A New Coat for Anna

This week we are reading A New Coat for Anna by Harriet Ziefert. Today we took our measurements like the tailor in the story and compared G's measurements against mine. Then we went out for a nature walk to collect different colored items for dying yarn. We collected grass and leaves for green, we found one dandelion for yellow, we found some unidentified berries for orange, and we used a teabag we found in the kitchen for brown. Here's a picture of our yarn soaking in the hot colored water:

Here are our results:

Top to bottom: Dandelion, grass, berries, tea. The yarn running vertically is the undyed yarn. We concluded that of the materials we used, the tea worked the best.

Happy Birthday Mommy!

G worked for a couple of hours altogether on my birthday present this year. When he was finished, he presented me with a box full of rolled up papers tied with yarn. On each one he had drawn a picture. I loved it! Here are some of my favorites. They are just too cute not to share.

The stages of plant growth:

Monster Jam...he's never been, but wants to go.
A vampire bat, his latest interest.

Shrek

God...he is big!

Of course, "I luv cats".
"I luv Gezus".

Making Valentines

G had fun making valentines for some online friends. I counted this as handwriting time since he had to write the recipient's name and his own name on each one. He has a tendency to write in very tiny letters. It took some coaching to get him to write big enough that his friends could actually read it. :-)

Please Excuse My Absence

It has been almost 2 weeks since my last post. Can you say "home buyer's stress"? We are in the process of buying a home and it has had its easy, walk in the park days. Those are over. We are now in the home stretch. You know the one, the stress-filled days of last minute glitches and a seemingly impossible deadline over our heads. The days where you are half-packed but still not sure that you will actually be moving. Ugh! Brighter days will be ahead...right? Please?

At least G is learning the real life lessons that go along with buying a home: the roller coaster ride that it is, the real, and raw stress that goes with it. I can't help feeling bad, though, that he has to go through it right along with us. Stress is not easy to hide.

Long story short: I should be back up and blogging by mid February for sure.

A New Twist on Phonics

I really like the Explode the Code Online program we've been using for phonics. G, on the other hand, isn't so impressed. So, I've decided to mix it up a bit. We'll still do ETC Online 3 days a week, but the other two days we'll get more creative. A few days ago I made up some sight word flash cards and each time G read the word correctly, he got to jump from one stool to another (it doesn't sound that exciting, but G LOVED it!). When he got through the whole set of flash cards without any problems, his reward was a picnic lunch on the living room floor, something he also LOVES. Worked like a charm!

Today, I took those same flash cards and had G write his sight words on the patio with chalk. His idea, and again, he loved it.

All Tied Up!

G learned to tie his shoes today!!! High-fives all around! It's crazy how excited I am about this. :-)

Bedtime Drawings

He was supposed to be going to sleep, but couldn't resist the urge to draw. Looking around his room, he spotted his Mickey Mouse ears and he had his subject.