Busy week

So, the week has been busy. I had a doctor appointment Monday afternoon so the girls spend an hour with Grandpa and did very well. I was so glad they didn't give him a hard time. I think the time was good for all three of them. I took the girls with me to Ginny's funeral on Tuesday morning. Alex had gotten upset a few days before when I told her that Ms. Ginny might be going to heaven, so I was a little afraid to tell her when Ginny died. But, she took it very well. I just said, "Ms. Ginny went to heaven last night. Who else do you know that is in heaven?" She answered, "Grandma." And that was about it for that conversation. Before the funeral I explained that we were going to church to have a funeral for Ms. Ginny. I asked why we had a funeral at church and she answered, "God." Short, sweet and true. The were pretty good and we came home after the service so they could go to therapy. That evening we went to Springdale to see Mollie's first grade play. They had a lot of fun watching Mollie and all the kids and thought the school was "COOL!" Carrie took us to her classroom afterward and the girls got to look around and explore. Carrie even showed them the Hermit crab. Lots of fun and I'm glad we went. Mollie was adorable as the farmer's wife in the program and she had fun showing the girls around the school.
Wednesday Lisa was sweet enough to keep the girls during my second doctor appointment. The girls got to play together, Lisa took A & E to therapy, and then they all went to the ballpark for MG and Hannah's softball game. A full day!
Today Alex had her pre-op doctor appointment for next week's procedures in KC. She did great and we had time to play and learn a bit while we were waiting for our turn. We do that a lot. Learn where we are I mean. In restaurants we identify letters and words on the menu or table top, we stop to look at signs in the store, we talk about the weather (especially this week!), etc. In the doctor's office we were searching the room and toys for certain shapes. It was fun to watch them discover that there were circles (squares, etc.) on all kinds of things in the room. We've also been working on colors more, for Emma's sake. Today she identified yellow and green correctly! I was so excited for her! We continue to observe and name shapes, colors, letters, numbers, etc. every day. Another thing we work into the day is math. Lots of simple addition lately... for example at lunch the other day we took the sweetener packets out and did some math. "If I have two pink packets and two white packets, how many do I have all together?" Lots of that sort of thing, and both girls really like doing that. I know we aren't to the "What is two plus two stage", but we are learning the process of addition and subtraction. I'm still loving homeschooling them and I'm proud of how hard they work, especially Alex. Seeing Carrie's classroom made me wish I had all of her resources (and I know she would let me dig through things whenever I wanted), but I still feel confident in being their teacher. The process of learning is amazing and I'm so thankful to be sharing it with my girls.

Letters

This morning Emma found a package of flash cards that had been given to us. We had never used them because they are sight words and I didn't think we were to that point yet, but we gave it a try. There were 25 common sight words (a, the, I, she, he, etc.) It was actually great because we named the letters (they did, with occasional help), we said the word, and took turns using the word in full sentences. Great letter identification (lower case) and sentence speaking practice. And the sight word thing can't hurt anything.
This afternoon Alex had PT. Yesterday they each had ST and PT. Church tonight.
Have a play date scheduled for the park tomorrow. We are planning a trip to Mollie's school next week to see her first grade program. The girls should love that! Drew will be home in a couple of weeks and he is hoping that we can take the girls fishing. That should be an experience! I'm hoping that when we take Alex to KC for her MRI that we can go back to the Wonderscope kids center, there is so much to do and learn there.

Math

I can't seem to recap what we've done since my last blog, I've really got to get better at blogging every day. Drew was home this past week and we didn't do much in the way of school work anyway. But today...
I got all excited last night because Julie e mailed me and asked for some homeschooling info. Lorelai will be starting Kindergarten in a little over a year and she wants to start working with her more. So, I got to share some of my infinite teaching wisdom! (Did you detect my sarcasm?)
Anyway, in thinking over some things for her, I pulled up the Kindergarten readiness list again. I went through last night and marked off the things that we are doing well with and highlighted the things that we will continue working on.
So, today we pulled out some manipulatives and got busy. I would pick up one shape and ask Emma to pick one that was the same. Check. Both girls can do that. I would make a pattern and the girls took turns picking the shape or color that came next. Did pretty well with that. More/Less. Do I have more circles or triangles, etc.? That one needs more work. Then we worked on simple addition. If I have two triangles and three circles, how many shapes do I have all together? Did really well with that. As long as we have the visuals, and of course they count out the total, but still... this first step is going well. Then they did puzzles. Alex does them completely independently and Emma needs only minimal help. Good fine motor and problem solving practice. Then Aunt Jessica showed up and we played the Candy Land Castle game. Taking turns, matching shapes, etc. Then just fun stuff. Right now they are playing with big Legos. I just asked Alex was she was building and she said a castle. I love to hear an original answer as opposed to a generic or copy cat answer.
Therapy this afternoon and the rest of the week.

