Saturday, January 10, 2009
Sage's Bball game
Sage started Bball last weekend. Here is a video of his free throw shot today. He is number 2!!!
GO SAGE.
E and F
Our journey continued Friday morning with our Prince entering the cave to find it opened up to the sea and a boat was there waiting for him. He and his horse climbed aboard and set sail. The prince was reminded of a story he father the King used to tell him about "The Fisherman and his Wife". I told this story and at the end the prince yelled "EEEEEE" when a gigantic fish jumped out of the water in front of him.I am so proud of Ryan's drawing , he really tried hard and it shows. I sat back and let him go and he wanted to do this - you can tell. He only needed help with his boat and I did show him how to color things in using the block crayons vs. just outlining something.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
New Year, New Lessons, New Focus
We started back into lessons this week.Before I get into what we did, I have been doing a lot of self-reflecting. Looking inward seeing how I can improve as a parent , how I can gain more patience and to let go of some of my perfectionism (I sole that word from my friend Kim : 0).
I love being home with Ryan and watching him learn and grow. Having a high energy, creative, thinking child also means alot of emotions. As a parent who is laid back somewhat goes with the flow, I am learning how to help my son deal with his high energy emotions in a positive way. I am finding this takes a lot of patience, breathing and thinking things through. I remind myself this is much better than sending him to his room or immediately in time out and then he never learns the right way to communicate.
With all that said , our lessons have gone very well this week. We have decided to start our own Alphabet Journey. Ryan loves the book The Wise Enchanter, An Alphabet Journey by Shelley Davidow. We are reading it for the second time now, so based on this book as well as the alphabet journey from our Donna Simmons curric, We are creating our own story.
It started out the the kingdom can not grow any vegetables and the monster is also eating all the words and letters in the world. It is up to the prince to save the words. He sets out in the forest and finds a hut. Next to the hut are many apple trees and he sees a little lady who's dress he realizes looks like the letter A. We then drew in our books and went around the house trying to find the words that start with the letter A before the monster does. We wrote them in our book .
B - the prince left the little apple lady and came across another house in the woods. This time a bear lived there. He told the prince the story of his family Goldilocks and The Three Bears.
C and D - after leaving the Bear's house it began to pour rain and he dodged the lightning until he found a cave with a door. The D is hard to see in Ryan's picture.
Going back to letting things go and learning to appreciate what Ryan is learning and not focus so much on how "perfect" the picture should be, It was hard for me to watch him with his block crayon drawings. Where I am slow and fluid paying attention to detail, he is ridgid and quick and does not pay attention to detail. I do insist on covering the page with color though. Everything I read in Waldorf, I should be encouraging him to slow down and help him become more rythmatic in his drawings. I do, but then the lessons becomes focused on me saying "slow down" "color this way" "use this side of the crayon" Is this really helping him? I am learning to back off and focus on what our lessons are about and lead more by example.
Math - this week we talked about odd and even numbers. He caught on prety quick. We had fun calling out numbers to each other and guessing whether they were odd or even. We played a game where I put a silk in the middle of the floor and put odd numbers on one side and even on the other. WHen I called out a number, he had to jump to the correct side. He loved that.
Then today when Tony went to the store, Ryan went along and they looked at the numbers and decided if they were odd or even. We will need to review in the future , but he gets the idea. We also talked about how only the even numbers can be divided into 2 equal groups. We tried it with the rocks and tried to divide the odd numbers - hands on learning!
********
SUGAR!!! After my midwife apt on Monday , I said I was going to try hard to reduce my sugar intake. Ryan decided to go around the house and look at the labels of everything and tell me the sugar content. By everything - I mean everything. Today at the store with Tony, he told him the sugar content of everything they put into the cart. Great nutrition lesson.
*******
HANDWORK - Ryan decided to start back into his knitting. I sat with him a few times and today he actually did some stitches completely on his own. Way to go Ryan.
********
SCIENCE - The Moon and the Solar System.
