Another Graduate Reader!

This picture is Dominik *today* eating a Sugar Daddy.  He decided it was too sticky, took it out of his teeth and threw it away.  Nice! 

But this post is really to announce that Dominik finished his reading program this week!  Here's a snippet of him reading from his 100th lesson (a weird story about a blind man hunting a tiger) in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. 

He started the book just over a year ago and has usually been eager to learn, but with homeschooling Lukas and Konrad, I didn't always make enough time for Dominik's reading lessons.  I'm glad we have the summer to work on cementing what he's learned, by reading more.  I've always found that going through the 100 lessons is the easier part...the harder part is to continue to have the child read to me to make sure they don't lose the skills they've gained.

Just like Konrad and Lukas, Dominik finished his lessons right around his fifth birthday.  Way to go Dominik!  I used the same lessons with Natalie, but only made it though about 40 lessons before deciding to let her kindergarten teacher take over.

Fun in the Snow

Now that the snow has finally melted (!) I'm getting around to posting more snow pictures.  There is still some snow, but it reminds me of spring with how cold it was for two weeks, then how warm it has been the past few days.  I hope the trees don't start budding!

The official mark at our home:  9 inches in about 36 hours.

Tom went under the house to put in some insulation where there was none (and found a gaping hole to the outside about 2 inches wide!  How was that there for 20 years?)  The boys thought it was great fun to explore under the house.

It was a dusty job so Tom resorted to a filter.

Then it started to melt (and freeze) so icicles formed...I love these on the trees!

We used our recess to look for animal tracks and try to determine which animal made them.  We found deer, fox and mouse.  And people and dogs.

Natalie's teacher said when a paper is stamped with "evidence", she uses that for a grade.  I'm not sure I agree with not using (nearly) every test for a grade, but it worked out well for Natalie!  She actually does do very well in spelling.

The heavy frost one morning coated the chicken fence.

We took advantage of a homeschool day at Birds of Prey...that's a REAL peregrine falcon on the perch that the kids got to use as a model to draw and paint. 

One of our cats is watching the bird on the bird feeder.  We used the recipe from our science book (we're studying birds this year) and at least one kind of bird is making good use of it.  Thankfully, the bird is too quick, but the cats caught at least one vole recently after the snow started to melt.

The field behind our property was filled with Canada geese.  This was an early photo...there had to be more than 500 eventually, then when the weather warmed up they all flew away.

Sledding time!  We dropped Natalie off at therapy and enjoyed a hill for sledding (Natalie's not missing anything because snow is not her favorite thing).

The boys found they went faster when there were two on the sled.

Geese on the wing over our home.

We celebrated our one-year-here anniversary with a trip to the same restaurant we ate the first night in town.

Here's another stellar spelling test from Natalie.  I don't know if I'm more proud of her spelling or her writing...it gets wrapped up all in to one here.  You know she is a great speller!

First Day of School

There was summer, and then it was time for school again.  I have more summer pics to post, but I'll post these now since they are from the past few days.

We celebrated the night before with dinner at Fuddruckers.

The kids played a few arcade games.

Is Natalie going to ask for a motorbike?

And then it was the actual Back-to-School day!  The kids like it when I write on their bathroom mirror.

They wanted to pose with the cats...we left the chickens in their pen.

Natalie copied her brothers and started to ride her scooter out to the bus...

...but she couldn't make it up the hill of our driveway, so she stopped to pet a cat...

...before making it to the end of the driveway.

Where is that bus?  It finally came...

...and I forgot to get a picture of Natalie boarding, but here she is ready to go!

And then it's time for homeschool.  Dominik is doing great with learning to read and write!

Lukas is working on his new literature program.

Konrad has a new literature program too...I'm really happy with both of their language arts this year.  Lots of writing!

We took a picture of the school room on the first day, but as I downloaded it just now, I realized I somehow took a video...so here's a picture of our room today, on the second day.

Natalie came home from the first day of school happy, and this morning she was ready to go back.  That's a good sign for a first day!

Learning to Read

Following in the footsteps of his brothers and sister, Dominik started "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" today!  He did great with his first lesson and we are both excited about him learning to read and write.  It's a fun experience to relive the adventure of learning to read with each of our kids.  Uh oh...it looks like I need to plan lessons for a junior kindergartner in the homeschool this fall.

A fun week!