ABC's

So, as I mentioned in my last post, Emma is really picking up on her letter identification. She is impressing me with it, really. The last week we've done several things. On Emma's birthday we made her a princess crown with the foamy stickers and then we decorated other things with the stickers also. Great fine motor practice to peel the paper off the back and Alex was picking out letters to spell her name. One problem I am noticing is that while she always gets all the letters, they are sometimes backwards. I think that is normal, right? I just try to correct her and remind her that they go from left to right. She's been working in her workbooks tracing letters and we've had a lot of fun with the DoodlePros that Emma got for her birthday. We write a letter and then think of a word that starts with it, then they want me to draw a picture of it. That is interesting sometimes... but they seem satisfied with my art. We've done their speech homework... practicing past tense and using the pronoun 'she' and also sequencing events. We've continued talking about Spring and drawing suns, flowers, grass, trees, rain, etc. We have had fun getting to play outside lately, but now it is cooler and rainy and we are stuck inside. Nonnie got Emma garden tools and seeds for her birthday, so we are planning a gardening day sometime soon. On Saturday we are going to the UofA horse festival with Nonnie. The girls have been around horses a lot in their life, but it is great to see them in different situations and realize that they are used and appreciated in so many different ways. Tomorrow we are going to the DaySpring movie at the theater here in Siloam, they have quite a few friends that will be there also.

Lots of stuff

I've slacked on blogging, but we haven't been slacking on learning. We took a trip to Arizona to see Casey on the Babbitt Ranch. Before we left we put up the map poster of North America and put a push pin where we live and where we were going and talked about all the states we would have to drive through to get there. I pointed out every time we came into a new state and we even stopped in Texas and took this picture.

One thing we seemed to talk a lot about was how the mountains changed as we drove across the country. Alex was really interested in that. She would say, "Oh mommy! Look at that mountain! It beautiful!"
The girls had a great time on the ranch. They got to help feed the horses and calves, ride the horses, pet the horses, play in the dirt & rocks, meet some other cowboys & watch them work the colts, and ride around the ranch in the pick up truck.
We visited the Grand Canyon while we were there. Instead of getting into the science of how the it came to be, I just asked Alex who made the Grand Canyon. "God did!" Yep, that sums it up. We can talk about the technicalities like erosion, etc. when they get older.
In the van they had lots of time to watch movies. In addition to HSM3, Horton & The Little Mermaid... they also watch The Letter Factory & Sesame Street ABC's.
Back home we have been going with the flow and adjusting to the time change. One morning we made mosaic pictures with construction paper and glue sticks. We would paint (with the glue stick) on a shape or letter and they would place the little paper pieces. Emma made the letter Z, a circle, a flower and the sun. Alex made a letter R, a triangle, a flower and a sun. The letters were to practice the ones they have a little more trouble with, the shapes were mainly for Emma's benefit, and the flower and sun were because spring is coming. We talked about all of those things as we worked.
Carrie found some great Sesame Street board books at Target for a dollar, and we have had fun with those the last few days. We have read the books together, but the girls look at them a lot on their own also. I noticed Alex reading to herself the other day and looking for shapes in our living room that she was looking at in the book. "Hmmm... that a square...." that a circle..."
Lots of learning seems to be taking place in the bathtub lately. The girls got bathtub crayons for Christmas and we've been playing with them often. We write letters, peoples, names, shapes, etc. and draw animals, people, houses, flowers, etc. The girls have one request after another and we just draw and write and until the water is too cold and they have to get out. It is also good for them to practice writing on the wall (like a dry erase or chalk board) because it develops their fine motor skills. They can't lean their weight on anything when they write on the wall and it takes more body control.
Alex makes it easy to do so much because she is curious. "Let's do this... What this letter?... What this say?..." Seems like we are identifying letters and sounding out words wherever we go. She can't sound anything out on her own yet, but identifying the letters and understanding that together the letters make words is progress.

New week

Drew was home this weekend, we were sad to see him leave yesterday afternoon. This morning we spent some time with new workbooks that Peg gave us. I worked with both the girls on same/different and matching. Alex does great with this, Emma is still learning. One thing that was hard for even Alex was direction. That is, identifying which object was going a different direction. We got tired and frustrated before we really got into letter identification, but Emma did something that showed me she is learning. She was pointing out letters (not accurately identifying, but still) and she got to a lower case 'g' and said, "That a little letter". She's getting there.
Therapy this afternoon.

Lessons

The last 4 weeks have been full of craziness. While we did go several weeks lacking formal school work, there was much in the way of life lessons. Drew was home with us and we took Alex the Kansas City to the hospital. She knows that God made her special and the doctors help us take care of her. How much more simplistic and truthful can it get?
While in KC we visited a children's museum, Wonderscope. I highly recommend it to anyone in the area with young children. Lots of manipulatives, hands on activities and fun!
Shopping in the 'market'

Stacking

turning

water fun

face painting. They wanted to be kitty cats

in the 'doctor office' putting together a skeleton

Upon coming home from KC we entered the ravage of the ice storm. Lots of clean up and Drew's buddies came to help. Stacey's family came for the weekend and his two boys and our two girls had a blast playing.
The following Sunday my grandma took a turn for the worse and the next week was spent with family. The girls were very much a part of the process. They were part of grandma's life and they were part of her dying. They were with us in the room when she died and know that grandma went to heaven. They attended the funeral also.
They attended therapy as regular as possible through all of these things.
Drew went back to Ft. Sill yesterday and today we picked up with our normal routine. This morning we played the Candy Land shape game. They love it and it is great for matching shapes & colors, taking turns, fine motor skills and competition. Then we played Elefun and tried to catch butterflies with our nets. Last, we played with the little bears and practiced sorting by colors, making patterns and some simple addition. Therapy this afternoon.