Art Museum

Our homeschool group went on a school tour of the local fine arts museum. Because I had to drop Glitter off at preschool, I didn't know if I could make it to the the museum in time for the tour. Then another homeschooling mom volunteered to take Sparkle early with her. I was tempted by the idea of not going to the museum and having a few hours to myself. However, Wander's jealousy over the opportunity to visit the museum convinced me that I should go. After dropping Glitter off, I headed downtown. Ugh. I forgot just how yucky city traffic is. Fortunately the early morning rain had cleared up.

We met up with the group just barely in time. The docent led us through the museum and read two picture books to the kiddos. The docent showed us a pointillism picture, and a Tiffany stained glass. We saw two Mary Cassatt's, which I found neat as we had been doing picture study of her pictures. We also saw the original of the Matisse that we have on our fridge. (Years ago a friend visited the museum and got us the magnet, and it's been on our fridge ever since.) After the tour, we looked around a bit. Sparkle was more interested in squirreling around with the other girls her age, but she was eager to draw a picture when another mom pulled out paper and colored pencils.




Then we had lunch in the sculpture garden, and the kids ran around.


After lunch, we returned to the museum. By now we had lost track of the group, and Sparkle and I wandered around on our own. She pointed out pictures that she found interesting, and payed attention to the artwork more without lots of fun kids around.

On the road back, I missed the freeway entrance. But, God was looking out for me. I ended up going on until I got to the HOV lane, which opened only a few minutes before I got there. At first it wasn't any faster, but soon I was flying by stacks of cars. We went straight to Glitter's preschool and got there just in time to pick her up. If I had gotten on the freeway at the original entrance, I would have been caught in traffic and late picking up Glitter.

Monday nature walk

We started the Monday nature walk with Sparkle slipping and scraping her knee. I thought, how ironic, since I just skinned my knee last Friday. I was quite pleased when Sparkle didn't make a big deal out of it. She walked kinda funny for a while, but didn't whine or complain.


At the gardens my current mission was to look for different leaf shapes. I had a printout from the internet with five different leaf shapes (narrow, heart, oval, lobed, divided/parted) and we treated it as a treasure hunt to see if we could find each type of leaf shape. It took a bit of practice, but Sparkle was able to find all of them. The idea of leaf shape was a bit beyond Glitter, but she enjoyed pointing out plants that she liked as well. We saw fuzzy leaves and smooth leaves. There were tiny leaves and giant leaves. I felt like we weren't aimlessly wandering.



The weather was gloomy with light sprinkles, so we didn't do any drawing.

Easter Egg Hunt

Our church had its Easter Egg hunt. The egg hunt is put on by the moms in the playgroup that I attend. I volunteered to take pictures of the various kiddos with the Easter bunny, and Wander took care of Sparkle and Glitter for the egg hunt. We were blessed with beautiful weather and a great mom who co-ordinated everything.

The last two years when we did this I never got any pictures of my own kids hunting for eggs because I was always taking bunny pictures. This year we're a two camera family. Wander's camera is newer and more reliable than mine, so I got his camera, and he got my camera and the girls.


Then Wander took the girls to the line for bunny photos. I got a great smile out of Sparkle, and she even hugged the Easter bunny. Glitter, on the other hand, wasn't keen on getting her picture taken.


That fake tree on the left really is leaning on the trellis. It blew over a dozen times over the course of the day, even though it wasn't very windy. One time it fell on a mom. Fortunately it didn't hit any kids. The bungee cords and the post behind the bunny are holding up the trellis to keep it from tipping over. Every year we try a new spot for the bunny and different decorations, but there seems to be no perfect place.

P.E. day

Our homeschool group has P.E. on some Fridays of the month. We went to try it out yesterday. Yesterday was volleyball. The mom in charge separated the kids into three groups by age, and they practiced drills.

I had talked to Sparkle about wearing shorts and a t-shirt, but she preferred to wear her normal dress. Here she is about to bump the ball.


Afterwards the older kids played volleyball on the sand courts at the park. However, Sparkle and Glitter preferred to just dig in the sand and play on the playground. Then we had our customary pb&j sandwiches for lunch.