We started traking the phases of the moon this week. The begining of the week we had a half moon and now today it is almost full. We read books on the moon which lead to books on the solar system. One of our book showed how to make a scale model showing the distance of each planet from the sun. We used our wool felted solar system we made a couple years ago and set to work.
In the picture below the Sun is in the far left followed in order by the planets. about 13 feet 3 inches away is Pluto. We talked about which planets where too hat to live on and which wer too cold. Talking about Pluto lead to a talk about Dwarf Planets. We found out that there are 5 Dwarf Planets including Pluto. Well we needed to wet felt 4 more dwarf planets. Wtih that done we hung thm up in the correct place. 3 of them are way in the outer orbit with Pluto. One is inbetween Mars and Jupiter (it goes on the bathroom door) in the Asteroid Belt.
Ryan decided to paint a picture of what he thought an Asteroid belt would look like. I hung it behind our Dwarf planet.
*********
Random picture
This was taken yesterday when the public schools were cancled and Sage stayed home. The boys decided to have a little jam session.
I love being home with Ryan and watching him learn and grow. Having a high energy, creative, thinking child also means alot of emotions. As a parent who is laid back somewhat goes with the flow, I am learning how to help my son deal with his high energy emotions in a positive way. I am finding this takes a lot of patience, breathing and thinking things through. I remind myself this is much better than sending him to his room or immediately in time out and then he never learns the right way to communicate.
With all that said , our lessons have gone very well this week. We have decided to start our own Alphabet Journey. Ryan loves the book The Wise Enchanter, An Alphabet Journey by Shelley Davidow. We are reading it for the second time now, so based on this book as well as the alphabet journey from our Donna Simmons curric, We are creating our own story.
It started out the the kingdom can not grow any vegetables and the monster is also eating all the words and letters in the world. It is up to the prince to save the words. He sets out in the forest and finds a hut. Next to the hut are many apple trees and he sees a little lady who's dress he realizes looks like the letter A. We then drew in our books and went around the house trying to find the words that start with the letter A before the monster does. We wrote them in our book .
B - the prince left the little apple lady and came across another house in the woods. This time a bear lived there. He told the prince the story of his family Goldilocks and The Three Bears.
C and D - after leaving the Bear's house it began to pour rain and he dodged the lightning until he found a cave with a door. The D is hard to see in Ryan's picture.
Going back to letting things go and learning to appreciate what Ryan is learning and not focus so much on how "perfect" the picture should be, It was hard for me to watch him with his block crayon drawings. Where I am slow and fluid paying attention to detail, he is ridgid and quick and does not pay attention to detail. I do insist on covering the page with color though. Everything I read in Waldorf, I should be encouraging him to slow down and help him become more rythmatic in his drawings. I do, but then the lessons becomes focused on me saying "slow down" "color this way" "use this side of the crayon" Is this really helping him? I am learning to back off and focus on what our lessons are about and lead more by example.Math - this week we talked about odd and even numbers. He caught on prety quick. We had fun calling out numbers to each other and guessing whether they were odd or even. We played a game where I put a silk in the middle of the floor and put odd numbers on one side and even on the other. WHen I called out a number, he had to jump to the correct side. He loved that.
Then today when Tony went to the store, Ryan went along and they looked at the numbers and decided if they were odd or even. We will need to review in the future , but he gets the idea. We also talked about how only the even numbers can be divided into 2 equal groups. We tried it with the rocks and tried to divide the odd numbers - hands on learning!
********SUGAR!!! After my midwife apt on Monday , I said I was going to try hard to reduce my sugar intake. Ryan decided to go around the house and look at the labels of everything and tell me the sugar content. By everything - I mean everything. Today at the store with Tony, he told him the sugar content of everything they put into the cart. Great nutrition lesson.
*******
HANDWORK - Ryan decided to start back into his knitting. I sat with him a few times and today he actually did some stitches completely on his own. Way to go Ryan.
