that pops into his head.

I'm really open for suggestions on this last part. What's worked for you?

Robins, Chickens and Wrens Oh My!!!

Looking out our kitchen window yesterday at lunch, we noticed a Robin. I casually mentioned that he was picking up bits of straw or dead grass. Then I said, "I wonder what he's doing that for?" (notice the declarative sentence?!?)

Pooh: "I don't know."

Me: "He sure it picking up a lot of it."

Pooh: "Maybe it's for his nest."

Me: "I think you're right!" (said in astonishment as if I had never even thought of it ;D)

So while lunch was cooking, we got out our nature notebooks and drew a picture of a robin, the neighbor's chickens and the wren nesting in our shed. I used my handy-dandy RDI declarative language for the drawing as well. "I wonder what color I should make the robin's beak?" Pooh right away knew it was yellow. I opened my bird book and there it was! I don't know why I was so surprised that he knew the right color. I guess I just never realized the detail he picks up on his own about the animals. He doesn't talk about them much.

Tigger, meanwhile, was busily drawing the nest of the wren and making sure it had the three baby birds in it with their mouths open. Yes, we've already peaked and they are so cute. They just have fuzz right now, no feathers yet.

I followed up today by reading the small paragraph out of (drum roll please) the Handbook of Nature Study! Yeah, I did it!!! LOL It's officially my Green Hour Challenge Number 1. After two months of having the print out and my book by my bed, I got around to doing challenge number 1. Eeeeek! Now, I need to prepare for number 2!

Anyway......the paragraph we read was about the robin's nest. Yes, they use straw and dead grass, but did you know they also use mud? Then, they allow the mud to mold to the mom's body while it's still damp. Cool, huh! We decided we should try to find a robin's nest. No easy feat since we're surrounded by pine trees. Maybe the neighbor will let us peak into her maple to see if there's a nest there.

So, how do you like our Nature Study RDI style? :D It was loosely planned and very fun. I hope we can continue the interest there. Pooh was a little resistant to pulling out the nature notebooks, but when I mentioned drawing the chickens that changed his tune.

So, I guess we're into birds. LOL

Masterly Inactivity

So yesterday I'm weeding the garden and the boys are once again 'wild chicken hunting'. They were gone for longer than I felt comfortable with so I called them back. I talked to them about being gone for too long and that I wouldn't know where they were.

Pooh says, "I have an idea. Why don't I make a map so we can find our way back?"

Me: "How will 'I' know where you are?"

Pooh, "ok, you can take the map" He also got the walkie talkies and decided that when they found the chickens they would call me and I could mark the map with an X for where they were.

I felt like saying, "You mean you want to work on one of Charlotte Mason's List of Attainments for a Child of Six? Sure, honey, you go right ahead!"

Attainment #7--Done!! He He Just kidding! We still could work on this some more, but I just love when they start this stuff on their own!!!

(For those of you unfamiliar with the list of attainments, the list can be found at Ambleside Online on the Year 0 or Kindergarten page. I would copy and paste that section but I think that's off-limits.)

Seed Update

These are the seeds that have already come up this week: Pole beans, chinese long beans, black beans, cukes, zucchini, squash, lettuce (made for heat), corn. That was fast!! Sometimes I start this stuff in cups and it's slow. I'm going to see how this year goes and maybe I'll start sticking more stuff directly in the ground from now on. This year I didn't really have to time to start everything in cups. Also, some of the seeds were a year or two old and I'm amazed at what's coming up.

Just goes to show....

Seed Planting Extravaganza

That was my weekend and included yesterday. Three days of almost non-stop gardening. About 3 years ago, we tilled up the whole back garden and started making beds. The beds are generally 3-4 feet in width, lined out with bricks and have mulched paths. We are still only 2/3 of the way done. Life just always seems to get in the way. We are pretty proud of what we've accomplished so far. This year I've harvested several quarts of wonderfully sweet strawberries, sugar snaps and one bunch of turnip greens.

I'm currently waiting to see if we actually get any broccoli, cauliflower or cabbage from the plants I planted earlier this year. These were all started by yours truly from seed by the way. LOL I also started 4 different kinds of tomatoes and have planted 16 plants and gave my neighbor (the other side-no chickens) about 10.

