Puppies make the cutest little squeaks...
What a week!! We started off Friday with an awesome late night out, John and I, to see Miss Saigon the broadway, all thanks to my wonderful parents who watched the boys. Then, 10:30pm Saturday night our dog Cookie came whining to our bedroom door. She isn't usually allowed upstairs so I knew it must be time. I then spent eight hours by her side, petting her and watching as she delivered seven puppies! What an awesome experience! Michael woke up for one birth, then decided he was too tired and went back to bed! Needless to say I am still trying to catch up on sleep a week later.
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we have swimming at the YMCA now and the boys are really liking it. They have a fun "kids club" so while one brother has lessons, the other two can be doing gym games, in the daycare room, or also swimming depending on the kids club schedule. I am also very much enjoying the opportunity to work out, and somedays just hang in the lobby and read a book.
Wednesday we thought was our last Village Home class, but seems I wrote Thanksgiving on the wrong week on the calendar so I have been off a week all month, oops. Thursday Village Home hosted a kids craft bazaar. All three boys created something to sell and spent all the money they earned supporting their friends businesses. It was a very sugar and fun filled day!
Story of the World focused on the kings of France. We did two chapters since they were both short and learned about Charlemange and the invasion of Islamic, and then they re-conquering of Spain. So much back and forth in history that I never knew before! So much struggle to "rule the whole world". I am reading Phillipa Gregory's "The Queen's Fool" right now and it is the same struggle years and years later of one country trying to out-do the others. Now I want to do more history reading on my own to learn if it ended after Queen Elizabeth, did it get better? Did England learn it's lesson from the catastrophy of Henry the Eighth and never again did they have horrible battles trying to sort out which religion was best? I don't know, my own history knowledge is blank and I am determined to fill it, because, despite the fact that I do homeschool my children, I was raised and unschooler, and an unschooler knows that learning is for life, not just your "schooling" years.
I am really happy with our new collection of Spanish learning tools. The reading books are easy for the boys to hear me read one day, and be able to read fairly well themselves the next. We do worksheets from the other book, and although we haven't listened to a chapter in our audio lesson, we did enjoy the first two chapters the last two weeks.
We continued with our Usborne math books and utilized the flash cards we have now. All three boys are improving in math, which is fun to see. Avery can draw from memory 1-10 now and can add and subtract well numbers from 1-10 as well. The older two are working on memorizing multiplication tables.
All our reading lessons are going well, they read books from the library to me several times a week, and we discovered books on tape pre-loaded into MP3 like players. They each have one and we have had the QUIETEST car rides to town I have ever experienced with all three boys in headphones listening to books. Pretty much the best discovery ever. One morning I even pushed school back a few hours while two did their books on tape, one looked through library books, and I read my book. A fabulous way to start the day and one I hope because a frequently happening.
Science didn't really happen this week, we just didn't get to it, but Emmet one day asked if he could do his nature walk by himself. "Sure," I said, "Go find two types of moss, that is our study this week, and draw them in your nature journal." He came back ten minutes later with two drawings of MOTHS. We both had a good laugh after my confusion.
It is foggy outside, pretty much my least favorite weather, I prefer sunshine or pouring down rain to the claustrophobic choking of grey. So, here is to it not lasting too many more days, some good Oregon winter sunshine, as in a downpour, so my hands can stop being so dry, and so we can get out and explore the world more next week!
Cheers,
The Dillmans
Here is a picture of our of our cows, Snow. She escapes the hotwire fence multiple times a week, and the boys and I have gotten really good at fixing hotwire and also luring a reluctant cow back into the pasture with the promise of grain.
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we have swimming at the YMCA now and the boys are really liking it. They have a fun "kids club" so while one brother has lessons, the other two can be doing gym games, in the daycare room, or also swimming depending on the kids club schedule. I am also very much enjoying the opportunity to work out, and somedays just hang in the lobby and read a book.
Wednesday we thought was our last Village Home class, but seems I wrote Thanksgiving on the wrong week on the calendar so I have been off a week all month, oops. Thursday Village Home hosted a kids craft bazaar. All three boys created something to sell and spent all the money they earned supporting their friends businesses. It was a very sugar and fun filled day!
I am really happy with our new collection of Spanish learning tools. The reading books are easy for the boys to hear me read one day, and be able to read fairly well themselves the next. We do worksheets from the other book, and although we haven't listened to a chapter in our audio lesson, we did enjoy the first two chapters the last two weeks.
All our reading lessons are going well, they read books from the library to me several times a week, and we discovered books on tape pre-loaded into MP3 like players. They each have one and we have had the QUIETEST car rides to town I have ever experienced with all three boys in headphones listening to books. Pretty much the best discovery ever. One morning I even pushed school back a few hours while two did their books on tape, one looked through library books, and I read my book. A fabulous way to start the day and one I hope because a frequently happening.
It is foggy outside, pretty much my least favorite weather, I prefer sunshine or pouring down rain to the claustrophobic choking of grey. So, here is to it not lasting too many more days, some good Oregon winter sunshine, as in a downpour, so my hands can stop being so dry, and so we can get out and explore the world more next week!
Cheers,
The Dillmans
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