During the course of the morning I skinned my knee, which provided two blessings. (1) I was able to set an example to Sparkle of picking myself up and continuing with the activity without whining and crying. (2) Having an boo-boo helps me be more sympathetic to Sparkle when she gets boo-boos.

Lenten Crown of Thorns

A friend game me this recipe to make a Crown of Thorns for Lent. The idea is that when a family member makes a sacrifice, that person gets to pull out a toothpick, until all the toothpicks are out.


I mixed up the salt dough in the stand mixer, and rolled out three ropes.


All four of us got to poke the toothpicks in the dough before I baked it.


The finished crown.


Removing thorns.

more thoughts about spelling

I've spent a lot of time thinking about and posting about spelling, compared to most homeschool moms with kids the ages of mine.

I blame my brother. He notices all my misspellings, grammar mistakes, and other goofs. He marvels that I once managed to get paid to write. Unlike my brother, I've always been a poor speller. When Wander asks me how to spell something, I'll tell him "F7" (the keyboard shortcut in Word for spell check).

I want my kids to do better than me.

Spelling programs

Back before I started homeschooling I found myself looking at various spelling programs. One program that I looked at was All-About-Spelling (AAS). This was back before AAS got the slick new website. I liked a lot of the information on the AAS web site, but it was a new program and wasn't fully developed yet, so I went with Spell to Write and Read (SWR).

I've been very happy with Sparkle's progress with SWR, even though I've recently almost completely ditched SWR. (I'm using a homegrown program with SWR's phonograms, spelling list, and spelling rules, none of which are unique to SWR. With minor variations they're the Orton-Gillingham phonograms and spelling rules with the Extended Ayres words that are used in multiple programs. )

Then I recently revisited the AAS web site and have been drooling over it. I've looked at its scope and sequence. I've seen its sample lessons. I've read many of its articles. I've started using some ideas from AAS. I've read the rave reviews, and I totally believe all of them. If I had to do it all over again, I'd be very, very, very tempted by AAS.

Fortunately, I realized that AAS wouldn't be a good fit for us. AAS introduces words in order of spelling difficulty as determined by spelling rules. AAS also requires mastery of a rule before moving on. SWR, on the other hand, introduces words according to spelling difficulty as determined originally by testing school age children. That means that the SWR word list has a lot of high frequency words at the beginning, even though many of those words follow more complex spelling rules. SWR also introduces lots of spelling rules and phonograms up front without requiring mastery of them.

So what? With the SWR word list, Sparkle is learning more high frequency words sooner than she would with AAS. That translates into her knowing how to spell a greater percent of words in normal sentences. By introducing the phonograms and rules up front, a la SWR, Sparkle has a passing familiarity with them, and I can reference them when we encounter an unfamiliar word in reading or personal writing.

If Sparkle had a harder time with spelling, I'd probably still be really tempted by AAS, but now I can think about it without being wistful.

a short day of school

This Wednesday our playgroup stuffed eggs for the church Easter egg hunt to take place this weekend.

I decided to cut out most of morning school in order to make it to playgroup early to help stuff eggs. I thought we could squeeze in spelling, though. I put Sparkle's spelling notebook on a clipboard and gave her dictation in the car. Other than the inevitable handwriting difficulties, it actually worked. When she was done writing the sentence, she passed the clipboard to me and I told her what corrections to make. I won't be doing car dictation on a regular basis, though, due to the handwriting issues and the difficulties in her self-correcting her work.

I saved the copywork and word analysis part of spelling for when we were at playgroup. I had poor Sparkle sit at the table and do her spelling while the toddlers played and the moms stuffed eggs. She had a hard time concentrating, and one of the other moms commented about how hard it must be for her to work with all the distractions.


After Sparkle finished her schoolwork, she went off to read. Sparkle spent most of her time at playgroup reading. Glitter copied her sister.


Meanwhile the moms finished stuffing the eggs with the help of the kids.