This weekend I planted 16 pepper plants, 11 eggplants, pole beans, chinese noodle beans, soybeans, black beans, leeks, cilantro, cosmos, bird gourds, snake gourds (kid's choice--they are shaped like snakes and then they can paint them) luffa, corn, New Zealand spinach, watermelon, pumpkins, winter squash, honeydew. That's all I can remember right now. I worked hard to get everything in the ground by yesterday because of the lovely rain coming. My efforts were rewarded!! We have a great soaking rain falling.

Now before you start thinking I'm a farm girl or something, let me tell you I was raised 'city' all the way. I'm currently learning as I go. I love gardening. I love flowers. I love finding the right plant for scent, color and the animals (including the human variety). However, I make lots of mistakes along the way. I plant too late, too early, forget to water, etc. I'm what could be termed a neglectful, forgetful, haphazard gardener. I have great plans in my head, but bringing them to fruition, both literally and figuratively, can be a bit of a pain. LOL I move stuff around all the time, replace plants, kill plants. You name it, I've probably done it. Last year I pruned the grape vines I had put in. I wondered later in the year why I never had any grapes. Duh!!! I pruned them wrong. Grapes come on the second year vine. If you prune that part off, no grapes. This year I have grapes coming. Now, I just have to do battle with those dumb Japanese Beetles. They're coming soon, so I'm mentally preparing my weaponry. he he

Well, since we have all this lovely rain falling, that means I have to clean house. Soooo, not my favorite job. I'm off!

Chickens

No I haven't bought any. LOL However, my neighbor did. We technically live in the county and while I'm in a development that doesn't allow livestock, the guy next door can have a farm if he wants to. So, one day I'm hearing a rooster crowing and the next thing I know 4 hens and a rooster are wandering the neighborhood. They usually stay on his property but occasionally will wander back behind our fence. (Good thing for the fence because I think our dog would have Chicken Au Natural if she got the chance.)

In our mad rush of gardening this weekend the hens came right up to our fence. So I got the boys' attention and suggested they watch them. Pooh was crowing and actually did a really good imitation of the way this rooster crows. Then the chickens moved off back to the neighbor's property and the boys got their jeeps (aka bikes) and rode off on the adventure of finding wild chickens. There is a service road between our properties and it curves around the back of the neighbor's. The boys have permission to explore back there. So off they rode. A couple of times I asked them to find out something about the chickens, like how many toes they had. "I wonder what they're looking for as they scratch the ground?"

It was a very cool, impromtu, nature study. My next plan is to get out our Handbook of Nature Study and read through to find some interesting facts to impart upon their young brains. ;D

So This Is Why I'm Weird? :D

Your Personality is Very Rare (INTP)

Your personality type is goofy, imaginative, relaxed, and brilliant. Only about 4% of all people have your personality, including 2% of all women and 6% of all men You are Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Perceiving.

How Rare Is Your Personality?

Our Trip

The whole vacation went very well. I was amazed at how well both the boys did, especially in the traveling part. We drove thru the night to get to Miami. Pooh didn't go to sleep until about 1:30 in the morning. We finally figured out that he was waiting until he was sure we were in the state of Florida before relaxing! LOL Up until Tigger went to sleep, we did have to stop for hourly potty breaks though. It made me glad that we decided to go at night. I ended up telling them both they had to lay off the drinks. I was afraid it would take us thru till the next night if they didn't. he he

Miami was beautiful!! We had perfect weather the whole time down there. Mid 80's and not much in the way of humidity. We roasted and basted ourselves on the beach, hit the Metro Zoo (free due to our reciprocal zoo membership card) and visited with all the family. Ate Nicaraguan Baho which is something like a stew, but that's sort of a mild word for something like that. We also ate at Pollo Tropical! I love that place! It's sort of a latin fast food restaurant. You get succulent chicken, moros y cristianos (black beans and rice) and fried yucca with a garlic sauce. MMMM good!! Also, a place to gain ten pounds. ;D We went to Key Biscayne which is a state park and rode these cart type vehicles, i don't even know what they're called. But two people pedal and the kids are on for the ride. The boys loved it and I worked off that fried yucca i had eaten.

