Native Woman Sews, Crafts, Writes, and More

Home » Archives for Tsoniki » Page 102

Book List

by 4 Comments

School is starting in just over a week! Alice is getting excited because we are going to do a reading group/get together with the neighbors. I was so disappointed when I found out the library reading program stops at five years old – I knew we couldn’t go. Sure Jake would fit right in, but that leaves Alice out. It wouldn’t be a big deal except there isn’t a program for older kids.

I brought up the idea of a reading group with the neighbor not too long ago and she agreed it would be fun. We haven’t figured out a structure yet and I’m thinking getting the kids together a few times a week will be good. My neighbor also mentioned she was going to have her daughter watching PBS for an hour a day (I can’t remember which program) and I’m going to suggest having the daughter come over here to watch and then Alice going over there – have them watch the show then talk about it afterward. That will keep them occupied for an hour giving me time to clean up or just hang out with Jake.

And along with reading – have you seen the list of 100 top Children’s Books posted at the NEA website? The list was compiled in an online survey and looks great. I’m debating how to use it – read it in a year, pick a section to work with for a few months, etc. I’ve read the majority of the books so I’m thinking it would be easy for us to dive right in.

Yesterday

by 2 Comments

Yesterday was so fun! I mentioned Chris told Alice happy birthday first thing, he said that she said it was too early to be her birthday, turned over and kept sleeping. That so sounds like her. When we got up, Jake said it wasn’t her birthday until we had a cake, but she quickly corrected him.

I decided when they were babies that I wanted to get their pictures taken on the day of their birthday every year, last year we didn’t but every other year we have. So we headed off to the mall to get pictures taken, stayed there to have lunch and shopped a bit. Alice picked out a huge Strawberry Shortcake coloring book, as well as another coloring book and a Strawberry Shortcake book that has lip gloss with it. Jake was happy because he also got a coloring book and for a moment was disappointed that he didn’t get as many books as Alice, but I reminded him it was her birthday. He then declared that he loved Alice’s birthday because he got a coloring book too. We decided to do a couple of small gifts on the actual birthday and the bigger gift at the birthday party.

A note about Sears Portrait Studio – I was so annoyed with them! I said I wanted just head shots or waist up shots, I don’t know why, I just did. Then the woman said they were required to take full body shots. Required? I doubt it, they just want the chance to get me to buy more! They took nine pictures of her, and about half had a very fake smile. I was disappointed in the girl who was trying to get Alice to smile because she would miss the real smile by seconds and then get the fake smile. But the other half were cute. So we go to view the pictures and she starts showing me all the enhanced ones – black and white, sepia, birthday borders, birthday collages, etc. – and I said I’m not interested in any of those can you remove them so I can just look at the regular pictures. She said no she couldn’t remove them. Slightly irritated me, but let’s just move on. The girl gets up to do something, leaving us to look at the pictures, and Jake clicks the button on the mouse – and a menu pops up with the first thing being ‘remove picture’ – *sigh*. I was very irritated at that point but let it all go. I probably shouldn’t have, I should have deleted the enhanced pictures or said something to her.

We are going back next week for Jake’s birthday pictures but I admit I’m not looking forward to it. I may call JCPenney’s instead, but otherwise I just don’t know where to go! We used to go to the Picture People because they had a birthday coupon where you got a free 8X10 and no sitting fee – which is all I would walk out with. I just use the picture to hang on the wall, we don’t send them to anyone because we do holiday cards.

We went to see Underdog at the theater which turned out to be a great movie. I wasn’t looking forward to it at first because it didn’t look that great, but I’m glad we went. Afterward we had dinner at a chinese buffet restaurant where they sang to Alice and gave her a little piece of cake. She is easily embarrassed and hid behind me while they sang, but did blow the candle out when they all walked away.

It was a fun, tiring day. And we are doing it all over again on Wednesday!

Curriculum – Last Day of Homeschooling Week

by 2 Comments

Curriculum
What curriculum do you use? Where do you buy it? Have you found a “gem” that you must share with others? Was something in particular a complete failure for you and your kids?

We were out and about all day yesterday but I didn’t want to miss out on the last day of the week of homeschooling!

I love that Randi posted the curriculum list for her daughter’s first grade year. Alice is starting first grade as well…and I have to say we have probably three times as many books as Randi! But that’s the worksheet/’playing school’ person in me that picked those. Sure Alice wanted one here or there, and most are a continuation of the kindergarten version of the book, but I realize we probably won’t get to all of them – and that’s okay.

I think of my neighbors when I think of how long school ‘should’ last. I know the oldest daughter follows a curriculum and has work to do for three to four hours a day. Last year I think we only spent about an hour a day really doing stuff – sure we cooked, crafted, did flash cards, played with a Barbie computer (said Christmas gift that still rocks the house) and more – but only about an hour was spent on worksheets and structured sitting down and working together time. I remember trying to stretch that to two hours but Alice just wasn’t having it. I agree with the thinking that kids will get it, work with them, don’t force, and they’ll just catch on. Sure they need to keep learning and moving forward, but it’ll happen. I like to think I don’t stress about stuff, but I’m sure my Mom would remind me of times that I have. 😉

I remember when Alice learned a concept with addition – she was counting on her fingers but say it was 4 + 5, she would count four on one hand, then five on the other, then count them all together. Then one day it hit her – she had five fingers already so bam start counting at five, eliminating a step. Seeing her so excited to realize that was awesome.

And so far I’ve bought the curriculum online or at Barnes & Noble (where I should buy stock, I’m so not kidding!). Every time we are in there I’m looking for a new workbook or a new book for the kids area in the house. I like the Evan Moor workbooks. I did venture into at least looking for a full on curriculum from a publisher but got overwhelmed very fast.

Find the last day of the week of homeschooling posts over at I Have To Say…

Today

by 4 Comments

I’m headed to bed but doing so great at posting every day!

Today Alice turned 6. She woke up when Chris left for work, he said happy birthday and she said not yet it isn’t! We had a good, fun, long day – which I’ll write about tomorrow!

Cap it off with a movie, Chinese food and hopefully falling asleep fast. I’m finally over my cold and starting a new project tomorrow. Hope your weekend is off to a great start. 🙂

Bird Magnet Board

by 2 Comments

Fred Flare hearts me! And I heart them right back. Have you been to Fred Flare? I usually go look and I just now realized they had a blog. I ordered a few items and they showed up yesterday!

PLUS

And you get this:

Is that not the cutest magnet board you have ever seen? I love it! This is right above my sewing machine and I plan on using it as an inspiration board. There are so many things I want to sew, work on or finish I can easily put them up there. I am also going to make a covered corkboard and hang it next to the bird.

Emotibuds too! These are little clip on things for your ipod earbuds. I’ve been looking around for new headphones/buds but not finding anything I love. But the emotibuds are very cute! Alice loved them and she wanted to open all three packages but I stopped her. These ones are the starry eyed, I also got the smiling and laughing ones.

And for a bit of crafty – I laid them on the baby blanket I a crocheting. I think I am 10 rows in now? It is fairly long though so I wonder what I got myself into…

[tags]Fred Flare, bird magnet boards, emotibuds, crochet blanket[/tags]

Recent Posts