Let's do the SALSA

Peyton is doing copywork here.  Oh how he loves to do copywork.  We are doing Australia for an International Festival on Saturday.  He had to copy 4 or 5 topics (each one page or less) on Australia.  The festival has about 20-30 families doing a country.  I will post pics on Saturday after it's over.  However, copywork is something we do everyday in our school work.  I usually do at least one sentence at this point because it takes him a while to just copy one sentence.  Copying a page was a lot for him.   He actually writes pretty well.

I found a free Spanish curriculum online that I think is a great program.  It is called SALSA.  The lesson plans are on the Wyoming Dept. of Education website, and the video's are on the Georgia PBS website.  A little odd, but whatever works. ;) The video's that go along with it are about 15 - 25 minutes.  Each episode is supposed to take 2 weeks to cover.  The episodes cover a well known story.  The first one is Ricitos de Oro y Los Tres Osos.  Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  The lesson plans are great.  They are very detailed and they have worksheets that go along with it.  Ashley likes watching the videos too.  When they say the Spanish words, she says it along with them.  She knows 'hola', 'hasta luego', 'uno', 'dos' & 'tres' really well.  I was going over the words with Peyton after he watched the episode, and one of the things I was reviewing was the word DURA, which means HARD.  When Ashley heard me say dura, she said "no, it's MY DORA."  Peyton said it a few more times because he thought it was funny and then she went and got her Dora guitar and said "it's MY DORA."  That girl is a ham!

Our little princess

Ashley colors or plays with play-doh while we do
our lessons.  I have to keep her busy and let
her in our room or I'll just go crazy trying to
keep her out. ;) 

Ashley got a new Dora guitar.  It is her new favorite
toy, which means it's her collateral that I use to
get her to do what I want.  She was singing and
dancing along with it.  It's so cute.

Our princess has a crown, earrings, shoes, wand & a purse

Museum of Natural Science

I signed Peyton up for some classes at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.  He gets one science class a month.  It was $60 for one class a month for the calendar school year.  We get in the museum free that day, so I thought it was a good deal.  It gets all 4 of us in free.  The pictures I took INSIDE the museum were blurry.  Peyton is here with his friend Samantha (Sam).  This is right in front of the entrance.  The picture below is me with Ash & Peyton.  Ryne didn't want to join us.  The class was an hour long.  We were there for about 3 hours.

Peyton & Samantha Gaylor

Safety Day

A girl scout troop put on a Safety Day so they could earn their Bronze and Silver awards.  It started at 9 and went until about 2:00.  In the morning they had stations set up to teach the kids about house safety, pool safety, first aid and stranger danger.  Although the stranger danger was for the 3 & 4 year olds.  I tried to get Peyton to go listen to the policeman, but he didn't want to go over there.  We had to leave in the middle to take Alex to the airport.  After we came back, they had an area set up so the kids could practice safety with bikes, walking, practicing calling 911, putting on band-aids and the like.  I was impressed with their creativity of making buildings and cars and other things from cardboard boxes.  

They made a stop light out of reflectors they found at the 

dollar store. 

They practiced calling 911 under different
circumstances.

 

Alex with Ryne & Ash

Alex with Peyton just before going into the airport

Cub Scouts, flag football, co-op, park days, therapy & field trips, OH MY!

It has been a busy week for us.  We are in our 4th week of school and are full fledged busy!  

Monday's Peyton has co-op enrichment classes from 9-12.  Ryne & Ash go into the preschool if I am helping out or teaching a class.  Peyton is taking 3 classes.  Each class is 1-hour.  He is taking Creative Expressions, Phonics and Games.  Creative Expressions is a show and tell class that helps the kids learn to speak in front of others.  They have story time in that class as well.  The Games class is fun.  They play all the childhood games you remember.  There are 13 kids in that class.  Last week they were doing log rolling races.  They had to get from one end of the room to the other by rolling like a log.  I think only one child actually went in a straight line.  They also played "Doggy, doggy, where's your bone."

After co-op, we went to the park up the street where some of the other families go.  They have lunch and play on the playground.  There is lots of sand on the playground, so the kids always have a bath when they come home.

We had our first Cub Scout pack meeting on Monday night.  Peyton was so excited to get a lot of belt loop awards that he earned from going to Boy Scout Day Camp in the summer.  We were late because AT&T was at our house finishing up trying to fix our pixelation and pausing problem with our TVs.  They introduced the fundraiser...selling popcorn.  I got a DVD to watch about it.  Peyton has watched it 4 times and is excited to sell popcorn.  I don't know if I'm happy about that or not.  I am not a fan of fundraisers.  If he wants to go to the neighbors, he will have to do some of the talking.  I'm not sure he will do well because he can't even ask the HEB line clerks for HEB buddy bucks.  HEB is a grocery store.  Buddy bucks are little paper money used in a claw machine that grabs balls with a sticker in it that has a number on it.  They get prizes if they get so many points.

These ducks waddle over as soon as we
pull up to the area by them.  The ducks
with the red faces are Muscovy Ducks.
Peyton thought they were roosters when
we saw them for the first time (from a
distance.)