After we got home Sparkle and I had lunch. Glitter fell asleep in the car and continued her nap on the sofa. Then after lunch, Sparkle fell asleep too! So we didn't do any afternoon school. I finally woke Sparkle when it was time to get ready for dance class. Then I carried a still groggy Glitter into the car.

End of a Journal

Sparkle used the last page in her journal this morning. She's been anticipating filling out this last page all week long. I told her that when it was filled, we would put it into storage. Then when she grows up, we'll take it out and ooh and aah over it and exclaim how cute her work was when she was five. Then when she moves out into a home of her own, we'll give it to her to store.

Here's an entry from the beginning of the journal.


Here's the last entry.


Her handwriting has improved, as has her use of capital letters and ending punctuation. Her pictures also show slight improvement. Hair is no longer two straight lines. Pictures are sometimes colored in instead of just outlines. Other things haven't changed. She's still drawing the same types of things (family members and princesses), and her sentences are still blah.

She's already decorated a cover for the next journal. I'm looking forward to seeing how she fills it.

messy mirror

I've had a small mirror on my fridge for several years now. Originally it was just to entertain Sparkle when she was young. Then Glitter came along, and she also liked to look at herself. Recently I realized that Glitter had found a new use for the mirror.

Glitter is a messy eater, but she hates being cleaned up. Now she'll check herself in the mirror and wipe her face and mouth with her napkin until she is presentable. Occasionally we still need to check her, but she usually does a pretty good job.


On similar lines, I've been getting tired of Glitter spilling oatmeal on herself at breakfast. So, this morning I got a napkin and suggested to Glitter that she wear it as a bib. She rejected that idea, declaring that she wasn't a baby. So, I offered a bargain. If she kept clean and didn't spill any oatmeal, she wouldn't have to wear the bib. If she spilled any oatmeal, she would have to submit to the bib/napkin. I've never seen her eat so cleanly! (Side note: after hearing my proposal to her sister, Sparkle tucked her napkin into her dress. Too bad she had already wiped some oatmeal on said napkin.)

Bluebonnets and Yew

The bluebonnets were out in full force at the gardens on Monday. I'm pleased at how cute the girls look with their heads touching in this picture.



The girls also enjoyed going through the hedge maze of Yew trees. I met them as they came out the other side. It took them much longer to go through the maze than I expected. Turns out they were re-enacting a fairy tale along the way.

teatime and 5 minute chocolate cake

I've gotten the email with the recipe for the 5 minute chocolate cake a few of times now from different people. I decided to give it a go for teatime. I figured that if it was just enough dessert for one or two people, it would be about the right amount of treat for me and the two girls.

First I looked it up on the internet to make sure that it wasn't a complete hoax. I found that many had heard of the recipe, but not as many had tried it. Then I found that some who tried it found it too rubbery to eat. Finally, I found a posting from someone who had an edible result. Good enough for me.

Here's the version that I used, adapted for what I had on hand.

1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 T baking powder
1 egg
3 T oil
1/4 cup soymilk
1/4 cup chocolate chips

I mixed it up in my glass quart size measuring cup. Then I nuked it for three minutes. It didn't look as strange as others had reported, and because it was a larger cup, it didn't overflow. It also tipped over nicely onto a plate and looked somewhat reasonable.



Before serving the girls, I warned them that if it tasted bad, the polite thing to do was to simply stop eating it and not say anything about it. (After all, part of teatime is getting them to learn manners.) However, it turned out not to be a problem. Both of them liked it. I was a bit suspicious, but I also tried it and found it passable. Not fantastic, but worth the effort. Both girls wanted seconds and thirds. However, it ended up being more cake than I wanted them to have, and so I convinced them that we should save some for Daddy.


This cake was also one of the more messy treats that we've had for teatime. The girls are supposed to use their forks and napkins. However, Sparkle managed to spill her lemonade, and Glitter was shoveling cake from her plate into her mouth with a half inch gap in between the two.



I think that I'll keep this cake in my box of tricks, but it's a bit much for a regular basis.

