Happy Easter

Mom’s Day Off

I just couldn’t get my boys into the classroom today. According to them mom’s not allowed to work on her birthday. Since teaching’s now my job I was to have the day off. This of course, meant that they cannot do school, because they must have a teacher for school. Now how on earth could I argue with such logic. After all, it is my birthday today… :)

According to them Daddy spread the rumour that there's no school today but suspected they might be chancing... so I got them baking cake for HomeEd...

Who said learning Maths couldn’t be fun? I got Misha to measure the ingredients for my birthday cake. He insisted on decorating the cake too & of course he had lots of practice counting out the 41 candles he insisted had to be on there.

My master decorator, hard at work finishing off mom's birthday cake...

All done with mom's birthday cake...

oh my, so many candles

Of course, my little sis stopped by later to come help us grade the finished products and also help Jesse make another batch of fudge because his last batch turned out to be toffee-fudge. This time it was a success & might I add, it tastes yummy… 3rd time lucky, they say. ;)

Jesse’s Fudge

Here’s to 2011…

Oh dear I forgot to post these…

May you always make the right moves.

May your cup runneth over with love.


May you always find shelter from any storm.


May you remain good looking and looking good!


May you find the perfect diet for your soul.
(If this face doesn't make you want to stop eating sausage, nothing will.)


May you find perfect balance in the company you keep.


May you have as much fun as you can before someone makes you stop.


May the worst thing that happens to you come in slobberry pink and furry tan.


May you manage to MAKE time for siesta.


May all the new folks you meet be interesting and kind.


May your accessories always harmonize with your natural beauty!


Should your mouth ever be bigger than your stomach, may you have a chewing good time!


May you always know when to walk away and know when to run.


And may your friends always bring you joy!

Happy New Year!!!

We’re leaving tomorrow morning for Vanderbijlpark to spend New Year with my sister & won’t be back until Saturday afternoon, so I’m posting my New Years wishes early.

Our Wish For You:

 
Comfort on difficult days,
Smiles when sadness intrudes,
Rainbows to follow the clouds,
...Laughter to kiss your lips,
Sunsets to warm your heart,
Gentle hugs when spirits sag,
Friendships to brighten you being'
Beauty for your eyes to see,
Confidence for when you doubt,
Faith so that you can believe,
Courage to know yourself,
Patience to accept the truth,
And love to complete your life.

 

Wishing you all God’s very richest blessings for an awesome 2011.

Merry Christmas

An urgent note from SPCA.

I’ve just received this urgent warning via email. Please pass it on to all pet owners you know.

Please share this with all the pet owners you know and ask them to do the same.

This information will only take a few minutes to share might prevent the senseless death of other pets.

Please tell  every dog or cat owner you know. Even if you don't have a pet, please pass this to those who do. Cocoa Mulch, sold by garden supply stores contains a lethal ingredient called 'Theobromine'.

It  is lethal to dogs and cats. It smells like chocolate and it really attracts dogs. They will ingest this stuff and die. Although the mulch has NO warnings printed on the label, upon further investigation on the company's web  site, this product is HIGHLY toxic to dogs and cats.

Well done, Misha, you’re a Star!!!

 

For the past 2 years, whenever homeschooling was mentioned as an option for our boys I protested: “There’s just no way I’d be able to do that”, “I’m not teacher material”, “I’d strangle them within a week.” etc. etc. Those were my excuses… but in the end it was more a lack of confidence in myself than anything else…

Well, it’s been 2 months since we’ve started homeschooling Misha & he’s still very much alive & amazingly enough I’m more relaxed than I could have ever imagined I would be.  I have since learned that he’s a strong kinesthetic as well as Visual Spacial Learner and dug up all the info I could as to how to teach him in his learning style.

When we started homeschooling in August, Misha was completely anti-school. I started him on SmartTutor for Reading & Maths because his books from Le-Amen had not yet arrived. He was very reluctant at first, but within a week or so he started looking forward to learning. Although he still isn’t very keen on schoolwork, at least now he’s willing to do it again.

 

We’ve continued the remedial lessons with Tannie Hettie, once a week for an hour. During this time she addressed the foundation & gross motor issues. She let him do brain gym & physical activities that would promote the necessary brain development. Within a few weeks he became a very happy, relaxed 8-year old & we were actually able to see an improvement in his reading skills. Initially he hated that & refused to even read aloud to himself because this was his biggest problem area. So we worked on his rhythm & midline crossing. Lots of trampoline & skipping rope. Finally he mastered the skipping & his reading improved. Then he realized he could read & the reluctance started fading. During the holiday he went to Tannie Hettie in the morning especially to read to her class of 20 little ones ranging between 3 & 6 years old. That was an awesome sight to see. Now every week he reads to the little ones for a few minutes and like a real teacher asks them questions. His confidence is growing & with that his reading is improving steadily… He still has quite a way to go, but at this rate I’m sure he’ll get there much faster than what I could have ever anticipated.

 

 

 

Another problem area is writing, he struggles to write fast & neatly. All due to his shoulder muscles not having been exercised properly. We’ve hung a rope ladder under the carport for him to climb. This he does regularly & is slowly showing some improvement when he does his handwriting practice.

 

Of course, I knew we would have to get the books out again at some stage, but this was met with great reluctance, so I decided to leave all the other workbooks & just focus on letting him complete his portfolio for monitoring by Le Amen and just let him continue with SmartTutor & reading.

Now Misha's portfolio's back from Le-Amen & it seems they are happy with his schoolwork thus far. Here’s the feedback: "I wish you well for the next term. Keep on working well and you will succeed. Well done Misha, you're a star".

This term we hit the ground running and he’s making good progress. We still have the odd days when he’s reluctant to work, but this week he’s actually started to show some enthusiasm at getting the work done.

We’ve also invested in the WiiFit Plus & he starts every day with some physical training via the WiiFit and some exercise games to get the brain started. It’s absolutely amazing what a difference the little bit of exercise at the beginning of the day makes to his learning abilities.

I’m also noticing a willingness to help around the house. This morning, by the time I got home from dropping Jesse at school he’d already taken his washing from the line, folded it & packed it away. He’d also unpacked the dishwasher & packet the stuff away & still wanted to more stuff around the house. It took some convincing on my part to get him back to his books instead. But by the time his first break came along he was off vacuuming in the lounge & wiping down surfaces… amazing…

We try to stick to 8h00 to 13h00 school day with lots of breaks in between. Sometimes he’ll opt for a longer break & choose to do the work later in the day. Then if at times we don’t manage that we’re lenient & reschedule what we weren’t able to achieve. I don’t stress about work that’s not done & he doesn’t stress with too much workload, but somehow we’re still managing to stay well on track to have his workbooks completed by the time they need to be ready for monitoring at the end of November.