Perspective

For P week, we studied poetry. We read a ton of poems and Hannah (and, by default Genna and Isaac) is memorizing Books Fall Open, by David McCord. It's a long poem, so we will continue it into next week. She has it about halfway memorized. I will post a video when it is completed. The girls also collaborated to write a poem about winter. Here it is:

Winter
by Hannah and Genevieve

Winter is cold
like ice cream,
the potty,
and the arctic.

Winter is long
like a snake,
measuring tape,
and a road that never ends.

(For the easily grossed out, skip the next paragraph and then carry on reading!)

We also learned about poop and the potty (for Isaac). We read a couple of books with all kinds of interesting facts about different animals' poop, like how turkey vultures poop on their legs to cool themselves off. I know. So gross, but the kids liked it. We also read a book about digestion and you know the end result there. Isaac watched another potty DVD and read two new potty books from the library. On Sunday, before the P week began, he actually pooped in the potty for the first time ever. Monday, he stopped in the middle of the process, and finished in the potty. Yea! But, unfortunately, that was the end of the potty for the week. He decided not to use it anymore after only two days. I don't know what happened. I gave him chocolate, made a huge deal out of how proud we all were of him.

We also learned about plants. We talked about plants and their fertilization. We read several books about it and one experiment book where we picked out two experiments to do. Due to all the snow, they will have to wait until next week when I can get to the store for the supplies. We also talked about our garden that we really hope to plant this spring and what kinds of things we want to grow in it.

Also for P week, I gave them a lesson given me when I was a wee one by my grandfather, about perspective drawing. He taught me to draw a dog house and train tracks with telephone wires going into the horizon. So here are their pictures of their first attempts at perspective. I was very surprised how naturally this came for Genevieve. Hannah had a little trouble with drawing parallel lines and had to redo them a couple of times, but Genna got it right the first time. Her only problem was that her lines weren't the straightest things ever. I helped her straighten them out a bit.

Hannah's

Genna's
( She did the train tracks on the other side of the page and had more trouble with those. We did it last, and I think things got a little rushed on that part since Daddy came home in the middle.)

Isaac also did this P project. He poked holes in paper following the big P I had written using the end of a pipe cleaner. I kept him busy for a while one morning.

Sledding Videos

More Love

Genna looks smaller than Isaac in this picture.

Lovies!


Crazies!

Finally, a real snow day!

We had a snow storm last night and got around 6 inches of snow. Mostly, it was your typical snow day. After reading, math, and handwriting, we ditched the rest of the school day to play in the snow with Daddy since he was home.

Some sledding in our backyard (videos to come)...

Genna was in heaven when not getting pelted in the face by Hannah with snowballs. Her favorite thing was eating the snow.

This guy got so rosy cheeked! He had fun except for when he fell down and couldn't get up or when Hannah pelted him with snowballs in the face. See a pattern here?

Hannah had much more fun this year in the snow than last year. I think the temperature has a lot to do with it. It was just above freezing and she didn't have to bundle up as much. Plus, the sledding hill was considerably less steep than in Germany. This was also perfect snowball snow, so she drove everyone nuts with the snowball throwing.

Daddy shoveled his heart out, shoveling two driveways.

The girls and I made this snow-woman. This is the first time they were actually helpful in the process. Hannah made the middle ball and Genna made the top one. The snow-woman was deemed a princess, named Annalise. Next time, I have declared the right to make the snowman an actual man. Even I get tired of all the princess stuff.

Sisterly Love

I love these moments.

Just had to capture one and share.

Stuck Like Glue

I sang this chorus from Stuck Like Glue to Genna the other day because she was teasing me about being "stuck like glue" to me. Doesn't everyone burst into song when they here a line from a song they know? Anyway, I guess Isaac took a liking to it because I have caught him singing it to himself multiple times since then. So I asked him to sing it for the camera and he did.

After I took this, he said, "Now let me see Isaac sing Stuck Like Glue."

O week was a slow week

I just couldn't fit in extra crafts and activities in with the snow day, the trip to the doctor, Martin Luther King Day, etc. We had a lot of short school days this week because of all that. But we did read about octopuses, Orion and other constellations, and oxygen in the air. We did do a coloring page for St. Agnes' feast day.

Next week, hopefully, will be more eventful!

Just too cute

I just love this girl! A few weeks ago she just stopped in the middle of getting ready for bed and said, "Mommy, do you know that I could give up everything except for Jesus and my family." What a saintly little girl!

The lop

I think that is what I will call Hannah's new haircut, since I, personally, lopped off somewhere around six inches of her hair this past weekend.

Before

After

I think the last time we cut a lot off her hair was right after Isaac was born (two and a half years ago) because I was just overwhelmed with all the hair to do every morning and the newborn, who luckily had NO hair at all. I think it looks much thicker and nicer this way. Brian typically resists anymore than a fraction of an inch coming off the girls' hair, but since it was Hannah who has been wanting this and she has him wrapped around her little finger he caved. She wanted to cut it off even shorter, but I said the shoulders is short enough. Her reason is that she wants to learn to wash it on her own and it was just too long and tangly to teach her. Plus, it had gotten to the point that we had to braid it every night so that it wouldn't be all knots in the morning. Now Genna's hair is longer than Hannah's for the first time ever, but just a little bit and with all the curls it ends up looking almost the same length.

N n n, what begins with those?

Nine new neckties, nightshirt, nose!

Well, we actually learned about newborn babies, nocturnal animals, and noses this week.

For newborn we read about how to take care of a newborn baby, what newborn babies are like, etc. No craft or additional exercises for this.

For nocturnal, we learned the definition and about several nocturnal animals. Owls and bats were the primary focus in our books. We also went over the definitions of predator and prey. We talked a lot about this throughout the week and it was the second time this year to focus on owls since Hannah had a field trip back in the fall where she learned about owls and dissected an owl pellet. I think this reinforcement was beneficial. We had no craft or further acivity for this topic either.

