praying

One of several favorite activities I did with Natale was to pray for our school day. We combined our prayers with applying essential oils that would help with concentration and focus. Natale loved slathering my feet with oil. 

Now that the season of ministry to Nalale has finished I have been praying about what Abba has planned for this new season.

While driving home from the date farm I heard an program about a ministry called Safe Families. A foster care-type ministry through the church rather than through the government. Hummm....I emailed the initial contact information. 

Please pray with me as to if this might be the new path for my hiking this earth adventure.

shhhh....it's a surprise

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To Julie

 

Dear Julie,

Today Natale ate a mango for snack time. We talked about how much we both LOVE mangos. I told her how you get to eat fresh mangos right from the tree. We thought we would send you pictures about our mango-love conversation.

Love you more than Mango Smoothies,
Tia

PS Natale did the editing on the photo :)

PPS Note it is tricky to eat mangos when you are missing two front teeth!

fancy ladies

I'm thankful for the frequent appearance of these three in my home. Through our homeschooling  arrangement Natale has given so much back to me, Jen has become a friend whom I trust with my heart, and little Elli, with her afternoon visits, brings a delight like only a toddler can deliver.

thankful journal

When I started Kindergarten with Natalie we started our day with prayer, writing in her thankful journal, bible story and worship. We typically didn't get to math until after lunch. Much longer than it should have taken me I realized this was a mistake as the subject of math is the area that Natale struggles with and we were both tired by the time we got to numbers. So we switched things around....starting with prayer and then jumping right into math....writing and scripture studies sneak into our morning but for the most part math is the subject of the AM. Recently I read an article about the importance of counting your blessings, and teaching your children to do so as well....so we've brought the thankful journal (that only got used on a hit or miss basis) back into our morning. We use this activity to practice our classroom skills (just in case) so I write in my journal at the same time and it is a no-talking activity. I showed Natale how I started numbering my thanks after reading Ann Voskamps One Thousand Gifts book. We started at the beginning of her journal and read each page and numbered it. It was fun to look back together at her early writing and see how much she has grown.

I'm thankful for the chance to teach Natalie, 
for being able to use my teaching skills in a homeschool setting, 
and the delight it has been to incorporate the Father in my teaching.

blooming artists

Natale's friend Donna has been coming 2 or 3 times a month to attend drawing class with Natale. The class is a highlight for both girls and Donna has been heard to say that coming to my house is better than Peter Piper Pizza (think Chuck E. Cheese). We graduated to the lessons on still life recently. Each girl has a sketch book that they draw in but we have used large sheets of paper recently to help Donna with her tendency to micro-drawings. Although the girls have grown tremendously using the Drawing with Children strategy it's Donna's mother, doing the lessons alongside the girls that has been the surprise bloom (I didn't think to take her photo with her most recent drawing).

100 and counting

Another successful 100 Day celebration. 

Check....

And now off to the  airport 

to spend the weekend with my Aunt in Denver.

seven

Natale's turned seven on Friday.
We celebrated with a sweet girls-dolls-and-hats lunch at Sassy's Cafe and Bakery.

 

sukkot '13

 Our Sukkot location this year, being just six miles 'round the mountain, allowed the perfect opportunity to involve Natale. Being the salve driver-teacher that I am we still did math each morning but then headed to camp for the afternoon.

Natale did a bit o' hiking, had an archery lesson from the park rangers, had a private dance lesson, and built a candy sukkah. Her favorite part however, was plain old non-adult directed playing with the other children.

alphabet cookies

Just the other day Jay came home from our favorite discount grocery store with another box of organic alphabet cookies....just in time for Tessa's visit. Apparently she had a packet of homework from school but it never made it to my house. We sat down one afternoon for a highly motivated reading lesson. 

I pulled one handful of cookies out of the box at a time. We reviewed the letter sounds and stopped to watch our alphabet sounds video when we stumbled across a letter or two that were still giving her trouble (slippery N and Y). I put the cookies in alphabetical order on the counter in front of us, made a two or three letter word and we worked on blending the letter sounds together to figure out the word. 

Once she read the word she wrote it, then got to eat the word. Another handful of letters and on we went for a LONG time. Those cookies have amazing focus power. 

Sometime as the afternoon wound down I noticed the wonderful light coming in the window and started snapping pictures. What fun expressions. 

After we had read, written and eaten all the vowels we went back and reread each word that she had written....resulting in, you guessed it, eating the excess consonants. I was glad the cookies were organic as by the end of the lesson she had almost eaten the whole box. 