********
SCIENCE - The Moon and the Solar System.
We started traking the phases of the moon this week. The begining of the week we had a half moon and now today it is almost full. We read books on the moon which lead to books on the solar system. One of our book showed how to make a scale model showing the distance of each planet from the sun. We used our wool felted solar system we made a couple years ago and set to work.
In the picture below the Sun is in the far left followed in order by the planets. about 13 feet 3 inches away is Pluto. We talked about which planets where too hat to live on and which wer too cold. Talking about Pluto lead to a talk about Dwarf Planets. We found out that there are 5 Dwarf Planets including Pluto. Well we needed to wet felt 4 more dwarf planets. Wtih that done we hung thm up in the correct place. 3 of them are way in the outer orbit with Pluto. One is inbetween Mars and Jupiter (it goes on the bathroom door) in the Asteroid Belt.
Ryan decided to paint a picture of what he thought an Asteroid belt would look like. I hung it behind our Dwarf planet.
*********
Random picture
This was taken yesterday when the public schools were cancled and Sage stayed home. The boys decided to have a little jam session.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Ice everywhere
It was a very icy world here in the North East. As messy as it is and difficult to scrape off the driveway(thanks Tony for working so hard to get that cleared) it is so beautiful to see the ice crystals everywhere. This morning Ryan could not resist heading out in the freezing rain to try to "iceskate" on the porch. I was surprised that he stayed out there for about 15 min and finally came inside soaking wet saying it was just slush, so good for ice skating. He also decided to bring in a bucket of water from outside and when I inquired why it was in the house he very definelty told me he was making soda - hummm. Not sure how is going to do that but it is very intriging.
I myself could not resist heading out later in the afternoon after the rain stopped and Tony had cleared the porch of any ice ( pregnant ladies need to be careful) to take some pictures.
OUr new winter nature table fits right in with the weather since King Winter is most definelty in the land these days. The little lady to his left is my newest snow queen doll. She is for a friend who I can not say in case they are reading the blog before they receive this gift. I thought she came out rather beautiful. Ryan has of course requested that I make an entire Snow Royal family.
I myself could not resist heading out later in the afternoon after the rain stopped and Tony had cleared the porch of any ice ( pregnant ladies need to be careful) to take some pictures.
OUr new winter nature table fits right in with the weather since King Winter is most definelty in the land these days. The little lady to his left is my newest snow queen doll. She is for a friend who I can not say in case they are reading the blog before they receive this gift. I thought she came out rather beautiful. Ryan has of course requested that I make an entire Snow Royal family.
Monday, January 5, 2009
I am officially in my 3rd trimester
We had a midwife appt today and I am 28 weeks along - 3rd trimester !!! I can't believe only 3 more months to go. Tony and Ryan came with me and were able to ask some questions.
Ryan helped out when she had to draw my blood to for the sugar levels and a few others. He held the tubes and passed them to Vicki when she needed them. He also got the bandaid ready for me and put it on when it was time.
The cool part of the apt came when she was able to feel the position of the baby and had Ryan feel too. He got to feel her back feet and head!! how cool! I got to feel her head also - it is pointing down by the way - hurray. It is so amazing to feel this sweet little person inside my belly - kinda weird though at the same time.
We also got our supply list of everything we need to have ready for the big day. It feels so real now that we have to prepare. With a hospital delivery you just show up and deliver. Having a delivery at home I need all kinds of goodies for the little ones arrival.
I know I have 3 more months to go, but I am so ready for her to be here.
Ryan helped out when she had to draw my blood to for the sugar levels and a few others. He held the tubes and passed them to Vicki when she needed them. He also got the bandaid ready for me and put it on when it was time.
The cool part of the apt came when she was able to feel the position of the baby and had Ryan feel too. He got to feel her back feet and head!! how cool! I got to feel her head also - it is pointing down by the way - hurray. It is so amazing to feel this sweet little person inside my belly - kinda weird though at the same time.