For noses, we learned about the sense of smell, briefly touching on the other four senses. We read several books teaching about this topic and then I picked up a fun book from the library as well called Sneezy Louise that related. Then we got our sleep masks out for blindfolds and I filled a sack with things they could smell and try to guess what it was. I had honey, onion flakes, soap, perfume, chocolate, and toothpaste. They got every one of them right and got a reward of a piece of chocolate each before lunch.

Incredibles

I let the kids watch The Incredibles for the first time a week or two ago. The reason it was PG was because of the fighting, so I thought it would be ok. In the middle of it I realized that they really rarely watch any kind of fighting, so I asked if they were scared. Genna said a little, but she was ok. Isaac gets up and says, "Me! I am!" So, following my husband's instructions for this, I reply in my motherly brainwashing fashion, "No, you're not. You're not scared of anything, remember?" (Believe it or not this totally works! He buys it every time and his manly ego takes over and he insists he is not afraid of anything.) So, then he tells me he is not afraid and describes in the cutest, most boy-like fashion how cool the fighting is. I have been asking him to retell this story over and over because I just love to see his fists fly and his enthusiasm about "fighting the bad guys." It reminds me ever so slightly of my brother when he was a little one. He used to run around like a Ninja Turtle all the time. So I decided to ask Isaac about it on film so I can watch it forever and show his friends when he grows up to embarrass him. :) After all that's what mothers are for, right? So here it is!

Knock knock

Isaac loves to tell knock knock jokes, but he rarely gets them right.


(He was saying "interrupting cow" by the way. He was supposed to interrupt with the "Moo" but he never says it fast enough to interrupt.)

Here's some more botched jokes...

In honor of the upcoming Martin Luther King day...

Last week being M week and next Monday being Martin Luther King day, we read a book about Martin Luther King Jr. Today during religion, we were discussing original sin verses actual sin. I explained actual sin is breaking one of God's commandments. Hannah says, "Like if you are married and you want someone else's wife!" Interesting commandment to remember, Hannah.

Then we discussed how there are two kinds of actual sin, mortal and venial. Mortal is a serious sin. Hannah chimed in here, "like killing somebody!" Then she continued, "Like the man that shot Burger King." At first I was confused and asked her what she was talking about, and she explained, "You know the man that helped the people with dark skin." Then it hit me that she was talking about Martin Luther King Jr, not Burger King. How funny!

Last night the girls were telling daddy at dinner what they learned about Martin Luther King. Brian asked them why we have a day to celebrate him. Hannah answered, "Because someone killed him." When we said this was not the actual reason for the day, Genna answered, "Because he helped the people with dark skin to have fun like the white people." I love her sweet innocent interpretations of things. The book that we read told about how colored people were not allowed to do the same things as white people, like ride at the front of the bus or use the same water fountains.

A whole new level

Hannah's taking it to the next level. We got home on Saturday night a little late after dinning out and we had left over cake at home. She wanted dessert so badly, but I wanted them to get to bed quickly, so she said she would get Isaac dressed and diaper changed and ready for bed if she could have dessert. That seemed like a good enough deal to me, so we gave it a shot. She did a great job, and even though it was her first diaper change ever she got the diaper on secure enough. I guess she had fun doing it too, because now she is offering to do it a lot. I even caught her attempting a dirty diaper change when I went up to check on them in his room. She was supposed to be helping him clean up after his room time and they had already finished that. He was in full position to be changed, but it was a messy one, so I took over and showed her how not to make a mess when changing a dirty diaper. After watching that, she decided to stick with wet ones! If only we could get this boy potty trained...

Moon Mobiles

M week is mainly about moons, so here are the girls moon mobiles.

Hannah was able to do the whole thing on her own.

Genna had me draw the stars and moon and tie things on, but otherwise did the rest on her own.

I adapted this craft for Isaac so he could actually do a craft instead of having me draw, cut out, and tie up a mobile for him. The only real change I made was to have him stick the stars and moon on contact paper and then put the black paper on top at the end instead of just gluing them on. It turned out to be a good fine motor skill activity to pick up the foil stars without ripping them. I taped the finished product to the ceiling above his bed. I gave him a flashlight to look at the stars and moon in the dark. I hoped this would be a substitute for the thing he really wants which is this cool night light star projector that the girls got for their room for Christmas. He keeps trying to steal theirs right when I am tucking in the girls.

They also did color-by-number mosaics earlier in the week.

Sticker Sorting Activity

I got this idea from my friend and thought we would try it out. I have never been one for sticker stuff, but I think I will be in the future because he loved it.

I cut out train and car stickers and printed a page with a road and a page with a train track. I put the stickers in a zip lock bag. I sat down with him and asked him what goes on the road and what goes on the track and he told me. Then I showed him what to do. He had a great time and did not even want to stop when dinner was ready. That's a big deal since he is usually chomping at the bit for food.

My favorite thing was how carefully he stacked the sticker trash in one pile!

More painting

I painted the kitchen after our company left. Remember the old walls were almost white. I was originally going to do a rust color, but when I tested it out it was just too red. So I went more with a browner color called coco rum. It is a semi gloss and the pictures look a lot shinier than in person.

Back to School

Genna is measuring things using interlocking cubes.


Hannah is working on telling time.

We started back to school today. Even though the pictures look peaceful, it was a little rough getting back into the swing of things. It didn't help that I am feeling a little under the weather and Genna, although her fever is gone, is still having stomach trouble and body aches.

Happy New Year!

We had to cancel our plans because Genna got a fever yesterday. She did get to go out and enjoy a couple of sparklers before I made her come back inside.

2011 here we come!