Adeline's Tea Party

We had a lovely little tea party for A's 4th birthday this past week. The teabag hanging from the handle had the date, time, and place.

On her actual bday we celebrated as a family in a local ice cream shop. All ready for the guestsStrawberry muffins & star-shaped cucumber sandwiches with red leaf raspberry tea (that doesn't taste like raspberries, but's herbal) and limonada. I also made a broccoli salad for the moms and offered carrots and ceasar dressing. Adeline was the only one who didn't want to wear a hat. We gave the girls necklaces to wear as well. Their party favor included a small straw purse, notebook, pencil, and tea cup. I prepped two crafts to entertain our guests. Dressing paper dolls and decorating tea cups. A and her paper dolls. decorating tea cups with glitterMy dear friend Anastasia made an oversized cupcake for the bday cake. It was a hit!

What a Fun week!

This past week was a success with the Little Hearts to Heaven and Phonics programs! Praise God. It is amazing what the purposeful activities and cleaning the house has down for me. I get up ready to start the day and am excited to take care of my home and children. I really needed to be taking care (cleaning, washing veg/fruit, ironing, etc) of my own home right now. I also needed a plan of action with my kids. Little Hearts to Heaven as definately been a blessing for us. This week's activities introduced the stories of Cain & Able & Noah and the flood. The song for the week is addorable and goes along t=with the wall art that you see in the above pciture. Adeline & Darton pick up on the songs on day one and can sing them almost solo by day two. We discussed emotions and sang Row, Row, Row Your Boat while having angry, sad, sleepy, and excited faces. This was their favorite activity of the week and continually ask me to sing it. We also acted as animals getting on Noah's boat and experimented with what sinks and floats. Here is our Sink/Float chart with the items placed accordingly.

Letter recognition activity: I painted upper and lower case Bs and the kids painted in the circles. Using blocks to make the letter B. The curriculum suggests using masking tape, but when you live in the tropics outside activities (in your underwear) are more fun ;)Adeline worked this week on making circles and lines. I didn't expect problems with this activity, but creating circles from the 2 point on the clock and working counterclockwise is NOT how she draws a normal circle. The first two days she didn't trace the circles and lines, but recreated them on her own (as what she was suppose to do). By the third day I wisened up and and she traced the filled-out teacher form to guide her. She was MUCH MORE willing to do this on days 3 & 4. As you can imagine, the work for a normal 5 or 6 year old who is starting this phonics program includes a lot more in day one than just writing circles and lines. I am adjusting the program accordingly and suspect that we are on the two year track since she is only 4. Yes, Gradmommie that is Barbie in the picture watching Adeline doing her work! We started celebrating Adeline's 4th birthday yesterday by constructing a sandbox for her birthday present. Darton has already proven to us that he will enjoy it more. It only took 4 hardware stores and three hours to get what we needed ;)...that's life in the DR. Scott was thrilled, as was I, that we didn't run into any unexpected problems and it was all constructed (minus gluing down padding) by last night. D is sitting on the foam that needs to be glued down to not only protect the tarp, but their hineys :)

We also entertained 3 different play times this week in our home and Scotty has tomorrow off for a Dominican holiday. We plan on going to the beach, getting A's tea party ready for Tuesday, and of course celebrating her actually bday!

Knowledge gained from living in the DR

If we weren't living in the DR, then we wouldn't know that....

1. Sarah can jump her way up onto a 10ft doorway! It's where the neighborhood cat hangs out and it drives Sarah crazy!2. The best melon that I've ever put in my mouth is this beauty here. I don't know it's name, but it's ALWAYS sweet. It's orange on the inside like a cantelope.

3. Avocado season starts in August here. How do I know this, besides seeing more being sold on the street? There is an aguacate (avocado) tree in the empty lot behind us and it's branches hand over our back yard. Every day I have the kids gather aguacates before Sarah gets to them! We have so many (3 daily) that we can't eat them all. We made some awesome guacamole this past weekend.