My talk to GEMS the other night went really well...thanks for your prayers.  It's a great group of girls and they were genuinely interested in understanding disabilities better and how they can include Natalie.  One girl asked if Natalie will be in GEMS next year (we hope so...but she needs so much sleep that it's not an option this year for her to be out so late), and another asked "where is the syndrome in her?"  And a middle-school girl talked to me afterward because she wants to work in special ed!  So heart-warming!

Here's a recap of a few of our activities this week.  We started the week with a hailstorm!  The boys and I were outside watching lightning shoot across the sky, when we heard the sound of rushing water...it was the sound of hail coming, but we didn't know what it was.  We got inside about 5 seconds before the hail came down.  Tom arrived home in the middle of it (he saw some of our poor neighbors running home from walking their dogs).  Here we are checking out the hailstones afterward.

 

The next morning there was still water on the driveway so we went hunting for earthworms. Our garden needs them because there hasn't been much growing in that space, so I'm not sure there are any worms.

Konrad working on code.com.  Dominik is looking forward to learning this in a few years.

Our tomato seeds sprouted on the fourth day!   Can you see those little white specs?  That's the beginning of a tomato plant.  It's so fun to check them every morning.

 Tom converted an old garage light and hooked it up on the counter in the laundry room, so we have lots of space to start more plants as we get closer to the last freeze and planting time.  Thanks Tom!

One day we took a long recess and went to a skate park that is 5 minutes from our house.  And it's free!  The boys had so much fun!

After they were tired from scootering, we went for a walk in the hills.  I wanted to hike, but the boys just looked for rocks.  So I walked backwards the whole way up the hill, and it was still faster than they were walking.

Dominik found a rock he thought looked like Larry the Cucumber, so he brought it home and painted it green.

Then he said it was a puppet, so I taped it to a stick.

 I captured this just this morning...I'm so excited that Dominik is finally holding a pencil correctly (most of the time).  I don't stress about this...I know kids will get it eventually, but it's fun to see how he's adjusted to holding the pencil with just a little regular prompting.  He traced his hand, and colored it in, "for Natalie."

Catching up

No excuses!  I often forget to blog when I have some free time...so I'm actually happy that I remembered to blog today.  I hope it will become a habit again, but no promises.  So to catch up, here are some random pictures from the past few months.

I had a birthday.  What was I thinking?  I planned a bunch of errands with four kids...I was exhausted by the time we were done, so we went to Sonic for lunch.  Then I remembered that there's not indoor seating (and it was raining) so we ate in the car and it actually went pretty well!

 Then we went to a Thai restaurant for dinner on my birthday.  What a fun day!

Dominik found out what happens when he draws with a pen.

One day we went on a long ride to find the sun, after 15 days without the sun.  We didn't find it, but Dominik had a nap and Lukas helped keep the kink out of his neck.

Jessie had an eye appointment...

...er, make that NATALIE had an eye appointment.  She has made friends with her new ophthalmologist, who has given her slightly different eye drops.  Thankfully, the new drops are controlling her eye pressures well, and they don't sting as much!

We went for walks during recess.  That's Dominik going out our driveway to the street.

Then it snowed again and we played in the snow a lot, after we shoveled the snow.

Apparently, we taught a snowman how to ride a bike!

And smiled a lot!

 

Then we moved in to our new house! Lots of friends helped us move, and Lukas put the new wheelbarrow together.

Here's our first dinner after moving in.  The meal was provided by our new neighbor.

Then Natalie got to ride a bus to school!

She loves riding the bus...such a thrill!

So we've been taking walks (this is our street, with the mountains behind).

And Tom got a new toy, to mow all that grass behind him (that's our front yard)...

...as well as the backyard.  When we're not playing, of course!

 Lukas and Konrad are learning about chickens at 4H...

 ...the instructor called them "enthusiastic," maybe because Lukas can already identify lots of chicken breeds.

Lukas made a marshmallow gun at Cadets.  I don't think he'd had so much fun in a while!

 And we have school at home, of course...

...and we decorated the kids' rooms.  The boys have a hunting lodge theme, and Natalie has a princess theme (her wall is a castle stone...more pics to come).

Natalie doesn't have to walk to and from school, but the walk to and from the bus is still exercise.

And she's always eager to say hi to the cats.  "Two kittens!" she says.

And we do more schoolwork...

...and read library books...

...and do homework.

To summarize, this is what I'm doing this weekend:  starting seeds indoor!

 And this is what we hope to be doing next month.

Ok, I'm caught up...now to stay caught up!