Apple Unit

Here's a very low-tech video of our Apple Unit. We read the Galations verse everyday and then sing the song...and Timothy usually demands to do the song more than once ("let do it again...").

We made applesauce last Friday and it was delicious. He loved it!! Strangely, I just pulled the blender out the dishwasher and Timothy asked "Where's my applesauce??!!" He remembered the applsauce from five days ago!

Little Reader Chinese

Timothy loves Little Reader and we do, too!! It's fantastic!



There are many, many different presentations in Chinese, so we show them often. Lately, though, on the fruit unit (which goes along with our homeschool unit) Timothy started repeating the Chinese fruits. We never asked him to. In fact, Doman implies that it's better if the child doesn't. But he started repeating the words on his own, so that's fine with us.

School Time Pictures

Short Story: Just Pictures Today.

Long Story: I made a super cute video of Timothy doing school time and added pictures and graphics to it. I saved it to the computer, waited 40 minutes to upload, and then it was rejected because my music was under copyright. So I'll have to make it again sans music.

For now, just pictures.

Thank You, Travel Channel (for nothing)

In the evenings when we're winding down we sometimes watch the Travel Channel or Food Network. We had recorded a special on Orlando and Timothy happened to see this restaurant.

Now he's just GOT to eat there. How do I know?

He said this: "Mommy, I must eat with those dinosaurs. It's urgent."

Little Reader

When I read experiences of Doman parents from the 60's and 70's, I read of moms cutting up magazines and spending hours in the library researching facts. I remember thinking how much easier it is for me to do Doman, with the World Wide Web at my fingertips to look up facts (POI's) and tons and tons of great quality images online.

Life has just become even easier, though.

The site billkids.com has a program called Little Reader. It's somewhat similar to the Doman picture CDs, but even better. It flashes the word and then the corresponding picture for that word. The parent has the ability to customize lessons--turn on or off the sound, change the font, make every page a different color, etc. It's fabulous!! Timothy loves it.

Little Reader is $100 and completely worth every penny. However, it turns out that we didn't have to spend a penny on it at all! If you upload files for Little Reader, you can earn points and extra points each time it's downloaded. It takes 10,000 points to be able to get Little Reader for free. So what this means is lots and lots of people are creating files for the Little Reader program--there are literally hundreds of ready-made presentations to choose from.

This week is apple week and we're learning about the fruits of the spirit. I typed in apple and fruit and found the following files to download:
Fruits (in Chinese)
Fruit of the Spirit
Fruit Trees (Encyclopedic Knowledge)
Fruits (Reading)
Tropical Fruits of Southeast Asia (Encyclopedic Knowledge)
Fruits, Set 2 (Encylopedic Knowledge)

In five minutes, I had downloaded six sets of cards for this week. I didn't have to spend hours making them, I didn't have to pay anything, and I won't have to fumble with switching out these cards everyday. And Timothy begs to watch Little Reader.I am so, so glad that I'm doing Doman in this day and age and not 30 years ago. Imagine how much easier it is now! And just in the two years since I've been a parent, they've made more and more innovations that makes life even better.

So keep the great, educational, time-saving programs coming. I love em!!

Apple Unit

David took Timothy to the library to get some books for the apple unit. He kept picking out books and saying "This one's my favorite book!" Then he'd find another one and that would be his favorite book.

They also picked up a documentary on apple farming. Timothy's watched it three times. He absolutely loves it. I wish there was an apple orchard nearby that we could visit.

We read a book today on how the apple tree grows, from seed to apple. I wasn't sure Timothy "got it." David got me some roses for Valentine's day and they're not looking too good now. A rose fell onto the table, and Timothy looked at me and said "When the flowers fall off, apples grow!" That was one of the things we read in our book. Unfortunately, when my flower fell off, all I got was an empty stem....

Because...

Tonight, Timothy asked me if we'd get more leaves for school time tomorrow. I told him we were finished with leaves, but that we were going to learn about apples.

