If You're Happy and you Know it...

Samara started clapping her hands last week... thought I would share a short video. 

Happy 1st Birthday Samara

Our baby girl turns 1 today. Happy 1st Birthday Samara Anne Marie! As I reflect on Samara's first year I am finding it hard to come up with the right words to express how much she means to us. Her kisses, smiles and cuddles warm our hearts. She is our sweetheart and she makes us laugh. We love her so much! She's always trying to keep up with her brother and sister and she does a pretty good job. She has taken her first steps but is cautious about starting to walk. She loves to dance (shake it Samara!) and sing... especially Elmo's song. She will often sit quietly studying a toy... you can see the wheels in her head turning. She loves noodles, mashed potatoes, carrots, yogurt and ice cream but will eat pretty much anything. Hope you enjoy these Birthday Pictures... Jonathan has some great ones on his camera as well which he will probably blog soon.

Term 2

 November 18th was the last day of Term 1... our first term Homeschooling. Everything went really well... David is well on his way to meeting the Learning Outcomes for Kindergarten and is at a Grade 1 level for many things. We were very pleased with his first report card.

We are now into the 3rd week of Term 2 and things are continuing to go well. David is very eager to complete the alphabet from  his "All Aboard" Sing, Spell, Read & Write Curriculum. We usually do our school work before lunch and lately he has been asking to do more after lunch when we have already completed the days work.

This first picture is an example from "All Aboard" where you look at the picture and in this case find different things that start with the letter 'M.' We began Term 2 with letter "K" and are now completing letter "P." We have also been working on "Rhyming Words" this Term with more exercises from the "All Aboard" book.

 Term 2 Math began with familiarizing ourselves with blocks 2-9. (Last term we were working with 1, 10 and 100). Each block is a different colour. This week we have been using blocks 2-9 to begin learning basic addition.

Here are a few of David's Christmas Crafts. He insisted the ginger bread man wear underwear! We have been focusing a lot this month on learning the songs, poem and David's line for the church Christmas Pajeant which is taking place on Sunday. I hope to post a video of David and Angeline singing and saying the poem next week.

David is continuing to work on spelling his last name and writing his address. We are learning a song in English and French. We have been reading different prophecies and bits from the Christmas Story with our new advent calendar as well.

11 months

Last week Samara began month 11 and we have since been counting down the days until her first birthday. This year has gone by fast indeed and with kitchen renovations coming to a close and Christmas just around the corner the rest of 2011 is sure to go by in a blink. I had to take a few minutes to post a few pictures of my littlest Sweetheart (sorry for the red eye) because she has just changed so much lately. We have been in a bit of a battle lately trying to wean her but she did take a bottle last night after refusing it the night before. It is slow going and I am okay with that... just trying to keep us moving forward. Not sure if we will see some independent steps before her birthday but she is just loving pushing things around the house and walking around that way. She HAS to keep up with her brother and sister... including during school time. Angeline was colouring while David was working on his Math and I had to get a picture and crayon for Samara as well. You can't see them very well in the last 2 pictures but she is wearing her skinny jeans and they are SOOOOO CUTE!

Pumpkins

Last week we continued working on our alphabet and phonics with letter "G." For Math we continued working on learning Place Values for Units and Tens.

This week we had a lot of fun with dress up. It also worked out that this weeks letter was "H" for Halloween! We moved on to Unit 10 for Math continuing with Place Values. This week we added Hundreds. David is counting to 100 and can recognize, write and say all the numbers from 1-100 and beyond! Besides carving pumpkins we also measured David's pumpkin (his idea). It was 14.2 lbs, 36 inches around and 15 inches tall (to top of stem). David also memorized our address and it working on spelling his last name.

Now that November is here we are starting to work on some Christmas songs and a Christmas poem for our church's pageant. David also has a small line to memorize as wise man #2. We also made it back to Bible Study this week and are continuing in the book of Acts.

It has been a busy week.

3 Little Pumpkins

 David the Robot, Angeline the Skunk and Samara the Butterfly

The kids had a great time tick or treating with their neighbourhood friends. I didn't manage to get a group picture of everyone but here we are before we started off from Joel & Nathan's. I had my hands full with 3 so it was really great having the extra hands around to help out. Thanks everyone!

Moving towards FIRST Steps...