But that's what Grandma's are for, right?

 

doggy

Natale's doggy echos the Velveteen Rabbit story. His fur has been loved off from 6 years of snuggling. Yesterday doggy accidentally stayed behind when Natale went home. Natale was not happy with the situation at first but enjoyed the text messages I sent updating her on doggies evening. When she arrived this morning she found doggy snuggled in a blanket on the couch with a note he had written her about his adventures.

40 nights and 40 days

Natale and I have been reading and rereading the story of Noah in a variety of versions from our large collection of children's bibles.  

Natale has practiced her reading skills while reading Noah's Big Boat from the Read-Aloud Bible Stories book.  

We counted 40 days marking a raindrop for each day on our calendar. We have listened to songs about Noah and watched Noah videos on YouTube. 

On Tuesday we measured 450 feet down our dirt road to get a feel of the size of the boat.  

On Wednesday Natale dictated her own retelling of Noah's story while I typed on the computer. We did some revising by reading a story of Noah after her retelling while she listened to see if there were details she hadn't included that would improve her story.  

After revising I unfurled a long sheet of paper and invited Natale to draw the ark. Natale drew the big boat while I printed and cut her story. Together we glued the words to her picture.  

After coloring the rainbow she drew Noah and his family along with some animals while I flipped through magazines and clipped more animals to fill the boat.

We've had a wonderful time with Noah but I believe I hear babbling in the distance.

ps

I sent a quick email to Julie this morning when I found a recipe I thought she would like. Natale was sitting on my lap as I typed and I invited her to write her own note to Julie. She wrote about the cupcake class she had taken. After she pushed the send button she remembered something else she wanted to tell Julie. We talked about PS and sent a second email and a picture...

der jole i frgot to tel you that i lost mi tooth. see mi pekshr  ?

natale

jingle bells

Natale loves music. She regularly makes up songs almost absentmindedly as she is working or playing. She quickly memorizes words to song that she find attractive and desperately wants to play instruments. For her birthday I gave her a little melody harp with music that slips under the strings and maps out which string to pluck to make a song. While shopping for toys for Mexico this spring I ran across a set of colored hand bells. When Natale discovered that some pairs of bells sound better together than others we used that to write a color-coded hand bell concert. 

As fall was approaching I encouraged Natale's mom to check out a church in the area that has an fine arts school that offers all manner of interesting classes.  Natale went to her first intro to music class two weeks ago. They learned tThree Blind Mice on a Glochenspeil (xylophone set up like a piano keyboard). Natale has been playing the song on the keyboard in our worship room all week. 

Last night I got to go to the class with Natale. There are currently 5 other five to eight year olds in the class. The instructor is a retired music teacher and did a lovely job. She had a little song called Peanut Butter Pie that she taught the class. Each time the song mentioned Peanut Butter Pie they would tap out a specific rhythm she had taught them. First with their hands on their legs. Then with their feet standing in place. Then with their feet moving about the room. Then with the instruments. Each time the group mastered the task she would switch it up a bit to keep them thinking. 

Because I was able to watch the class from the back of the room I will be able to reinforce the concepts that were taught in the class and maybe eventually extend into some beginning piano lessons.

10 fingers...

Natale is a right brain person; story telling, drama, dance, music....
she's all over it. 










 Numbers, on the other hand (pun intended) that's not a tune she sings unbidden. Although we have done lots of manipulates and there have been some light bulb moments, we still frequent the basics regularly. 

When I realized number conservation of fingers on her hand is still a little slippery (needing to recount fingers in case the number may have changed since the last time) I came up with this hand-print math project that has been fun, challenging and hopefully helpful in making things stickier.

Have I mentioned lately how much I enjoy homeschooling?

first grade

Tuesday Natale and I did school together for the first time in a month. I decided it would be a good time to make her promotion official although her reading skills crossed the line several months ago. She missed school so much she was requesting "old favorites" and complained when her mom came to get her at 5:30 that the day had gone too quickly.

missing

I won't be the only one missing having Tessa being at part of our family each week. Lily has become attached to Tessa after she discovered that Tessa would frequently stop what she was doing for belly rubbing visits. 

Yesterday was our official last day of school together. Tessa's family leaves for Texas on Sunday.

store

 Monday was the last day Tessa and Natale will have school together. Natale is head on vacation and Tessa is moving to Texas. I wanted the girls to have a fun day together so we played store. 

Natale made signs while Tessa and I worked on pricing empty food containers. Both girls worked at making one dollar bills. They traded roles between shopper and store keeper and had a great time