I keep telling myself that this system of subjecting my kids to poetry is supposed to make them better students and I'm supposed to see the payoff in only two to five short years. (Just kidding. The girls really enjoy teatime and ask for it often.)

Birthday Party Thief

Today was the last of a string of March birthday parties that the girls were invited to.

It was a "Pink Poodle Party." The girls enjoyed fun games, lots of goldfish crackers, and crafts with pink felt.


On the drive home Sparkle remorsefully announced that she just realized that she still had one of the birthday girl's rings. She had put it on when playing at the party, and then forgotten to take it off when cleaning up. Sadly enough, the last time we were at their house, Sparkle had also walked out with a ring. This time because we don't know when we'd be back, Sparkle came up with the idea of mailing the ring back. I seized this idea and told Sparkle that if we mail the ring back, she'd have to write a letter to go with it explaining the situation.

So, after supper Sparkle sat down with a piece of paper and wrote a letter. I helped her with the formatting, general content, and spelling a couple of words, but the rest of the work is hers.

Spelling Update

I've been using my new spelling system (http://spellinglog.blogspot.com/) for a little over a month now, and I'm liking it.

I like both the predictability and the flexibility of the system. Each day has dictation, copywork, and word analysis. In general the system is supposed to provide the framework for teaching and reviewing spelling words. However, I can use the same activities to teach other spelling and writing concepts.

The system includes periodic review of core spelling words. However, I started the system when we were in section I of Spell to Write and Read, so Sparkle had gone through lots of over two hundred spelling words. Although many of those words weren't core words, many of them were, so I had a huge backlog of spelling words to start reviewing.

To help ease the backlog of review words, I stopped teaching new words the week before spring break. I still used dictation to review old words. However, I used the copywork and word analysis sections to teach contractions. It worked pretty well, and now she's noticing contractions in writing. I'm also planning on not teaching any new words next week. Instead we'll work on adding "s", "es", and "ed" to words. Then I'll have her practice these skills through copywork for a while before I start using them in dictation.

One thing that I find neat about copywork is that I can really tell when she has internalized a spelling simply by watching her do copywork (instead of leaving her to do it by herself). When she is unsure about a word, she'll frequently glance back at the word as she writes it. However, if she is sure about a word, she'll read the word and then write it without looking back. If she's really sure about all the words in a phrase, she'll write the entire phrase without glancing back.

We've already covered enough words for kindergarten, according to the SWR manual, so I'm not worried about not teaching new words for a while. Plus, I figure that with built in review, I can ignore the SWR recommendation to start back at list A next school year.

The process of creating the daily spelling sentences is taking longer than I had originally hoped, but that might be due to the backlog of words. In any case, I am lucky that I have the time to focus on this project and a child who is capable of the amount of handwriting required. I'm hoping that as the backlog disappears and Sparkle can write more, it will be easier to come up with daily spelling sentences.

D A D is Daddy!

Glitter is showing interest in letters and reading. Maybe it's all those Leapfrog and Pocket Snail videos that she's watching. I think this clip is cute because of the delay between sounding out the word and then the excitement when she understands what it means.

Yay! No School This Week!

Monday morning after breakfast, Sparkle did her journal without any prompting, even though she had been rejoicing that there was no school this week. Then after I finished the breakfast dishes she came up to me asking when I was ready. Ready for what? School. No, we're not doing school this week. Oh, yeah. Go play. Okay! I guess that she's gotten used to the habit of school.

After that I didn't have to reminder her that I wasn't doing school. However, a few things did sneak in. So far she's done her journal every morning this week. She's almost to the end of the book and I need to remember to get a new one for her.

Tuesday was St. Patrick's day and I had somehow managed to have three relevant library books (one on St. Patrick, one about a family with a St. Patrick's day tradition, and one about Leprechauns). I read the three picture books to the girls. We looked up St. Patrick and the Irish Potato Famine on the timelines and I made index cards for them and we filed them in the timeline box. (I think that the key to getting this done was having me make the cards myself beforehand and skipping a picture.) We looked up Ireland on the map and saw that it was close to England and France across the Atlantic Ocean from America. And I managed to keep Glitter from falling headlong down the stairs while she squirmed on the landing under the map where I read.

