snow boys

Our first major snowstorm of the season, plus the preparations for our weekend celebrations, has left me without time to write, but with plenty of opportunities to take photos. Enjoy our holiday postcards to you!

snowy farm scenes

making a lasting difference

We had an ice storm today. Long-time readers of this blog will know how much I detest ice storms, so I won't go there. But needless to say, we spent the day indoors, filling our time with Adventure Circle, relay races, story time, painting, crafting holiday gifts, and enjoying a nice, long, peaceful rest. As the day was drawing to a close and we were awaiting The Map Man's arrival home, Zoo Boy turned to me and said:

"Mommy, when I grow up, I'm going to do what you do."

"Oh, yeah?" I said, "You want to be a dog trainer?"

"No, not that, " he replied. "I'm going to do all the practice stuff with my kids."

Aw, my little dude wants to homeschool his kids! Talk about warming the cockles of my heart....

a visit with Santa

This post is quite photo-heavy, so don't get discouraged if it doesn't load right away, just be patient, the pics are worth it!

We let our friends T and D in on our favorite holiday "secret" this year -- visiting the REAL Santa Claus at his workshop in Manchester, CT. The kids excitedly made a dash for the building when we arrived, on an unusually mild afternoon.

The kids scrambled into Santa's sleigh and pretended to drive it.

First stop inside was at the Head Elf's office, where they were put onto Santa's list, along with what they want Santa to bring them most of all.

The kids posed for a snapshot by the fireplace. Since it was such a warm day, the fire was very small, otherwise poor Santa would have roasted inside that warm cabin!

Zoo Boy has some private time with Santa. They talked for quite awhile, "about secret stuff, " the Boy explained to me later. Then Santa gave him an apple (which I had already pre-coached him to accept graciously, even though he's not shy about making it known that he does NOT like apples). He eventually handed his apple off to me, but not until he was out of Santa's sight, because he didn't want to hurt his feelings.

J gets in his face-time with the bearded fella. He thought hard when Santa pressed him for something else he wanted him to bring (other than the Lego Agents set he asked for), but couldn't come up with anything else. So Santa said, "How about a few surprises?" Which he thought was a GREAT idea. He gobbled up his apple before we even left the workshop.

D decided she'd rather not talk with Santa, but did accept an apple from him. Let's face it, it's pretty intimidating to come face-to-face with a living legend!

Then the kids visited with Mrs. Claus in her kitchen, where she fed them cookies and cocoa (and had coffee for the parents as well -- she thinks of everything, that Mrs. Claus). She did ask us one favor -- she said that Santa eats SO many cookies while on his rounds that often she needs to give him an alka-seltzer when he gets home, so she requested that if we leave him cookies, we only leave him a few. Apparently the jolly ol' dude has no self-control and will gobble up anything that is left out for him. So we promised that we would just leave him a couple of cookies rather than a whole batch.

We spent some time watching the elves making toys.

The Claus's Christmas tree. I actually couldn't fit the entire thing in the photo, despite the fact that I was practically in Santa's lap all the way across the room from it. It's just THAT big. You'll just have to trust me when I say that there were plenty of gifts underneath it. Apparently Mr and Mrs Claus were also very good this year, as they seem to have done just fine in the gift department!

We finally ended our visit, and the kids skipped happily off to the playground. "It's good that Santa has a playground," commented Zoo Boy.

Yes, it sure is.

week #13 (vowel introduction week)

(The boys working diligently on their Cuisinaire Rod Workbook during practice time this week.)

This week was absorbed by our introduction to the vowels via the Enki Education story "The True Name of the King". You can read details about our week here, here, here, here, here, and here.


(The kids constructed some sort of race track with the cardboard packaging material from our new Reverse Osmosis filtration system.)

The bizarre December weather (which seems to have been a trend for several years now), going from ridiculously cold, to ridiculously rainy, to ridiculously cold again left a lot of ice on our property by the end of the week, and kept us indoors for a vast majority of the time. Fortunately we had our Perfect Gifts Adventure Circle to keep us hopping, and we added sensory-rich relay races to up the indoor energy-expenditure.


We did get out for some museum classes about the toys and games the kids in olden times played with. J also took Grace to her Puppy Kindergarten class on Thursday night, where he did a swell job of working her. He's been training her daily here at home as well.


