Scott, you are so right! Sylvia is such a gangster. Here are a few pics of her with her “gangsta attitude”. I am sure I’ve even missed a few good ones.
This is her gangster hanging out pose.
“What up?”
Kickin’ back having a cold one.
Here is her “Oh no you didn’t” face.
Hangin’ with her posse.
This is a face you don’t want to mess with.
Isabel read over one thousand pages! To celebrate, Joey took her out to The Cracked Egg this morning for breakfast. She let me know that she never wants to do a reading chart ever again. She said that she doesn’t like it when she HAS to read. Hmmmmm. That is fine that she didn’t like the chart. It was merely a try on my part to get her motivated to read. She is a very good reader, but doesn’t crave books the way Luke does. If I could only find what genre she likes to read. Does anyone have any suggestions? Some kind of nice and easy chapter books for girls?
Today we went to the park and the kids played kickball and other games with a big group of other mostly homeschooled kids. Afterward we had lunch with some friends and then went to a duck pond to feed ducks. Yesterday we got a lot of hard core school work done (fun work though) so it was nice to be out in the sunshine for most of today.
Playing checkers with rocks and woodchips. Luke said, “Mom! Do you want to know how the game ended?! The woodchips blew away!”
Sylvia sat and ate snacks half the time.
Over the weekend everyone was sick except for Isabel and me. It was kind of nice because we got to go shopping together on Saturday and then to church on Sunday while everyone else was at home. With a newborn taking up so much of my time and then Sylvia demanding my time, I have to make a concious effort to spend quality time with Isabel. It scares me how much she loved going shopping. Then on Sunday before church, she pretended to be my fairy godmother while I was getting dressed (for the ball of course) and then I was her fairy godmother helping her get dressed.
I don’t worry so much about spending time with Luke because I feel that he needs more dad time. Maybe this week we should have the boys (I mean MEN of course) go to a movie together.
This is what Luke and Isabel were doing while I was taking a shower this morning. (Sorry for the potty humor.)
Last night I watched the movie A Touch of Greatness. From the movie I was inspired this morning to let me kids learn through play. All morning Isabel was busy setting up a store in her room. She made signs labeling, “clothes”, “baby clothes”, “groceries”, et cetera and put them up around the room. Sylvia and I were her customers and she rang up our items on her cash register. Luke was very busy writing more of his story and drawing and scanning pictures to put up on his The Super Luke site. I am very impressed how he can do it all by himself.
Isabel has been requesting to have spelling words each week. I am using Super Teacher Worksheets because I like how it has fun spelling worksheets.
Sylvia “helping”
I wasn’t able to take very many pictures. Since I was so stressed the whole time about being incharge I forgot to get out the camera. All of my stress was for nothing. Even though there were eighteen kids over here on Friday, they were all so well behaved and got along so nicely with eachother. I had them play one game, exchange Valentines, eat sugar cookies and the rest of the time they played mostly outside. Now I need to start getting ideas for our March party.
Lately, every time I open the freezer there is some container filled with some kind of liquid (usually water thank goodness) being frozen. Sometimes there is a small toy that is being frozen inside, you never know. Today Luke had fun hacking at this Coke can to get out the cylindrical ice prize inside.
Before you read my story that I wrote (look out J.K. Rowling) here is the game. The kids sit in a circle (I will have eighteen home schoolers over here Friday…yikes.) In front of each child have one little prize, I am using new Valentine pencils, candy bars, little candy heart boxes and such. The rules of the game are that when they hear the word love (or loved, loves, etc.) everyone passes their prize to the left, when ever they hear the words (didn’t like, doesn’t like, etc.) they pass to the right. At the end of the story whatever they end up with is theirs.
Once upon a time twin boys were born to a loving mother and father. Although the twins, Mark and David, looked exactly the same, they were very different. Mark loved to play basketball, soccer, tennis and volleyball. David didn’t like throwing a ball into a hoop, he didn’t like kicking a ball, he didn’t like hitting a ball with a racket, he didn’t even like hitting a ball with his hands. It may sound as though David didn’t like very much, but he did love to catch bugs. He didn’t care if it was a butterfly, spider or a bumblebee, he loved all kinds of bugs. He didn’t like anyone to ever hurt or squish them. Although Mark and David had very different interests, in some ways they were also very much the same. They both didn’t like to be told what to do, they didn’t like pizza, and they didn’t like bedtime. They both loved to play checkers together and they especially loved getting into mischief (which their mom didn’t like.) But the best thing that they had in common was that they loved loved loved loved loved loved loved loved loved each other.
Sabrina School 