4. Darton is thoroughly entertained by playing with the botellones and Daddy successfully stacked 4 empty ones! D now works hard most days stacking two on his own when Daddy isn't here. 5. Passion fruit is the exact opposite of what I associated it with in the States.

Chinola juice is our favorite and the pastry shops around make an awesome chinola cheesecake...ooooo and let's not forget chinola margaritas!

Notice the texture of the outside. The more wrinkles, the more juice. Wrinkles come with time. You buy them in the store more like the one on the right and wait for them to wrinkle. Scotty calls the inside "frog eyes" and he enjoyes scooping out the middle and swallowing the seeds whole (it's quite slimy). It's the tartest fruit I've ever put in my mouth. I've yet to perfect making the juice without having too many seeds, so I'll get back to you on the juice process.

6. Air movement around doorways helps minimize mosquitos in your home. Mosquitos are quite pesky here (as in TX too). They tend to gather around doorways in the night and slip into your house as soon as you open the door in the mornings. Mosquito coils are also a favorite way of ours to keep them away.

D ABCs

God Made the Univ song

The kids are easily learning the days of creation and other stories through Focus on the Family's "The Singing Bible."

A A Adam

The Fingerplay activity for letter A from Little Hands to Heaven. Although I say this was day four in the video, it was actually day 3. It's amazing how quickly children pick up songs. Darton is now walking around the house singing it too.

Purposed Learning

This past week I began "purposed learning" with Adeline. You know how the word "school" or "schoolwork" can have a negative connotation to it? For this reason I don't say, "Let's do schoolwork" just yet with Adeline. Instead I say, "Let's do an activity together." Last May I went to my first homeschool bookfair and bought "Little Hands to Heaven" published by The Heart of Dakota and "Phonics Road to Spelling and Reading" published by Schola Publications.

If you are looking for a book full of purposeful educational activities that incorporates Biblical themes for your preschooler, I would definately recommend Little Hands to Heaven. There are about 5 activities each day that focus on a Biblical theme. The lessons start with Fingerplay to introduce/review a letter of the alphabet. Fingerplays are poems that you can put a tune to if your kids, like mine, are stimulated by music. I love starting the lessons to music because then the kids are excited and eager to do the next activity. Each week focuses on a different letter of the alphabet and there are different games to play to learn the letter (using blocks, glue & beans, cheerios, etc to make the formation). HofD is not phonics based. For instance, HofD only focuses on the "a" sound in Adam instead of the 3 sounds of A. The other components of the Little Hands to Heaven include art, active exploration, math, Bible devotions, songs, and dramatic play. What's key for us is that each component reinforces a Biblical theme. It is important for us that our children to learn that God is sovereign over all things and LHtoH helps us teach this. My most favorite part of the curriculum is that it incorporates Focus on the Family's "The Singing Bible." For each lesson there is a song to listen to from the CD. I highly recommend using this CD to enhance the curriculum. We have yet to sit down and do all 5 activities back-to-back. I throw them in here and there between household responsibilities throughout the day.

Art - writing on white paper with white crayon and then using watered-down black paint to see what you drew

Active Exploration - matching colors to things in your garden/homeDarton enjoys the activities too. Adeline's depiction of the stars and moonI will begin the phonics program this week. I've chosen to begin phonics with Adeline now because of the letter awareness she is receiving in her Spanish preschool. I chose the Phonics Road to Spelling and Reading for three reasons.
1. all the lessons are taught to me on DVD. This makes teaching phonics less intimidating for me.
2. eventually incorporates Latin into the English lessons, instead of making Latin a separate subject. Why Latin? 60% of our language is Latin influenced and it will only help my kids as they grow their vocabulary over the years (e.g. decoding words) and maybe in their chosen profession 3. incorporates music
3. emphasizes critical thinking
PRtoSandR teaches letter formation using a clock diagram. This week Adeline will learn the 6 basic formations that make up different letters (circle, straight line (tall & short), diagonal line, horizontal line, a line that goes below the base line). We will then work on the letter sounds and formations a, c, d, f. These four letters begin at 2 on the clock when writing them. We bought her a small table and chair and Darton is quite sure it is HIS chair.