Sunday, April 10, 2011

Celebrate Good Times

We couldn't be more proud of our little guys who have worked hard this year. We've plowed through materials and curriculum and have begun to wrap up a few. We pause to celebrate them!

Brody has mastered the ABC's; names, sounds and starting to blend together and begin reading. I have to say, one of my favorite parts of teaching in the classroom was taking children who didn't know how and teach them to read and write. I cannot tell you what a privilege it is to have the opportunity to do that with my own little guy. This little mama is tickled to see him so eager to learn and take initiative to master each new skill.


Brody got to choose what he wanted to do as his celebration and he wanted to eat out at Red Robin and watch the new movie HOP.





Cheers!! Well done little man!


The week following, Collin completed the entire set of readers for the year. Starting the year, this was NOT his favorite subject but has begun to fall in love with it. We added up all the pages he read independently and the grand total was over 1500 pages!


Collin is growing in so many ways but we wanted to make sure we take some time to enjoy this accomplishment. Swimming was his activity of choice. And thanks to Groupon, we bought their Clackamas Aquatic Park coupon already so we were good to go!


They were so worn out but had a BLAST...here is an "after" picture.


Awesome job Collin!


So blessed to have this teaching "job" and these darling boys! We are so proud of them!


Monday, April 4, 2011

Ahhh, Life With Boys #6

We are "traveling" around the world giving this curriculum a whirl. When we found ourselves knee deep in Italy. Europe, in general, makes my heart beat a little faster and add my bit of Italian heritage and I'm hooked. But what caught my boys attention out of all of it, you ask?

It wasn't testing out Michealangilo's upside down painting methods or being exposed to great works of art like the statue of David (although many giggles were had when they realized the dude was naked). It wasn't paying a fortune for imported goods to create an authentic Italian feast for the family. It wasn't using new materials and creating a replica of the Roman Coloseeum (although their lego men DID enjoy being gladiators for the day).

Nope...a little clay volcano was their height of interest. After learning about Mt. Versuvius and it's explosion over Pompeii, I mentioned as a side note that we would give our modeling clay volcanoes a shot at exploding on Friday after they had time to dry. EVERY DAY, little hands tested those volcanoes, eyes inspected, pitiful pleas were heard to give them a try just a little early.

It was torture but Friday finally came...


Ahhh, Life With Boys!