(The kids work on addressing envelopes to the jolly fat man.)

For practice time, Zoo Boy worked on reading "Prickly Porcupine", another Smithsonian Institute book for Level 1 readers, while J continued to read "Dinosaurs Before Dawn," the first in the Magic Tree House Series by Mary Pope Osborn. We also began incorporating Speech Therapy "homework" practice for Zoo Boy. And the boys worked on Origami creations and played around with their Tangrams as well.

(The boys' envelopes, J's on top, proving that Zoo Boy CAN print legibly as long as he has the proper motivation -- in this case the fear that the postal worker won't be able to get his letter to the right guy!)

Story Time stories this week were It's Winter!, by Linda Glaser, illustrated by Susan Swan; Bear Stays Up For Christmas, by Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman; and Christmas Trolls, by Jan Brett.

i -- vowels, part 6

From gnomes and plants and flames so high,

I learned the ways of all of life.

The true name must long endure

This I know both well and sure

With royal cloak I stand on high

And raise my spear to pierce the sky.

The answer does within us lie

The true name of the King is "I."

-from "The True Name of the King", Enki Education Grade 1 Academic Story

We wrapped up our vowel introductory series today -- it's been such a great week! During the last part of the story yesterday, we discovered that the true name of the King was "I". Today we painted a star that represented all of the vowel sounds we learned about (one point of the star for each vowel sound), with a multi-colored "I" in the middle where all the point colors meet, as "I" is a diphthong (it is made up of other vowel sounds -- ah-e).


The Map Man captured a photo of us working on painting our stars. As we painted each point, I recited the story verse that pertained to that color/vowel.

As usual, I much prefer the kids' work, so I'm only showing close-ups of theirs:

Here's J's star. We drew the letters on with colored pencils rather than painting them on, as I suspected otherwise they would be unrecognizable.








Zoo Boy's star. I really like the way his star point colors meet in the middle, although it does make it a little more difficult to see his "I".






Here's how I've displayed all the kids' work from this past week. I will keep it posted until after the holidays, at which time I'll add them to their "good books". To "reawaken" the material later (at least a month from now), I will hang just the letters and star paintings I did, in the same configuration as in the first photo above.

It's been a fun week, but a long one -- we're taking tomorrow off before starting our final week of school work before breaking for the holidays.

a -- vowels, part 5

Then with all its might and main,

The blaze rose high in raging flame.

It raged and blazed until the day

And then the flames did fade away.

-from "The True Name of the King", Enki Education Grade 1 Academic Story

A fire fairy provided some assistance to the poor girl in the 5th segment of the story, leading her to believe briefly that the King's true name might be "Fire". But, alas, she was incorrect. The "red A" has a different sound and feeling than the "golden A", or "ah", that we were introduced to during the first segment.


My story painting, setting the fiery red mood for our "A"s. Zoo Boy was pretty critical, telling me that is NOT what fire looks like. Oh well! A mom can only try!






J's paintings.

Zoo Boy's impression of what fire REALLY looks like.

Today we read the final segment of the story, where the true name of the King ("I") is revealed. Zoo Boy was MOST displeased with the ending. He said "I? I? I? What kind of a name is THAT for a King!! I've never heard of a King named I!" I just shrugged my shoulders. "Eye? Or Aye? Or I? WHAT 'I' are you talking about?" I could see his confusion, so I took a piece of paper and wrote a nice bold "I" on it, and stuck it on our nature table. "I?!?!?" he sputtered, "A King can't be named a letter!" He eyed me with suspicion, and mustering his most accusatory voice, asked, "Did YOU write this story?" The tone of disgust in his voice clearly showed his opinion -- only I could come up with such a ridiculous story. Nope, I assured him, I most certainly did not write this story. He continued to mutter his discontent as I left the room, trying to give him the space he needed to process this apparently disappointing twist of fate. Behind me I heard J start to work with the concept via play, setting up some figures and silks and announcing "The true name of the King is 'I'!" to the rejoicing of the crowd, gladly crowning their new ruler.

Tomorrow we wrap the story up with one final recall and painting, then put the whole thing to the "rest" until sometime in the new year.