We also got our supply list of everything we need to have ready for the big day. It feels so real now that we have to prepare. With a hospital delivery you just show up and deliver. Having a delivery at home I need all kinds of goodies for the little ones arrival.
I know I have 3 more months to go, but I am so ready for her to be here.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
GoodBye Grandmom
As we were headed home on New Years Day, my Grandmother passed away during the night. She does not wake until 11 and we had left about 9 so we did not find out until my dad called me while we were in S. Carolina. It is always hard when a loved one passes on and I do find some comfort knowing that she is in peace now.
Who know this would of been the last picture of her taken on Christmas afternoon.
We all love you very much and will always.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Ok so I am a bit late with my posts. We arrived home on Friday around 3 am after a 20 hour straight through drive from Florida. We had clear sailing the whole way home. It has taken me a couple days to recover so now I can post some updates.
Spending time in Florida with my family at the holidays is always a wonderful experience. The boys spent alot of time with Grandpa who took them fishing and bowling. This year Christmas morning was just my parents and us. My sister did not come over until the afternoon with her family.
Grandpa was very excited because he was the first one up going through the house with the jingle bells to wake the kids up. Both boys were surprised by what Santa brought them:
Sage received a new bike - adult size! He is no longer a kid. As well as a deep sea fishing pole for when he and Grandpa take their fishing trips.
Ryan loves his new workbench! I cannot wait to see what he makes with it.
And then there is the trumpet! ahhh a trumpet, my house will be filled with music. He actually got the hang of it pretty quick. It is alot harder to blow into it then it looks.
Heidi and Grandpa kept fighting over his chair - I guess it is pretty comfy.
My sister and her family came over around noon and Ryan hung out with his cousin for awhile.
We spent most of our time on the beach. The weather was great and we took full advantage of it.
The water on the other hand was incredibly cold. Ryan was the only one brave enough to go into the pool.
Playing football on the beach with friends.
My polar bears! on New years eve day we headed once again to the beach for one last time and it was colder that day than the others. Ryan talked Tony into plunging into the water like they do in the Polar Bear club on New Years day. Sage eventually followed into high waters while I sat comfy on the beach and watched.
New years Eve! Our friends came over to my parents house and we set off fireworks first at 7 for the younger kids who had to go to bed (Ryan). The sparklers were a big hit.
The rest of us stayed up til midnight and welcomed the New Year!
Heading home New Years Day morning.
Spending time in Florida with my family at the holidays is always a wonderful experience. The boys spent alot of time with Grandpa who took them fishing and bowling. This year Christmas morning was just my parents and us. My sister did not come over until the afternoon with her family.
Grandpa was very excited because he was the first one up going through the house with the jingle bells to wake the kids up. Both boys were surprised by what Santa brought them:
Sage received a new bike - adult size! He is no longer a kid. As well as a deep sea fishing pole for when he and Grandpa take their fishing trips.
Ryan loves his new workbench! I cannot wait to see what he makes with it.
And then there is the trumpet! ahhh a trumpet, my house will be filled with music. He actually got the hang of it pretty quick. It is alot harder to blow into it then it looks.
Heidi and Grandpa kept fighting over his chair - I guess it is pretty comfy.
My sister and her family came over around noon and Ryan hung out with his cousin for awhile.
We spent most of our time on the beach. The weather was great and we took full advantage of it.
The water on the other hand was incredibly cold. Ryan was the only one brave enough to go into the pool.
Playing football on the beach with friends.
My polar bears! on New years eve day we headed once again to the beach for one last time and it was colder that day than the others. Ryan talked Tony into plunging into the water like they do in the Polar Bear club on New Years day. Sage eventually followed into high waters while I sat comfy on the beach and watched.
New years Eve! Our friends came over to my parents house and we set off fireworks first at 7 for the younger kids who had to go to bed (Ryan). The sparklers were a big hit.
The rest of us stayed up til midnight and welcomed the New Year!
Heading home New Years Day morning.
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