Then we were off to Orlando for their treat. Sea World!!! We bought a one day ticket but got in for two, so we were able to hit pretty much everything. Some things twice, such as the Clyde and Seamore show. It was a hit for us for two reasons: 1. The whole thing is a pirate adventure story (both boys seriously love pirates) and 2. before the show, you get a mini-show with a Mime. The boys thought he was funny even though you know they didn't get all the innuendos. Pooh got very emotional over Shamu when he was able to sit close enough to really enjoy the show. (the first time was a bust because we didn't get seats) He got to meet one of the trainers too. He cried for about 10 minutes off and on just because it was so moving for him. He's always loved the ocean and everything about it, especially the whales and sharks. So you can bet he brought home a stuffed Shamu. ;D Pooh finally, after some debating, decided to go on the Journey to Atlantis ride. It scared him witless and afterwards he repeatedly said (with a little smile) "I'm never going on that ride again!" LOL Tigger was equally terrified at the kiddie roller coaster Shamu Express. I guess I don't have any evil canivils on my hands. ROFL AND, I got pictures of both their horrified faces. It makes me laugh just thinking about it.

Then we were off for a brief visit with my mom and sister and then separately my Dad and his wife. The boys enjoyed seeing their other grandpa (first time for Tigger) and we visited the beach there as well. I think by the time we got there they were tired though. Once the Sea World bit was over, they kind of started vegging out. The King and I had a nice, relaxing visit at my dad's before we headed back home.

Oh and I forgot that when we were in Orlando we visited Downtown Disney. We ate at the Rainforest Cafe. What a hoot the kids were when the thunder and animals started making all their noises. I think we were the loudest table there. Sorry!!! ;D Another great place is the Lego store. We finally found a kit of just lego people. It was about 32 different lego people (occupations not star wars guys lol) in one box. That was the greatest find because Pooh and Tigger always want people on their creations. Trying to buy one person at a regular store you have to buy a whole kit, and they're not cheap. The boys also got some pirate paraphernalia at one of the other stores there. Pooh found a great hat!

We ended up getting home way later than what we expected due to a surprisingly pleasant discovery. Did you know that Jekyll Island is only 15 minutes off I95?!? You shouldn't miss this treat!! I asked the King if we could stop off at some kind of park around 4 in the afternoon so the boys could run off some energy. We hit the Brunswick GA area at that time and, after asking at a gas station, discovered this gem. We took our Subway sandwiches and picnicked out on the beach. The boys, of course, went in fully clothed to the ocean. It was okay though, because i had brought all our beach towels with us and had changes of clean clothing. Instead of freaking out about it, I just took pictures. :D We found some sand dollars and had a beautiful walk along the shore. We stayed for about 3 hours and would definitely go back there again. It's a great area for a pit stop when you're traveling. Beats a rest area by a few thousand miles.

It's taken me about two weeks but I'm finally starting to feel like I'm getting back to normal (despite some tornado scares and starting an anti candida diet :O) . Maybe I'll be able to get back into the blogasphere a bit more regularly.

Cheerio!!

I'll Be Back

As an update, I've been in Florida for about 8 days. We will be heading home tomorrow. I hope to get back to my little series of posts on RDI and give some fun info from our trip soon. Just before we left we got our new objective to work on as well and I'll give the heads up for that too.

This is just to let you all know I'm still here. Hope everyone is still doing great!!

Reflections on GPR, Resilience and Narration (Part 1)

Huh, what?! I know, I know, yet somehow they all go together. I'll get to it, I promise. Light bulbs have been going off for me with all of this stuff lately. My only problem will be in MY narrating it coherently. ;D My brain is a bit ADD and tends to jump around faster than I can catch all the thoughts. I'm going to go in order of what's listed in the subject and maybe I can keep it straight. All of what will be written here is as much for MY benefit as anyone reading this blog. I need to 'narrate' review what I'm learning to help me remember it all better. Thanks for 'listening'. ;D

1. In RDI, we learn A LOT about GPR (the Guided Participation Relationship formerly referred to as Master/Apprentice Relationship). So what is the GPR? I'm glad you asked? he he I like to take things down to the most simplistic form. So, to me, GPR is just thought of as 2-way communication. Sometimes that means it's verbal, and sometimes it comes thru facial expressions, gestures and sound effects. This is the normal way we all develop. As babies we come out programmed to pay attention to those around us, to feed off the information given us by their words, voice, face etc. It's how we learn about the world. As we get older, we continue to learn 'thru other people'. We read body language. For instance, you can probably tell when what you're saying is confusing somebody by looking at them. So you may slow down, start over etc.

