Tuesday, January 30, 2007

-The girls helped me sort baby clothes and diapers into different sizes so we can get ready the new-born things.
-They continued playing at "going on a vacation", setting things up exactly as they had them yesterday (we always tidy up everything from the day before going to bed).
-Astrid added a couple words to her food word list from yesterday. She sounded them out and wrote them herself. She's getting more confident and comfortable with the whole idea of reading.
-Worked on the seasons quilts this afternoon.
-Astrid cut fabric scraps into different sizes and shapes and arranged them up in a very artful way. She told me she was a baker and the fabric scraps were food ingredients.
-The girls put on plays for each other.
-They listened to 'Peter and the Wolf' (the version where each character is played by a different instrument in the orchestra) and danced and acted along with it.
-Read chapter one of 'The Wind in the Willows'. We'd started this book about a year ago, but the vocabulary was so far beyond Astrid's reach that she understood next to none of it. It's still a bit of a stretch for her, but she's really enjoying it and I gathered from our discussion afterward that she's comprehending most of it. We talked about it for quite a while and she decided that tomorrow she would like to learn more about badgers. One of the characters in the story is a badger and I was unable to answer her questions about him sufficiently.

Monday, January 29, 2007

-Astrid wrote out a list of everyone she would like to make a valentine for. Her ability to sound out words on her own is greatly improving. Her main stumbling block is trying to figure out which vowel to use.
-I wrote out my grocery list. Astrid copied words out of a recipe book to make a list of her own.
-Grocery shopping.
-The girls played "going on a vacation". First they packed up everything they'd need, then they built a dock and a boat out of furniture and loaded their stuff onto it. They sailed to the other side of the world and set up a hotel room where their imaginary vacation took place. This went on for most of the afternoon.
-We read part of chapter 10 in 'The Wind in the Willows'. Astrid insisted that's the part she wanted to read. I suggested maybe we could start reading it from the beginning at bedtime.
-The girls helped make pasta with peas and white wine sauce for supper.
-Astrid asked me how you make cheese. I explained it as best I could given my limited knowlege of cheese making. She then asked how people made plastic before there were factories. We talked about how plastic is a fairly recent invention. She wondered if candy could be made before there were factories. We talked about that and then about how different food products are made, including flour. She wondered if flour is made out of flowers, so I told her that the two words are spelled differently and wrote them out for her. She then asked me to write out a list of 10 different foods for her to sound out, which I did.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

-PEG. The girls made owls out of styrofoam balls, feathers, googly eyes and popsicle sticks.
-The Peters came over for lunch. The kids played prince and princess. Jul was the prince, Astrid was the princess and Muirgen and a doll were their babies. The babies both died and were burried in the dirt (a pile of blankets). They also tried playing a game of 'Sorry' which disolved after a few rounds.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

-The girls played with their barbie dolls.
-Muirgen looked at a book about opposites.
-Astrid put on music and danced around the dining room.
-She unloaded then dishwasher and then loaded in the dirty dishes.
-We read (and then talked about) an article about a girl with Down Syndrome in Astrid's National Geographic magazine.
-Astrid did a bunch of the activities in the magazine.

-We made a "lava lamp" (minus the lamp part) using coloured water, oil and salt. We discussed why it worked the way it did.



-The girls decorated our old fridge with washable markers. One side was abstract art, the front had two princesses on their way to a wedding and the other side had a bad guy flying a butterfly kite. I'll post pictures of the other two sides in another post, as I can only seem to add five pictures per post.

-Astrid sat and watched me crochet for quite a long time.
-Astrid and I had a very long talk at bedtime which started off with Astrid wondering why God made us with brains that can forget things (she forgot that she had planned to play outside this afternoon once she got absorbed in her fridge art and was quite upset about this at bedtime). This led into talking about heaven, weather or not we'll be able to see God and talk to him, weather we'll be able to move around in heaven since we'll be dead when we get there, what happens to our bodies once they die, weather we can peel off our skin like we can peel off a vegetable's skin... We then somehow got on the topic of pregnancy, conception and birth...

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

-Muirgen helped me fold laundry.
-Astrid completed 3 pages in her math workbook.
-We put together a human anatomy puzzle that the girls got for Christmas. This is a huge floor puzzle which shows all the organs in our bodies.
-Astrid got a beach ball globe in the mail as part of a gift subscription to "National Geographic Kids" that she received for Christmas. The girls played catch with it and then we looked for the places grandma and grandpa have travelled to on it.
-The girls played out in the snow with the neighbour children.
-When it was time to come in, we brought in a bowl of snow and made guesses about what would happen to it if we left it sitting on the kitchen table. The girls both knew that it would melt and turn into water. We then decided to boil it on the stove. They guessed that eventually it would all dry up. We talked about the 3 states of matter and about the cycle of water on our planet. We talked about the scientific method, and how the guesses we made were called "hypotheses".
-They pretended it was Christmas, wrapped gifts for each other and staged a big production of exchanging and opening them.
-They helped make bruschetta and baby potatoes with green pepper for supper.
-The four of us played a game of snakes and ladders.