Tuesday's Ryne has therapy.  He has occupational therapy at 9am and speech therapy at 10:30am.  His speech program is 2 days a week for 1 hour and 45 minutes.  I think he likes it, but he cries every time I leave him.  It's getting easier for him.  He is always super excited to see me when I come back, which makes up for the crying when I leave him. :)  He has always had a little separation anxiety when leaving me, and he has been going to therapy for more than 2 years.  There is a pond at the school, and there are a lot of ducks at this pond.  We feed them when we have stuff to feed them - from inside the van, they scare us a little as some of them are a bit aggressive ;).  They all waddle over to get the treats.  It reminds me of a pack of dogs waiting to be fed treats.  This one duck pants like a dog for the food, so he gets the most because it cracks us up!  Who knew ducks panted!

Peyton had flag football practice at 5:30.  He likes it, but having to wear a mouth piece has him totally distracted.

Wednesday, Peyton had a dentist appointment to have sealants on his back molars.  After that I went to Office Depot to get a 3-hole punch.  I was wishing I had my double stroller when I went in there because I hate using carts with Ryne & Ash.  They climb all over them and don't stay put.  While I was looking at a 3-hole punch, Ashley decided to try to climb out of the cart thinking the floor was right there.  She fell out of the cart and hit her head on a corner of one of the bottom shelves on the floor.  I picked her up right away and yelled for help.  Peyton told me he couldn't look at her, so I knew she was bleeding without looking at her.  I ran to the front of the store and saw 3 or 4 clerks at the front of the store.  I knew it looked bad by the looks on their face.  They were very helpful.  Ashley was bleeding pretty bad.  I had to throw the shirt I had on away.  Luckily her wound clotted rather quickly.  It took about 5 minutes.  She was a pretty good sport.  They gave her some gummy bears, so that helped.  The puncture wound wasn't bad enough for stitches.  She fell asleep on the way home.  I turned on the radio, and she woke up to say "TURN THAT DOWN!"  I wasn't too worried about a concussion after that. :)  I took her to Chris' work to get his opinion on going to the ER and he said he didn't think she needed it.  Also calling a friend who is a nurse helps calm the nerves.  Cami always had great advice.  Thanks Cami.

We missed park day that we normally do on Wednesday afternoons from 2-4 because of the accident.  I taught Peyton how to load the washer and take the clothes out of the washer and put them in the dryer.  We have a clothes sorter that sorts the laundry by color...whites, lights/medium & darks.  It is a wonderful thing.  I thank flylady for the suggestion.  When one of those is full, we do that color.  But the clothes are already sorted, so sorting clothes is already second nature for him.  Peyton is a good helper.  He puts most of the dishes away every day, loads the dishwasher, feeds the cats (and the skunk that has been hanging around for a month around the neighborhood), and makes his bed.  Yes, we have seen the skunk eating the cat food at night a few times when they haven't eaten all their food that we give them.  We have started taking the cat food in at night.

Thursday Ryne had speech from 10:30-12:15.  Peyton's International Festival partner, Samantha & her mom came over to work on our Australia project.  Our homeschool group puts on an International Festival every year.  It is next Saturday.  I think there are 20-25 families doing it.  Each family picks a country to educate others about.  So we have a display board, the kids will dress up in a costumer, and we will make something that is popular in that culture to eat.  Peyton really wanted to do China, but that was taken.  He had to do copy work today for this project, which he doesn't really enjoy because it takes a long time to copy a paragraph since he is only 6.  They colored a few things.  He has to paint a bamboo stick that we are using as a 'Digidooroo"  They painted some boomerangs that we cut out of foam a few weeks ago.  This has been a fun experience.  Him and Sam get along well so it's been fun.

This was the tour guide.
The man on the left is controlling the music that is playing.

Peyton is standing by an Elephant Hindu god, I think.
His hair is crazy because he wanted it 'ON FIRE'

Today (Friday), we went to the Indonesian Cultural Center.  That was really neat.  It took about 40 minutes to get there since I actually got on the pay-toll road (for the first time ever) and about an hour to get back home.  I wanted to make sure I wasn't late.  I was 15 minutes early.  I may have been late had I dealt with all the lights on the feeder road.

The field trip was really nice.  They let us tour the room with all the pictures, nic nacs and educational things to educate you about Indonesia.  After we toured the 1st floor, we went up to the 2nd floor.  They had a music room and they let the kids play with the instruments.  Then we went downstairs, they had some appetizer foods of their culture, did a dance and let the kids play a song with the instruments.  I am attaching a video of the song.  I was in the back, so it's for listening, not seeing what is going on. :)

There is a bike behind this cart.
They said these aren't used very much
anymore in the big cities because they
have modern transportation.  They are still
used in some areas.

I found these butterfly wings at the Dollar Tree.
Ashley has to wear them everywhere. ;)

Peyton is standing in front of some wooden
puppets they use to tell stories with.

This is their music room on the 2nd floor.
They let the kids play with the instruments
and on Saturday's at 2:00, they teach people
 who want to learn to play  the instruments (free of charge). 

They gave all the children this instrument to play.

I tried to get all 3 of them to stand by each other,
this is the best I could do.

These 3 dancers did a dance for us, called the
Peacock Dance.  Their head dresses have
peacocks on them, and their costumes
had peacock eyes on them.

Ryne is in timeout here.  He kept running off and going up
the stairs. The picture is a little blurry, but he looks so grown up.

This is the video of all the kids playing the instruments.  They did a great job after only practicing for 5 minutes. ;)  Hit the triangle to watch it.