Becca-isms

I can't keep up with this kid... here are some recent Becca sayings:

(This one's a little gross)

While we were out enjoying a shared dessert after a restaurant meal, Becca announced, "Mom, poop's formed in the large intestines." Imagine the look on my face when presented with that statement halfway through enjoying a bite of cheesecake! At least (as my mom pointed out) the restaurant was noisy so nobody else got a science lesson during dinner! We hadn't even been talking about the subject at any point during the day... totally random. Davey said, "Did she just say what I thought she just said?" Oh yes... she did.



We found an old (er, ancient) gem at our library, a video tape of Bill Cosby as Aesop doing a retelling of The Tortoise and the Hare. I couldn't resist the blast from my own childhood, so we checked it out and the girls watched it last night. Becca was especially fascinated and recited the moral of the story this morning: "Slow and steady wins the race." So I tried to draw her out and asked, "Where did you learn that? What story is that from?" She said, "Out there (pointing to the living room). Bobby Cox and Aesop's Fables!" [If you're not a baseball fan, Bobby Cox is the Atlanta Braves' manager - we're a hardcore Braves house here!]

It took me several minutes to catch my breath and tell her that that was Bill Cosby on the tape!

The flower and the bee...

Becca got an idea one day to make a play for her and Sylvia called "The Flower and the Bee." She wrote her lines completely by herself! Of course Sylvia was the bee, and Becca was a little chagrined that Sylvia couldn't write her own lines. Then Becca decided that Sylvia's lines were simple enough that they didn't need to be written.





Above is Becca's drawing of the "Plan!" I love how Sylvia always has curly hair, even as a bee!

Good things come to homeschoolers who ask!

I have wanted to start a timeline for our history studies for some time now, but have struggled to find something that was just right. I didn't want something too big and cumbersome, or too cluttered. I didn't want something that had a very religious focus, and I wanted it to be attractive and oh yes, inexpensive. Really, that's not too much to ask, is it? I was beginning to think it was.

Patience is not my strongest virtue, but I am very glad I waited around. I asked about timelines on the WTM message boards and got several links to great free resources, including this one where I printed my pages: http://www.ourlosbanos.com/homeschool/history/timeline.html

Okay, so I had the pages... now how to lay them out? Well, I got the idea to put them in a 3 ring binder from www.simplycharlottemason.com. So I hole-punched away, but I still lacked figures. All of my searching online kept bringing up some that looked beautiful, but seemed rather expensive. I made my wish list and just kept hanging on until today, when I noticed someone else asking about timelines. And who should answer but the queen of free resources, with a handy link to her own blog? There she demonstrated how she made her own timeline and used the resources found here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hannah_hs_helps/ .

Cue the angel choir!! My printer is busy as I type this, and I am excited to have found exactly what I need... without spending a lot of money! I don't mind some cutting, pasting, and laminating.

But frogs were so much fun!

Here's our final frog project - paper bag puppets. Sylvia's just beginning to figure out scissor usage, so I helped her out with the cutting after a frog tongue disaster. She ended up slicing her frog's tongue into about 3 different pieces, causing her to complain, "Oh, I broke my froggy's tongue!" Becca responded, "Did you rip it?" (Say that out loud... ripit... get it?)

Sylvia was very enamored of her finished object and named her frog (sorry Allison...) Bella. Bella is quite an animated frog despite her truncated tongue. She even ate the glue stick cap.

Bad froggy!

Leaps and bounds

Becca is learning so fast, it's hard to keep up with her! Even compared with a few months ago, she's showing more attention to detail in her work. When she colors pictures, she strives for accuracy or makes a color pattern if it's strictly decorative. I think she's over using crayons and much prefers colored pencils for all of her work, even over a larger area. In reading her a simple fable and asking narrative questions afterward, I discovered that she remembered several key points verbatim. She actually remembered them and wasn't reading directly from the page because I had the book out of her view!

We had a brief struggle with the concept of "number bonds" in her Singapore math curriculum, but addition of smaller numbers is coming easily to her right now. I bought an extra practice book to go with it, and we've gone back and done several pages of extra work on number bonds. I think it's sinking in.

We're wrapping up our frog unit in science this week. We slowed down some because we got a Grandpa visit last week! Our frog finale will be cupcakes and paper bag puppets.

In history, we're learning about Mesopotamian life. We'll be building a ziggurat this week as well. Today Becca colored in a beautifully detailed picture of a Mesopotamian sailboat and showed us how they sailed up and down the Tigris river to trade with mountain people for various needs. She also copied down some vocabulary words and definitions. She is determined to write them out herself, no matter what, so I dictate and help her spell everything correctly. One of the main crops in Mesopotamia was barley, so I found some pearled barley and made a simple breakfast porridge with it. It's not really chronologically correct though, so I've been on an extended hunt for barley flour!

She finished her first Handwriting Without Tears book today, the first grade level My Printing Book. We enjoyed some ice cream as a treat for that and for filling up her reading log for the library's summer reading program (45 books!). To make sure she gets a good amount of printing practice, I've bought her the next book in the HWOT series, Printing Power. The lines are closer together in this book and the words get more complex - just what I want for keeping Becca challenged!

She's also nearly done with Spelling Workout A. This has kind of felt like busywork to me - I'm not sure how much spelling she's truly learning from this, so I'm leaning towards changing her spelling curriculum. I haven't decided whether to go with All About Spelling or take a suggestion from some online HS friends and work from The ABCs and All Their Tricks. The latter is a comprehensive reference book for phonics and spelling. I found a copy at the library, so I'll look through it and see how I'd do teaching directly from that book.

Probably our biggest news isn't directly homeschool related - Becca has been invited to join the Hot Shots class in gymnastics!! The youngest age is 5, and I have to say I felt like she might be invited right away. I'm incredibly proud of her. I know she struggled when she first started, but she has learned how to concentrate and pay excellent attention to her coaches. She's brave and fearless and willing to try any new skill asked of her. I'm so glad she's going to continue to be challenged there. We're going to increase her to 2 classes a week, and this will be her main activity. It'll be especially nice since we won't be able to do Fine Arts Fridays.

Meanwhile... Sylvia's not going to be attending preschool. As of right now she's not going to be doing any special activities, and anyone who knows us well knows exactly why....

I also finally got my Latin books and I'm working on some self-teaching now.