Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Posted by Cindy on August 20, 2007
Look what I woke up to this morning!! Mahayla found an old time alarm clock in the basement that she wanted to try out. It woke her, or should I say EVERYBODY, up at 6:20 this morning. While Eli and I snoozed on, she put her Betty Crocker cookbook to good use and brought warm cinnamon struesel muffins with grape juice right to my bedside. Yummy!
Posted by Cindy on August 19, 2007
We took an impromptu history trip Saturday to Blue Licks State Park where they were having a reenactment of the Revolutionary War battle that took place there in 1782. Okay, so we missed the actual reenactment by seconds, much to my son’s dismay, but had a great time anyway.
During the actual battle, the English, Canadians, and Native Americans were fighting against the Americans. The Americans were sorely defeated with almost 70 being killed in about 15 minute’s time. Daniel Boone lost his son in this battle that is said to be the last battle of the Revolutionary War. Here are some pictures of various soldiers and encampments from the reenactment.
We also enjoyed a live bagpipe band and the kids each got to make a small pot at the potter’s wheel. Yes, even Eli!
The park has a nice buffet dinner sort of restaurant. Saturday, the main meat was buffalo. BUFFALO! Because of some, ahem, allergies, I chose not to partake of the buffalo. But, the veggies and desserts were great!
Posted by Cindy on August 16, 2007
Mahayla pretty much learned to read without my help. By 1st grade, she was reading chapter books. So I didn’t feel the need to back up and teach phonics rules when she was intrisically figuring it all out. We did use Spelling Workout for two and a half years which taught many spelling rules, but she hated the repitition of the same words day after day. By Friday, test day, she would easily make 100%, but wasn’t always transferring the spelling rules into other words.
Fast forward to this year. There are a few spelling mistakes that I have watched her make over and over again – even after talking about them. So, I decided daily spelling instruction needed to be put back on the curriculum schedule. I wanted to do something that really taught the rules this time. Something that would help her to use the rule to spell any word – not just the 20 or 30 for a test.
I decided to use Spelling Works! (Grades 4-8)
I’m after an understanding of spelling rather than memorizing a set list. I’ve already seen a big improvement in everyday spelling on the words that follow the rules we’ve covered so far. That puts a big smile on my face and has given her more confidence in her writing!
Posted by Cindy on August 15, 2007
My son loves baseball. He’s also excited about his new interest in learning to read. (Thank you, Lord!) So, we came up with a fun way to show his reading achievements – a “book”ball chart. Everytime he reads a book by himself, we’ll add a baseball to the field. We came up with the idea together, so he is very motivated to see the idea work!
Posted by Cindy on August 14, 2007
We made a solar oven today!
It was so much fun! And easy! A pizza box, some aluminum foil, pencils, tape and sun are all you need to make the oven. Today was the perfect day to try out some solar s’mores with our good friends. A little swimming while the s’mores sat in the sun made the wait more bearable! (Not my pool – wishful thinking by my kids, though!)
The chocolate was a little runny, but that didn’t seem to matter!