This is important stuff because most autistic kids are not learning this way. They learn thru movies and books, maybe some rote tasks taught. They are not learning thru people. Not in a Guided Participation Relationship. Why does it matter?? Because, people are dynamic, ever changing. Books, movies, tasks are not, they are static or the same all the time. The GPR is foundational to our normal neurological development. Without it, strange stuff starts to happen. We, as the guides, lose touch with our child. We're not getting the feedback we need to understand where they are at, what they are thinking and where their 'edge of competency' is.

The edge of competency is simply referring to that point you know you can push somebody to before chaos erupts. With babies we keep encouraging them to take one or two more steps by gauging how they did on their last walking experience and lengthening it a bit each time. When adults are talking and one is giving directions, he's watching for the edge of competency of who he's explaining to. When the glazed look comes into their eye, you know to back up and give support (or scaffold) at the point they got lost. All of this can also be referred to as the 'zone of proximal development'--working within someone's edge of competency.

Example: Dancing. Think about how much non-verbal communication goes into 2 people learning to dance a routine. How close, far apart to place the body, foot, hands etc. Timing involved in staying with the music, your partner and the steps of the dance. GPR is all the stuff it takes for these two people to produce a finished product. If your partner is autistic, what generally happens (at least with my Pooh) is yelling (this is too hard!!), stomping (my poor foot!) and leaving (avoidance of a challenge).

Which leads us to Resilience....

(This post is getting entirely too long so I'm going to write this as a little series. Stay tuned for part 2.)

Green Reading

I found this link thru another blogger (thanks Barb!) and LOVE it!!! After our vacation this month, I'm going to see how many of these I can find thru our library system. I think that many of them would be great for inspiring some Nature observations or at least to encourage the idea.

Hope you find the list useful as well.

Put On a Happy Face

I found these lyrics to this older song from the musical Bye Bye Birdie. Seemed fitting for our new habit of cheerfulness.

Gray skies are gonna clear up
Put on a happy face
Brush off the clouds and cheer up
Put on a happy face
Take off the gloomy mask of tragedy
it's not your style
You'll look so good that you'll be glad
Ya decide to smile
And spread sunshine all over the place
Just put on a happy face
Put on a happy face
Put on a happy face
And if you're feeling cross and bitterish
Don't sit and whine
Think of banana split and licorice
And you'll feel fine
I knew a girl so glooming
She'd never laugh or sing
She wouldn't listen to me
Now she's a mean old thing
So spread sunshine all over the place
Just put on a happy face
So put on a happy face

Fairy Tale Decisions

I did a little looking around about Hans Christian Anderson and some of his fairy tales. The reason that I have trouble finding the 'moral of the story' is because, a lot of the time, there just isn't one. Evidently, he was a pretty cynical guy, disillusioned with the world and just presented stories in the way he saw life. Which would be why some of the stories are not really my cup of tea.

However, he wrote some famous tales such as The Ugly Duckling, The Emperor's New Clothes and The Steadfast Tin Soldier which I would really like to hear. Also, as I mentioned in the previous post on fairy tales, I don't mind bad things happening (murder and mayhem LOL) I was just under the impression that most fairy tales had some sort of moral. (silly me!)

My decision is to continue with what we're doing. We listen to each story. Then I turn off the cd and we discuss it, sort of a joint narration. If one of the stories is just too much (because Tigger is in the van after all) I can just skip it. I'm also going to eventually check out Andrew Lang's Fairy Tales from our library. I would like to see the difference in the presentation of the tales AND I read somewhere that his tales are from around the world which I really like. I really love checking out world folk tales too.

Hey, so far the Princess on the Pea and Thumbelina have had happy endings!! (not really a moral but at least there is some happiness between the grandmother killings he he)

Habits---Cheerfulness

I've decided that we could use some work on the habit of cheerfulness around here. I've noticed that Pooh's decidedly grumpy nature has somewhat rubbed off on Tigger. Simple requests are being met with much ill humour or downright backtalking. We have tried for a long time to figure out a way to talk with Pooh to lessen his negative reactions to things, but as of yet, we have no sure fire cure.

