Mar. 21: On to the Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Today we finished "Prince Caspian."  The kids liked it, especially reading about Reepicheep the mouse.
I liked the quote: "You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve," Said Aslan.  "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of he poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of he greatest emperor on earth. Be content."

After I finish reading Narnia I'd like to read the book "Planet Narnia" by Michael Ward, who claims to have found another meaning in "The Cronicles of Narnia"  Should be interesting at least.

Is it ridiculous that I seriously wish that Narnia existed?  I let myself entertain the idea that maybe it really does exist.  Ha, I laugh off the thought but still...you never know!  If I ever create a world I would make it just like Narnia (or how I imagine it).  Okay, head out of the clouds.

On a more serious note, I've recently found out that our next door neighbor is a homicide suspect.  Lovely.  All the more reason to believe in Narnia.  I'm going to start looking for magic wardrobes to walk through.  Okay, head out of the clouds again!

Back to the kids:  I've enjoyed seeing Annabelle improve on her reading.  She's reading more fluently and with more confidence.  This week she scored 98% on the Dolch Pre-Primer sight words.  That's up from 78% in September.  Also she scored 96% on the Primer sight words.  That's up from 60 % in September.  Nice progress!  I haven't administered the First grade words yet, but plan on doing that soon.

I measured the kids this month and was shocked to see that Annabelle has grown 2 inches since October!  That is the same rate of growth that Katelyn has made!  Insane growth spurt!  Evan also grew about an inch...but I'm almost positive he weighs more than Annabelle.  Maybe I'll go buy a scale today just to see.

Oh, we bought a Keyboard!  It was $20 at D.I. but it works great and the kids have enjoyed playing around on it.  I gave Evan his first lesson (he seems more interested in it than Annabelle at this point).  It's so nice to be able to practice the piano again, even if it is just on a keyboard.

I recently made up a checklist for Annabelle & Evan of things we should do each day and each week, with a reward if they get everything done.  It does help me stay on task and they enjoy checking things off.  I'm still tweaking it a bit.  It's hard to know what expectations are really realistic.

Park day has started up again now that the weather is getting nicer.  It's still a bit chilly, but the kids had a great time playing with their homeschool friends yesterday.  Such sweet kids.  Annabelle loves climbing trees and found a birds nest way up in the top of one.

Also we've been sorting through all the pictures I own and trying to categorize them.  The kids really enjoyed seeing a lot of their baby pictures.  We plan on scrapbooking soon, hopefully.

That's about all that is going on lately.  The kids are about 3/4 of the way finished with their school workbooks, so I'm hoping they will be all ready for school this upcoming year.  I'm still tentatively planning on sending them to Navigator Pointe.  Annabelle is #2 on the waiting list, so hopefully she'll get in.  I'm excited about it but I still do have my reservations.  I see how much fun they've had with home schooling and the freedom we've all enjoyed, but I suppose we must all grow up sometime.  Or maybe we could just find a magic portal into Narnia.

Feb. 21-March 7

Well I've decided that updating my log ever day is becoming harder and harder.  Especially when I feel we haven't really done anything too exciting (unfortunately).  I am just going to update as frequently as I feel needed and include notable things we do.  We found out that Evan was accepted to Navigator Pointe Academy for Kindergarten (I can't remember if I already posted about this or not).  Annabelle is #3 on the waiting list for second grade.

I can't even begin to say how thrilled I am, and how much I feel blessed.  A very small percentage of applicants are accepted.  Somehow I feel strange about it though.  I think it's just that it doesn't feel real yet.  I am very hopeful that Annabelle will be able to get in too.  I feel the chances are pretty good.  I'm not sure what we'll do if she doesn't get in.

The kids have been having a great time with our new ducks and chickens.  Annabelle has showed a lot of responsibility with taking care of them.   She feeds and waters them, gathers their eggs every morning, digs up worms for them, and puts them in their pen at night.  She loves them so much.  I'm glad, because I already have enough to worry about.

Both the kids have fun every day doing educational games on the computer.  They do that a lot.  I have a hard time saying no to it because honestly I think they are learning more from it than I am.

I have been working hard at getting pictures of our family back a few generations on familysearch.org.  It is so fun!  Steve and I have enjoyed showing the kids pictures of our ancestors and telling them stories.  Here is the link to Annabelle's tree:

Annabelle's Tree

I love the new photo tree option.  So fun to see all their faces.  (Jeri- if you wouldn't mind emailing me a picture of you, mark, and your parents that would be fantastic!)

Anyways,  that's about all we've been up to besides the normal worksheets, quizzes, and reading.  OH-We are halfway through reading "Prince Caspian."  Annabelle is loving it.  They write in their journals about the story and draw some cute pictures.

Well, until next time (Whenever that is!)

Feb. 17-21

Monday

Today the kids had a friend over all day and they had a great time playing with him.  

Tuesday

The kids have been doing really well using their chart they developed with all the things they need to do each day.  It is nice to have a routine.  They also played outside for quite a while today and just had fun.  Annabelle is such a big helper.  I wasn't feeling very well for part of the day and she helped me out a lot.  It's fun to see the kids becoming more responsible and helpful.

We also had a living room dance party which turned into a throw-the-teddy-bears-all-over-the-place party.  I used the opportunity to practice my manual settings on my camera.  Here are some of the shots I got.  Love my crazies!

Wednesday-Friday

We've begun a new method of trying to get all the things done that we're "supposed" to do.  It just a check list that's laminated and the kids check off with wet-erase markers as they do their tasks.  I feel the excitement of learning waning, however.  It is good for me though to see how we're doing each day.