Knitting a Family

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Wrapping up Reading

This is the first week of May and our last official week of school for the year! EM and JR have been wrapping up their Language Arts programs, so I wanted to write down some thoughts about the year.

EM used Abeka's 2nd Grade Language Arts program very successfully. My biggest goal for her for second grade was that she would learn to read fluently. I believe Abeka has helped her to accomplish this! She went from struggling to sound out words at the beginning of the year to reading smoothly with good comprehension at the end. She has even learned to enjoy reading and has read several non-picture books on her own. I couldn't really ask for more!

Some cons about the Abeka program: The spelling lists didn't explain spelling rules, so it was a memorization-only type program. Once EM mastered the special phonics sounds, the special sounds drills became busy work.

JR completed All About Reading Level 1 this year. It was a great continuation of where we left off last year using AAR Pre-Reading. He can sound out single syllable, short vowel words and knows about 20 sight words. He was recently introduced to long vowels. AAR made the process of beginning to read an easy process and even fun on occasion! He especially enjoyed the games.

JR also used Explode the Code Online to reinforce phonics concepts. It has been nice because it's something he can work on independently. He enjoys using the computer, so that is a plus as well.

I plan on continuing to read with JR through the summer and having him continue using ETC so he doesn't loose ground.

I'm very proud of my 2nd Grade and Kindergarten graduates!

Our 2013 Garden

As soon as we returned home from Florida, the whole family was excited to start planting flowers and vegetables. Josh still had two days left of vacation from work so he got started right away building planter boxes. We now have two beautiful 6'x4' boxes that are a foot and a half off the ground - hopefully to deter rabbits!

This year we planted three different kinds of tomatoes, yellow bell peppers, broccoli. carrots, sugar snap peas, watermelon and cantaloupe. We also think we may have a pumpkin plant growing! EM planted some seeds from last years pumpkin in hopes that they would grow. The sugar snap peas and carrots were started as seeds and are already popping out.

Whenever Josh asks if there is anything I would like for Mother's Day, I usually go right for flowers! Our front flower garden has really taken off this year with all of the perennials we've planted in the last two years. The only plant that hasn't survived was the hyacinth.

This year we added window boxes to our front windows and they look so beautiful! I chose to fill them with pink and white geraniums and ivy.

My sweet family also gave me a beautiful hanging geranium pot, which has been claimed as a nest for mourning doves. We don't mind though, it will be so much fun to see! Hopefully they will allow us to water it once in a while.

EM and LD helped me make plant markers for our vegetables, didn't they turn out cute?!

Looking forward to lots of delicious things in the months to come!

Monday, April 29, 2013

Field Trip to Lake Katherine

Today was a gorgeous, sunny, 72- degree Monday. It was surely worthy of more than sitting inside with books and dishes. Thankfully my good friend invited ours and a bunch of other homeschool families to spend the day exploring Lake Katherine and having a picnic lunch at a nearby park. We really enjoyed it!

The wildlife were not camera shy. We saw turtles, ducks, swans, snakes, and even a squirrel mama carrying her baby.

EM ran away with the camera for a while. I love to see what she finds beautiful and picture worthy.

The egg EM captured. It was much bigger than a chicken egg, maybe a swan?

I tried to take a picture of all three kids looking at the stream.

So I wasn't close enough to catch LD before he fell in. There he goes!

Climbing on the same rock and sitting the same way his big brother did a minute ago.

It's so much fun to get together with a handful of moms and dozens of kids!

Monday, April 22, 2013

Brothers and Sister

I have a few memories of playing with my sister growing up, when we were getting along and enjoying each other's company. Most of my memories of our childhood relationship, however, include us teasing and torturing each other mercilessly. I thought that was just the normal relationship siblings were supposed to have. We are great friends now, and I'm very thankful that they have gotten over the torture I caused them in our childhood. :)

I'm not exactly sure why, but my kids seem to get along pretty great. Oh sure, they have their moments and for a long time I thought they would start fighting when they got older, because I thought that's what siblings did, but they haven't so far! (crossing my fingers) Maybe it's because they're home together all day and have each other as companions. Or maybe it's because they're pretty close in age and have similar interests. Whatever the reason, I'm enjoying it every day and so happy that they love eachother and love to be with each other.

Monday, April 15, 2013

Life with LD at 28 Months

My sleepy guy came down from his nap, cuddled up on my shoulder and fell back asleep for another two hours. It's been a long time since I've held a baby while he slept. Sweetness!

We got an Angry Birds puzzle for Easter and LD has put it together so many times that he can do almost the whole thing by himself now! He loves all things Angry Birds and is on a puzzle kick these days, so it's a hit.

Another napping picture - I went to check on him to see if he was awake or napping and couldn't find him in his room. He was in the corner behind his dresser and rocker surrounded by open books, sound asleep.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Signs of Spring in Monee

Last night I spent some time looking through old posts on this blog and I CAN NOT believe how much my kids have changed! I especially enjoyed stumbling upon something I wrote about or posted a picture of that I had already forgetten about. I resolved right then to get better at recording the special everyday things that make our family, our family.

About three weeks ago we had our first break in the winter weather and we started to feel signs of spring coming. Josh got home from work and said he had to take us to see something cool.

He took us to the Monee Resevoir to see the geese! There were thousands of geese as far as we could see, covering the lake and the land. They were taking a rest on their long journey home - a sure sign of spring!

We threw them cereal and crackers, but these geese were not used to people feeding them like the ones at the zoo. At first they were afraid to come close enough until one brave goose went for the bait. They must have realized we weren't trying to poison them because then they all goobled up our dry Kix.