Timothy said "Apples? Apples?? I already know about apples!"

I giggled and asked him what he knew about apples.

His answer?

"February."

See, his answers don't always make sense. He took chocolate millk and just dumped it on himself and on the floor. When I asked him why, he said "Because I need a new shirt." When I asked him why he didn't like his tortilla he said "Because I have Valentine candy."

Makes no sense to me.

Last Photo of Cute-ness

Enjoy this look while you can, because the next picture you see won't look anything like our Timothy.

I let Timothy spend the night with his grandma and grandpa last night and Timothy's grandma took it upon herself to give him a haircut. She doesn't like boys in long hair and mentioned that several times, but eventually just took matters into her own hands and butchered my poor boy's hair. The only way to fix it will be to cut it all off and give him the standard little boy haircut.

I just cried when I saw it. I know it sounds silly, but I loved his hair. Old ladies would smile at him all the time in the grocery store and say how cute his hair was. We let his hair grow out for months and months to get our standard Timothy look, and now he doesn't look like himself at all.

I'm so sad!

Math and Reading Update!!

Well, I have exciting news!

We have a program called Little Reader than I keep meaning to review but haven't yet. Put simply, it's awesome. I absolutely love it...and so does Timothy!! You have so many options. You can play words, words with pictures, videos, turn the sound on and off, change the font color, make it fast or slow. I love all the choices!!

They just released a beta version of Little Math, so I just had to try it. Timothy had never seen any Little Math before because I had just downloaded it. I had the sound off and was going through the slides when Timothy said "Nineteen!" Sure enough, there were nineteen dots on that page. So I was super excited.

The next day, I was doing the action words presentation with Little Reader with no sounds. Timothy read the word "hug" all by himself!!

The slides are random, so it's impossible for your child to just learn the order. My kid read a word and identified nineteen dots. I was so proud!!

Robot Sharks

We're going on a 9-day vacation to Orlando, FL in mid-March...and we're driving the whole way!!

Jimmy's super excited because he gets to bring 2 friends along, and the excitement has transferred to Timothy. They talk about Florida at least five times a day. When we were leaving the store the other day, Timothy said "Don't go home, go on vacation!!"

Timothy knows that we'll be driving alllll day. He knows that we'll ride rides and see fish when we get there. And he knows that we'll get to see Barney.

We've been watching YouTube videos of some of the rides so that Timothy can decide if he wants to ride them. I thought he would really like the Jaws boat ride at Universal, as it doesn't have a height restriction. I told him that some people would be scared but there's no reason to be scared, because the shark isn't real. It's just a robot.

Timothy looked at me and said "It's a robot shark? That does sound scary, mommy"

Leaf Unit

Here are some pictures from school recently. Hundreds Chart

We cross of a number each day. When we get to day 100, we get to have a party with cake!!

Our Plant

See the leaf who wanted to go all by himself? He's not doing so well. We've been checking it each day, but it's certainly not looking too good.

Chia Alligator

This thing has been nothin but a pain since we got it. I thought these were supposed to be so easy to grow!! Not so much...


Leaf Craft

Painting around a leaf to get the outline

Leaf

We've had a crazy week last week, but everything's going just great.

Timothy's loving the leaf unit. His chia pet is finally growing (pictures to come), and the leaf that didn't want to be a part of the plant is not looking too good. It's been a fun unit. We painted leaves. We made leaf rubbings. We're still going to make a stained glass leaf window thingy. Fun times!

Sick :-(

We have a sick boy!!

Timothy was running a fever and wanted to lay down and watch tv, so I put on a head-wrap "Be Koool" gel sheet that's supposed to reduce fever. That was ten minutes ago, and now he's up...not playing, but sitting up. He said "I feel much better."

I guess that works.

Tell me a story...

Today, I was on the floor pretending to go to sleep. Timothy said he was going to go to sleep, too, and he patted my head. I asked him to tell me a story and he did:

"Once upon a time, little baby -- the end."

I'm still chuckling about that one!!