Monday, January 22, 2007

-Grocery shopping.
-Last Sunday at my parents' church, the kids talked about the fruit of the spirit in Sunday school. Today we repeated what the fruits are a few times and talked about the meaning of "self-control".
-The girls each made another square for their seasons quilts.
-Probably due to the fact that we're working on these quilts and have been reading story books from the library about the seasons, Muirgen has been asking me about them a lot, trying to remember in which order they come and which holidays fall in which season. We discussed this more today.
-They created a world in which Astrid was a poor person and Muirgen was rich. Astrid lived in a hole in the ground since she couldn't afford a house. Muirgen lived in a big house and made sure Astrid got enough food to eat and toys to play with. This scenario went on for quite some time, and eventually morphed into playing store.
-Yesterday the girls started a city, which is something they like to do from time to time. We tape a big sheet of brown paper to the coffee table and they draw roads, houses, etc. They also use stickers and other things which they cut and glue onto the paper. They continued working on this today.
-We went to the dance studio to register Astrid for ballet classes which will begin in February.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

-Yesterday AJ was over in the morning and for lunch. The kids all played outside in the snow for a while and then played various things together in the house.
-The girls helped me bake carrot cake.
-They also helped make lasagna for supper. Muirgen chopped vegetables for the first time. After each piece of portabello mushroom she sliced off, she proudly held up her hand and said "Look! I didn't chop my finger off!"




-Today the girls built an elaborate fort out of a camping foam and plastic rods. Wish I'd gotten a picture.
-They helped Joannie organize the food in our new fridge.
-After supper the five of us played a game of 'Sorry'.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

-The girls made pictures using stickers and markers.
-Astrid completed 14 pages in a new math workbook.
-The girls played outside in the snow.
-Muirgen practiced the alphabet with Joannie.
-She completed a couple pages in her alphabet workbook.
-The girls helped me make noodles and beans for lunch.
-We played a game of 'Sorry' and another of 'Mancala'.
-The girls coloured and played with their musical instruments, their play food, etc.
-We did an excercise video together.
-Read a story book at bedtime.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

-Grocery shopping.
-Went to the Playtrium for the day to celebrate Jul's 6th birthday. The Playtrium is a huge indoor playground with slides, ball pits, climbing walls, etc. The girls spent the day running, climbing, sliding, jumping, etc. with their friends. Astrid also, of course, made a couple of new friends.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

-The girls got themselves breakfast and played while I slept in. Coming into the 3rd trimester of my pregnancy, I'm beginning to feel much more tired than I had been.
-They watched a dvd from the library called 'Four Seasons in the Life of Ludovic'.
-Muirgen played with paper dolls.
-Astrid helped make pancakes for lunch.
-Astrid asked why, in the song 'Johnny Appleseed', we only thank God for the sun, the rain and the appleseed. We talked about how those three things can represent all sorts of different things that we're thankful for and we all brainstormed together what some of those things might be (warmth, growth, light, nature, cleanliness, relief from discomfort, food, etc.)
-The girls each made a few more squares for their seasons quilts.
-Muirgen made up her cinquain poems to go on her quilt. Here are the poems they wrote:

Astrid:

Flowers
Drippy, wet
Birds singing sweetly
Fragrant blossoms, nice, beautiful
Spring

Sunshine
Hot, tired
Fireworks boom loudly
Burgers on the barbeque
Summer

Leaves
Cool, crisp
Rain, drip, drop
Apples, cider, pumpkin pie
Autumn

Snow,
Cold, freezy
Wind blowing by
Mashed potatoes, corn, soup
Winter

Muirgen:

Rain
Warm, wet
Rain drops, birds
Strawberries, oranges, flower blossoms
Spring

Flowers
Hot, sweaty
Waves swish swash
Eatting strawberries, smelling flowers
Summer

Apples
Cool, hot
Trick or treat
Candy and sticky things
Autumn

Snow,
Cold, shivery
Singing Christmas carols
Red and green soup
Winter

-Read some story books.
-Went out for dinner to celebrate my birthday.

Tuesday, January 9, 2007

-Drove Jase to work and did grocery shopping.
-Spent the afternoon working on a quilt we plan to make. It's going to be a quilt about the four seasons. Yesterday Astrid wrote a cinquain poem about each season and I copied them onto squares of fabric to become part of the quilt. Muirgen decided she'd like to make a quilt, too, so today they drew pictures for the different seasons with fabric marker onto different coloured squares of fabric.
-Listened to the CD which came with our Waldorf curriculum last year called 'Sing a Song of Seasons' while we were working on our quilt squares.
-Imaginative play - the girls had all their dolls going somewhere on a boat or something like that.
-Tonight they went out with Jason on a secret mission (tomorrow's my birthday).

Sunday, January 7, 2007

-Went to church/Sunday School.
-Went to the Lyon's for lunch and then travelled with them to their cottage to see what could be done about the beavers who are clear cutting their property. The girls got to observe the trees cut by the beavers and also their huge dam. We talked a lot about beavers, their behavior, why David and Sue want to protect the trees that are left, etc. The girls had fun playing outside in the forest and throwing pine cones into the lake. We then went inside and created a little band which involved Sue on guitar, Astrid on recorder, Muirgen on slide whistle and myself on piano.
-We stopped for hot chocolate and tea at a little cafe in Sydenham on the way home.
-Played "I spy" in the car.
-Read story books before bed.

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

-Trying to get back into some sort of reasonable schedule after the holidays. Not doing so well. Got out of bed at 10:15 this morning.
-The girls helped hang up and put away laundry.
-They set up a store with the play food they got for Christmas. Organized it all into different sections (produce, canned food, boxed food, fast food, etc.) and then took turns being the shopper and the grocer.
-Astrid helped dust her bedroom.
-She helped me install a shelf on the wall.
-The girls did some colouring, cutting and pasting.
-They helped make pesto and feta pizza for lunch.
-Astrid recieved a loom for Christmas and started working on a scarf this afternoon.
-Muirgen also tried her hand at weaving, with help from me.
-The girls played together while I made supper and did some sewing. Not sure what they were doing, but it involved a lot of blankets and pillows all neatly arranged on the landing between the first and second floor stairs.
-We read a couple story books.