A Family Academy

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

January Family Academy

I'm behind in recording our activities...here are some of the things we've been working on:

We focused a bunch of activities around gingerbread cookies. Here the kids are putting mini m&m's on their peanut butter-covered gingerbread sandwiches.

Jay learned to count by two's with gingerbread and I put them to the song of "Jack and Jill." We read Jan Brett's Gingerbread Baby books and they loved them.

I printed out a bunch of gingerbread printables from makinglearningfun.com. We did number recognition for Kay, number spelling for Jay, color-by-number addition with gingerbreadmen, shape matching with gingerbreadmen, etc.

We also started counting by fives to the song "Ten Little Indians."

Jay is getting really good at reading the calendar so we learned a song about the months of the year to "Three Blind Mice." They both sing the days of the week song (Clementine) ALL THE TIME!

Our green rice sensory box got a lot of use. I put gingerbread buttons in it along with other winter items and they scooped and played to their hearts content :)

Jay decided to write all the numbers from 1 to 100. He's gotten really good at counting and reading the time on the clock. This was something he did all on his own. I love self-learning! Since he loves clocks he did them circular.

We had a great time visiting with cousins and aunts and uncles. I found some fun manipulatives at a scrapbook outlet. Here they are sorting by size and object and making them stand in the carpet.

We went sledding and enjoyed snow and family when we visited Utah.

Jay was thrilled to see and get inside a real helicopter at the SLC children's museum. We went there to celebrate his birthday with their uncles and Grandma.

He also celebrated his birthday at home with lots of flying fun.

This is a photo Jay took of his beloved "chick."

Jay continues with his violin lessons and learned f# for his first finger-on-the-string note.

Here he is teaching Jumbo, who happens to also be a great student.

Jay can read several verses in the scriptures all by himself now. I made him a scripture carrier and he loves to take it to church and help in his class by reading them.

The numbers that Kay is playing with have been a lot of fun-a great manipulative treat!

I'm realizing I don't have many photos of Kay. She has been working on potty training, learning her shapes, and surprised me by knowing all of her uppercase alphabet! She also started speaking in complete sentences at the first of January-she sounds so grown up now!

She's loving her baby things from Christmas and is starting to realize what having a new baby at our house means (I think).

She likes to climb into the infant car seat. She is a little tease!

We also had fun doing snowman activities. Here we made rice krispie snowmen. It was great for Jay to touch something sticky!

Kay loves to sing and play the piano. She sets up concerts like this:

I often forget to take photos of the kids doing our everyday learning, but I love the record of them growing and learning!

Friday, February 5, 2010

Learning to Love knowledge from the Lord

I love it when I come across something that focuses my efforts. Today I read an article from our church that is called, "Learning to Love Learning." I love the opening:

The overarching purpose of Heavenly Father’s great plan of happiness is to provide His spirit children with opportunities to learn. The Atonement of Jesus Christ and the agency afforded to all of the Father’s children through the Redeemer’s infinite and eternal sacrifice are divinely designed to facilitate our learning. The Savior said, “Learn of me, and listen to my words; walk in the meekness of my Spirit, and you shall have peace in me” (D&C 19:23).

We are assisted in learning of and listening to the words of Christ by the Holy Ghost, even the third member of the Godhead. The Holy Ghost reveals and witnesses the truth of all things and brings all things to our remembrance (see John 14:26, 16:13; Moroni 10:5; D&C 39:6). The Holy Ghost is the teacher who kindles within us an abiding love of and for learning.

In our journey to learn we can become distracted. This is a good reminder of what knowledge is for:

A hierarchy of importance exists among the things you and I can learn. Indeed, all learning is not equally important. The Apostle Paul taught this truth in his second epistle to Timothy as he warned that in the latter days many people would be “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7).