Sneak Peak

It has been 1 1/2 weeks since our old kitchen got demolished to make way for our new kitchen. Last week we stayed at Mom & Dad's for a few night while the dust settled (so to speak). On the weekend Mom and Al were here to help and this week we have been settling in to life as we know it.
I am pretty much living in our basement with a makeshift kitchen set up on our folding table. It hasn't been too bad cooking in a microwave and toaster oven. Throw in the pancake grill, rice cooker and slow cooker along with a little imagination and it is amazing what you can come up with. I DO miss my oven but once the cupboards are installed that will get hooked up again. My back does get a little sore doing dished in the tub but I keep saying that I have nothing to complain about because i have an endless supply of clean, running water. Mostly I am just looking forward to everything getting put away, cleaned up and to having my husband back again. Jonathan continues to work around the clock giving 110% at work and at home. He IS amazing. Just thought I would share this sneak peak photo of our floor, cupboard, paint and counter samples... the picture gives you an idea anyway... the blue looks a bit different in person... will probably look a bit different on the wall too. Don't tell me if you don't like it... we've already bought everything! I look forward to blogging the finished project hopefully mid November.

Field Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

It was a beautiful day for a field trip to the pumpkin patch. Grammy joined us for our adventure at Steveston Farm. We enjoyed a hay ride, live entertainment, farm animals, corn maze, fresh apples and chosing our own pumpkins straight from the patch. It was a really fun day. I didn't actually get a picture of David's pumpkin (in the picture I have he is holding up Samara's) but he is going to be measuring and weighing the pumpkins this week so I will try to get a picture of that. Now the countdown to Halloween is on... and then the countdown to Christmas begins.

6 years ago...

October 10-13

 From our SSRW "All Aboard" Language Arts book we covered letters B, C & D p.23-46

 This week for Math we covered Unit 7 (Number Recognition and Writing Numerals) and Unit 8 (Geometric Shapes:Triangles)

This is a picture of our classroom bulletin board. We talk about the months, days of the week, letter of the day, weather and it is also home to our Hundred Number Chart.

This week I introduced French to our weekly school time activities using a "Little Pim" DVD. "French In My Home" is number 4 of the series... introducing french words around the house... bed, toys, kitchen, couch, dog, cat, brother, sister... etc.

This week we read a LOT of library books. I am off to the library now to return some and borrow some more. I feel like each week we are more organized and settled into our routine. We haven't had much of a social life since School started but we are keeping really busy. Only 5 more weeks until 1st term is complete. If anyone has wanted to homeschool their children but felt overwhelmed at the thought I can say this... you can do kindergarten! I know I can do kindergarten (I should hope so) and we are taking it one year at a time.

October 2-6

When I left off we were about to start our Sing, Spell, Read Write curriculum. I LOVE IT! But more importantly David LOVES IT! (Angeline and Samara love the phonics song and I had to make Angeline a copy of the mat so that she can follow along). In the picture below you can see David's train which moves along the track as he progresses through the SSRW "All Aboard" book. David was enjoying school before we started SSRW... now he can't wait to get started in the morning.

 "All Aboard" has them write their name on each page, starts off with a variety of lessons... visual discrimination, following directions, alike and different, classification, complete the pattern, trace shapes, colouring, cutting, pasting.... everything! Then begins the alphabet. We had to start back at the letter A but I love the extensive instruction in the teacher video. David is learning everything from phonics to how to write each letter correctly... even simple things like holding his pencil the right way.

 Math is continuing to go well. We completes units 5 and 6. Unit 6 involved counting how many circles match the pictured circle, circle and say the correct number. Each unit finishes up with a review.

We actually had a short week last week because there was no resource centre on Friday and my Dad was here for a visit. We did start school yesterday again when everyone was enjoying Thanksgiving but we did have our holiday last week.

September

 This was my attempt at getting a picture of the 3 kids together. Hopefully Charlie has better luck on the 15th!

 One of those moments when David and Angeline were getting along so well. Not sure where they came up with the doubling idea but it works well on this tricycle.

Mmmm... we decided to buy a waffle maker. Chocolate waffles with strawberries and whipping cream. They were yummy! Samara thought so too but the pic we took of her and her first whip cream turned out blurry... we were probably laughing too hard.

Just thought I would add a few pics. We've been having lots of fun lately. We're getting serious about renovating our kitchen soon.  We are very excited but we have to make a lot of decisions in the next week or so. I'm hoping we can get it together quick enough that we don't have to have to stove unhooked for too long. I will definitely blog before and after pictures once it is complete. Really not sure when that will be.