A bit of T's school this week.
History
This week T and I read about the British invasions and Dost Mohammad Khan ruling Afghanistan. We are still using the same large map. I gave him some more flags and pictures of some more leaders to add to his map. This lesson was about how hard this man fought to rule over an independent Afghanistan and he was able to do that before he died. My son was very sad because he only got to do that for 2 weeks before he died. I tried telling T. that the man accomplished what he wanted to do but it didn't seem to make T. feel any better. I guess he can be as emotional as I am when it comes to stuff like this. I think history lessons are better for T. to do with Rob. I get very emotional over the wars and ugly things in history. I think maybe this should go back to a father son subject. Rob has taught most history lessons over the last few years because stuff like this happens a lot in our home. Somehow my husband can read it and explain it all to our son and nobody gets emotional and they enjoy learning together. History is one of T.'s favorite subjects (that is when I am not sad or crying during the lesson) I don't want him to loose his love for history so I will talk to DH tonight about this. I want to let you know the part I LOVE about our history program and don't want to stop teaching is all the interesting things we get to learn about other cultures. I find that so interesting! I like learning about other religions, clothing, foods, beliefs, customs and such but the wars and deaths are so hard for me to explain to my little guy. The hardest part is being a Christian mom being asked by my child if the Bible says not to hurt or kill why did Christians do this to other people? I fall apart every time that happens. I haven't found an answer to that question yet. Maybe I can do the teaching of the things having to do with culture and Rob can do the wars. Rob isn't big on the making costumes, saying phases in other languages, making meals from other countries, and having holidays like I am. We also got to read this week about David Livingstone and the continent of Africa. I love reading about Africa. My hubby and I have often talked about maybe living in Africa some day (giving up all our material things for a very simple life I would love to work in an orphanage or hospital in Africa and be able to hold and love the babies and children who have HIV or lost parents to HIV and have no mommy to hold them). My dreams of Africa is a very long story and I don't have time to write about that now so I better get back to our school stuff. Next week we will be reading about Italy (T. LOVES talking about Italy I think he likes finding the boot shape on the maps). Then the week after we will be reading about the American Civil War (If I recover from surgery and baby is doing well). I hope Rob will read this with Travis. I get so emotional with wars and I know with this one I will have to answer many questions to my son about slavery. I think reading with my son on this subject with my hormones out of whack (right after birth) might be a bit too much! I can't imagine reading this when I have the baby blues (the crying I do at a drop of a hat after giving birth). I know I will cry thinking about all the people who suffered as slaves then once the thought of Mom's and young children being slaves I will loose it. I am crying now just thinking about what it would have been like being a pregnant slave. I feel so selfish feeling so bad for myself this week from lack of sleep, being sick to my tummy, and a back ache. I know that is nothing compared to what slaves had to live with! The thought of how some of the masters got female slaves pregnant, hurt them, and how they must have had to give up the time holding and nursing a tiny baby (time that I will be blessed with lots of) to work for someone doing very hard dirty work for the people who owned them is such a hard thing to even think about. The only good news is with that lesson we "might" be able to go on a big field trip. We live in PA so we can drive to Gettysburg. It is a few hours away and it is the only time in the next 4 years we will be reading about Gettysburg. I wonder if we will be able to make a trip like that with my son, toddler, new baby and recovering from a C section. My baby will only be 1 or 2 weeks old. Hmm.... I hope we can go but I won't mention this to T. until we are leaving the house for the trip. I don't want to get his hopes up then find out we can't go because of a new baby or mommy isn't feeling well. I will have to see how this works out. If we go Rob can walk with the older 2 children and read all the info on the statues and I will carry the baby and look at the beautiful farm land that surrounds them and be thankful to be free and holding my baby.
Science
T. moved on to learning about wheels. We all built wooden cars together. I want all of us (Rob, T, and myself) to build a mousetrap race cars and race each other but I will have to see if we get the time to do that in the next few weeks. I hope to have time this week to go over gears and belts. I think the gear bucket we have would keep my 2 year old busy when I come home with the baby next weekend.
This is a picture of Daddy's car. The holes on the side are because he changed his mind on the style after he started building it.
This is my car. YUP! I used clothes pins and rubber bands for this style. LOL!
T. did make a small car but he decided it wasn't large enough so he took the wheels off it and this is the frame of the car he is working on now.
D.'s SCHOOL!!!!
I did take a few pictures of D. doing some school. I bought this puzzle block set for a couple bucks at Walmart a few weeks ago. I put the pieces together on my scanner and printed them out on photo paper. She now has picture cards to match up the pieces. This makes it easier for D. to put the puzzles together. A few of them look a lot alike so this helps her figure out the apple and strawberry or watermelon and lemon.
This is D. playing a game with her brother she loves playing games all the time now.
OK, standing on the game isn't playing nice.