I know that I will return to this article again as I try to keep us on track:

You and I are here on the earth to prepare for eternity, to learn how to learn, to learn things that are temporally important and eternally essential, and to assist others in learning wisdom and truth (see D&C 97:1). Understanding who we are, where we came from, and why we are on the earth places upon each of us a great responsibility both to learn how to learn and to learn to love learning.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

December Tot School

It's been awhile since I updated our Tot School/homeschool activities. This is a run-down of some of our December activities:

Jay and Kay have really enjoyed our advents and Jay says, "twenty-first" instead of, "twenty-oneth" now since we say the date when we do each advent. The advents have centered around the nativity/

Jay is moving forward with violin and I found him giving his elephant a lesson too!

These were fun Christmas cookies that were kid-friendly

He enjoyed this puzzle

This nativity village of Bethlehem has been fun for learning.

We did a bunch of tangrams and a ton of other Christian Christmas activities. Some were from here.

Jay worked on putting the works on this house for about an hour.

Field trip to pick our Christmas tree.

First snow.

Scripture we are memorizing

We've been learning the planets, including the music by Holst.

songs we are learning
7th Article of Faith song

The First Noel (Their favorite this year)

Thursday, November 5, 2009

4th week of August

Chopin Nocturne Op. 9 No.2

Beethoven 3rd mvt. "Moonlight Sonata"

Alkan (a composer I am discovering) Grand Sonata

A Special Gift is Kindness

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Medical Advice

It seems like everywhere I go mothers are talking about the medication their kids are on. For this or that. Or I'm reading about the latest with the swine flu. Or some other medical advice.

I came across this quote, which sounds very reasonable.

Bernarr Macfadden’s philosophy. This pioneer in health made an astute comment back in 1928—one that serves us well to follow today: “The reader should now be fully persuaded to accept the statement of our assurance that most disease is preventable. There is no physician of any school who will not agree to the proposition that if the body be healthy it has the power to resist the aggressions of any kind of disease. Even though one accept the germ theory to its fullest extent, we have shown that disease germs cannot grow and thrive in a healthy organism. No matter what contagion is, or how it works, it has no power over a healthy body.” (Macfadden’s Encyclopedia of Physical Culture, p. 66.)

So how does one keep healthy? Doing all the unmedicated things that I now have a new reason to fit into our schedule: eat well, take vitamins, exercise, less sugar, simplify and stress less, and get plenty of rest.

Those things are certainly cost effective compared to prescriptions and don't come with the risk of nasty side effects!

I'm grateful for modern medicine, but I often question the need to medicate everything as avidly as our society does. There is value for the mind and body in being outside for instance. Medically proven in medical journals that being outside prevents illness...sunshine and fresh air really are great medicine!

I really need to remember to make sure I take my own medical advice (not just send the kids out to play so I can get something done)!

Thursday, August 6, 2009

3rd week of August

Listening:

"Flight of the Bumble Bee" Rachmaninoff-Rimsky-Korsakoff

Mozart Sonata in G K283

Chopin Waltz in E minor

5th A of Faith

All Things Bright and Beautiful-next part

As I have Loved You

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Tot School Aug 2nd week

We have just one more week of summer before we head back "home." We've had a fun week with friends, learning, and fun eats too :)

Jay and Kay decided they wanted to do map time together. Kay identified the state and Jay named its capital city. It was a fun and cute way to practice :)

We made creature Krispies with this fun mix.

Kay has started doing headstands and summersaults everywhere.

Jay had his last Spanish lesson of the summer. His teacher loaned him this Spanish dictionary that he really enjoyed.

Kay's colors are finally more than just names to her. No longer abstract, she can match and name and collect them consistently. This was a fun sorting game.

We had a package of stickers that came in 4 colors. She sorted them all out.

This is Kay's favorite art book from the library. She gets it out nearly everyday. She looks at it and hums "The Baptism Song" that the kids have been learning this year. Somehow the two match to her :)

I was lucky enough to score a pair of adjustable size roller skates and roller blades at the thrift store. $4 for both pair of nearly new skates and lots of fun together!