What I know I need to improve on is going thru a lot of self-talk for me personally, so that he can hear and apply it himself. One time when he was upset with his little brother in Walmart, I think he must have tried to get him in some way because I remember Tigger complaining about it. My response that time went over well and it's the kind of reaction I would like to do more of, be more aware of. "I know my sweet boy, Pooh would never do something like that. He loves his brother." I got a little smile back and all was peaceful. Most of the time however, we get "That's it!" "You're fired!" "I'm leaving this family!" etc.

So, on Monday I started talking about doing things with a smile. Tried "catching" a smile on Pooh's face when he was putting away books. He tried really hard not to smile on that one. It did change his mood after a couple of tries.

Here's an article I found interesting. After reading it, I was happy the first thing I thought to teach was a smile! :D

Here are some motivational quotes worth looking at.

Acts 17:22- "Be of good cheer"

Fairy Tales

A couple of months back I scored the complete set of unabridged audio cd’s of Hans Christian Anderson’s Fairy Tales at a used book store for $15!  I was sooo happy to have found it, as Year 1 of AO includes this (or a couple of other fairy tale authors) in its curriculum.  The only problem I saw was that along with the 11 cds there wasn’t a paper telling you the order of the stories or which one was on which cd.   So as we’re moseying along in our errands about town or taking Pooh to Art class, we listen to audio cds.  This week we did the first of the 11 Fairy Tale cds.

 

Frankly, some of the stories creep me out!!  I’ve never heard of some of them before and I have to wonder at the point of them.  For instance, The Tinderbox talks about a soldier (someone who should be honorable in my mind) accepting an offer, reneging on the offer by killing the witch and in the end gets to be king and marry the princess  because he had his magic dogs kill her parents.  Ugh!  His one redeeming quality that I brought out to the boys is that when he did have a lot of money he gave to the poor.    

 

Next was Big Klaus and Little Klaus.  Telling lies, killing horses AND grandmothers and all in the name of getting ‘bushels of money’.  What are the kids supposed to be gleaning from this exactly?!?

 

What I’ve tried to do is after each story, I stop the cd and we talk about it.  Who do you think was good, why, etc.  I was a little hard put to find a good thing to say about the Klaus boys.  

 

The other ones we listened to that weren’t too bad were The Princess on the Pea (which I always thought was the Princess and the Pea) and Thumbelina.  Pooh must have been thinking about the Thumbelina story because later that day, we were outside in the garden and he asked me if birds really died in the winter.  ;D  For those of you who don’t know, the story includes a sparrow found in one of the mole’s tunnels who hadn’t flown south in time and had dropped because of the cold and was in a sort of cold induced coma until Thumbelina warmed him and woke him up.  So I thought that at least it was cool that this story got Pooh thinking about the habits of birds.  LOL

 

It’s not that I don’t expect some rotten things to happen in fairy tales or am opposed to the death aspect.  I just hope for a little justice in the story and it would be nice if the villains got punished somehow.  I guess I’m looking for a moral to the story and I’m just not finding it in some of these fairy tales.  Maybe I’m expecting too much??  Analyzing it to death??  I don’t know.  I think I’m going to do some more investigating on the whole aspect of fairy tales and try to find out what exactly the deal is.  In the meantime, I’ll be changing out my cds to include cd number 2 and hope that the next ones are a little less creepy. 

 

Oh and by the way, the boys seem to really like the stories!  Sigh  Tigger was upset that Thumbelina was the last one.  I do notice that they also get confused as to who is the good guy and who’s the bad guy though.  When I asked if the soldier was a good man I got the “No, um yes, NO, yes? I don’t know.” From both of them.  He he   They were trying to answer by watching my facial expressions and gauging the meaning of my silence.

 

 

It Worked!!!!

Now I can just send an email any time I like and it will go directly to my blog. How cool is that!!!! Learn something new everyday. ;D I won’t be posting much today I don’t think because we’ve been busy the last couple of days. Pooh had art yesterday which meant traveling to and from and we went out today as well. I will say that I printed off the Green Hour Challenge Number 1 and am determined to start doing these. At least the first one seems reasonable. I didn’t investigate the others yet. One bite at a time. I’m just hoping that it will get us started and will focus us more. I received my Handbook of Nature Study in the mail this week which prompted me to go back to Barb's Blog to get started on the challenges.

Hope everyone is having a great week!! (despite the weather)

Just Checking

I want to see if I can post directly to my blog without having to head to the website.

 

Here goes.