Below is her favorite thing to do right now. COLOR! She will spend hours a day drawing pictures. LOOK at all the colors she uses! I LOVE IT! All of her pictures look like small colorful dots or rectangles now. She will only use the boldest of colors for her pictures. My little doodle bug has always been a very colorful girl. My son never had this style of coloring. He always wanted pictures to color in (coloring books) and the correct color crayons to color with.
Poker chips are the hot toy in my house right now. D. and T. both love to play with them. I have a tray that had fruit from the store that I was going to toss out until I got the idea it would make a good sorting tray for poker chips. D. is very good at sorting. She can sort 200 or so chips before she looses interest. This is a few pictures of her chubby little hands sorting them in the correct spots.
This is another way I use poker chips. I have her put the number chips to match the card. You can see that today she thought 4 was 1. LOL! We will keep working on this one.
Baby info....I should be leaving for the hospital before the sun comes up on Wed. I hope to give birth around 8:00 am and be holding, loving ,and bonding with my little baby soon after. I will be in the hospital for a few days and I hope to be home by Friday at noon. I know that might not all go as planned. I will try to get to the computer as soon as I can once I am back home. I hope even if things don't go as planed I will be posting pictures on my blog of our baby by Monday morning. I would love prayers for a smooth delivery and a healthy baby if anyone has the time! I get very nervous when I think about the delivery! I will write soon as I am back home again. I hope you all have a wonderful week!
4 comments:
ok first you have to have the most energy I have ever seen in a pregnant woman. I do not even have that much energy LOL. I wanted to say a few other things and I thought that this would be a good place to do it since you are going to be really busy in the next few days. First thanks for the offer of the fall leaves, the boys would love it but please do not go out of your way for it. Also I was unsure if you got my e-mail a few weeks back but I sent you one about fabric. I have some really wonderful fabric that was given to me but I do not have much use for it because it is more for little girls. So I thought that since you sew you might want it. Just let me know if you do or not. And finally thanks for the advice about sam's writing. I am definetly going to try the cursive writing, he seems to be interested in that. Allright I will stop being so long winded and just widh you the best of luck with the baby this week. I can not wait to see pictures.
Heather thank you so much for your kind words! I feel like I don't have any energy my children seem to have it all. I feel like I am moving very slow nowadays! I ran after D. across the soccer field (she wanted to play with her brother) yesterday and I think it took me 20 minutes to catch my breath! OH MY! I CAN ONLY IMAGINE HOW SILLY I MUST HAVE LOOKED TO ALL THE OTHER PARENTS who saw me do that!!! I am very red in the face thinking about how silly I must have looked! The thought of how my pants don't stay up and with my HUGE tummy and daughter squirming in my arms I must have either made people sick or made them laugh!
I would love the fabric! I tried writing you twice before I don't know what is going on with my emails. They keep vanishing! When I send mail a lot of the time people don't get them! GRRRRrrr it looks like my AOL mail doesn't work with yahoo emails or yahoo groups for some reason. After the baby arrives I will try to change my email or something I don't have time to try and get that done right now so I am posting this on my blog and sending you a copy then I will cross my fingers and hope you see it. I would be happy to pay you for your fabric! I saw the picture and the fabric is so beautiful (perfect for a little girl)!
If your son likes the idea of trying cursive I think you will have good luck with that! My son wanted to learn cursive silly me thought he wasn't ready and it ended up solving so many of our handwriting problems! Our oldest children seem to have a lot in common I hope it all works as well for you as it did for me! It went so well I remember telling Rob that I was going to start D. with cursive and skip print like many Montessori schools do. I don't know if I will do that or not but I am thinking about it.
Fall leaves should be easy to fix you up with! We have many trees in our yard so my children can pick out the nice leaves and I can sit on the porch and rock the baby and watch them pick out leaves. I plan to watch them rake and jump in them this year. I doubt I will be doing much leaf jumping myself this fall with a baby in my arms. The only time we have problems getting leaves in my area is when it stays hot until it snows. A late summer with an early snow storm (or a week or two of rain everyday) will ruin fall fun but that hardly ever happens.
I will share pictures of the baby as soon as I can. I am going to try and talk Rob into posting a picture and info to this blog when I am in the hospital but I don't know if he will. I think he will have his hands full coming home from the hospital after a long and exciting day. PLUS he will have both T. and D. with him. T should go to bed with no problem for him but I think D. is going to give him a hard time! I can't use the computer with D. under foot I doubt he will be able to find a way to do it. She can be a handful. If you don't hear from me in the next few days I will be back as soon as I can!
Love your blog! Just had to comment because we picked up several sets of these puzzle blocks at Wal-Mart, too, and they are so much fun! Best wishes for your upcoming delivery!
What a wonderful out-pouring of emotion about the history lessons. Thank you for sharing your view with others on your blog. That can take alot of courage. Thoroughly enjoyed it your sensitve views, thoughts, plans for the future, etc. Thanks much!
Post a Comment