Tuesday the girls also cajoled me into doing teatime, even though we weren't doing school. I read from a book of Chinese Mother Goose rhymes from the library. Glitter lasted almost the entire teatime before wandering off.

Wednesday we went to playgroup. Sparkle was writing the alphabet on the chalkboard there. I teased her to write "I don't have school today." She asked if that was for school. I told her no, why would you write that you don't have school if you are really doing school. Then she said that it was too hard, and I realized that she didn't know how to spell several of the words. Then after a few minutes she started writing an easier to spell version. "I have no s " Then I realized that it had been a long time since she'd spelled the word "school" so I prompted her with the sounds of the phonogram "ch/k/sh" and she got it. I wish that I had taken a picture.

Thursday I decided that I really needed to bury myself into my computer working on how I want to teach Chinese, so I moved the computer to the kitchen table and told the girls to play. In the middle of the afternoon Sparkle was reading when she suddenly called me to look at something. She wanted to show me a contraction in the book. Last week I had started teaching her about contractions (I'm, you're, we'll, etc.). She continued reading the rest of the book, every now and then exclaiming when she'd found another contraction.

I find her excitement about the contractions amazing. She's been seeing and reading contractions all along, but now she knows what they are and it's like she's seeing them for the first time. (Side note: I think having names for things is a powerful tool. A flower is flower, is a flower, is a flower, but teach the names for the different parts and suddenly there's so much more to see. A rock is a rock, is a rock, but learn the different types of rocks and how they're formed and suddenly rocks are much more interesting.)

Tomorrow is Friday, and I was planning on burying myself in the computer again to get this Chinese stuff into usable shape. But now I'm thinking that I really ought to take the girls to the park where the homeschool group is meeting Friday morning. I've had them cooped up in the house for most of the week and they'd love to get out of the house.

Practicing dance

Because it's spring break, Sparkle doesn't have ballet class or rehearsal this week.
Not to worry, she's practicing all the same, and even teaching Glitter her routine.

Spring Break at the library and park

We're on spring break this week. However, we still does some activities that I normally consider "school," but the girls enjoy, like going to the library and on a nature walk.

As I was pulling into the parking lot, I wondered why there were so many cars. Duh, it's spring break. The place is full of kids who would normally be in school. When we entered the library, I noticed that there was a greeter at a desk who normally isn't there. A few polite questions revealed that she was a volunteer to help count the number of library patrons, and she was delighted that there had been over a hundred people in the last hour. (The library had opened an hour ago.) Whew.

I skimmed the stacks a bit faster than normal, and then gathered the girls to head out. As usual, Sparkle was nose deep in a book instead of picking out books to take home. When I told her it was time to go, she begged to get some more "Amber Brown" books, so I told her to be quick. Apparently she didn't bother to look at the books when she grabbed them because when she handed the stack of four books to me, there were two of the same title. I made her put the duplicate back.

Then we dropped the cart of books off in the car and proceeded to the gardens. Normally we have the gardens mostly to ourselves except for the workers and one or two other families. This time the place was full of people, so I told the girls they couldn't plop down in the front entryway to draw.

I had a mission for today's nature walk. I'm always getting pansies and petunias mixed up, so I decided to look for those types of flowers and have the girls help me. Both flowers were easy to find and conveniently labeled.


Then I got entranced by some giant bumble bees. These guys are huge!


We wandered for a bit and got to play the "where did this come from" game. In this game Sparkle or Glitter sees a flower or a leaf on the ground and we try to figure out which plant it came from. Sparkle spotted these little white flowers on the ground and wondered where they came from. I suspected that they came from the tree directly overhead, but the branches were too far away to see any flowers clearly. So, I held my camera up as high as I could and took a picture. Then I zoomed in on the picture using the camera's display, and showed Sparkle. Yup, the little white flowers came from that tree.

Then it was time to go home. Glitter fell asleep in the car and when we got home, I moved her to the sofa to finish her nap. Sparkle snuggled up on the sofa and managed to read all three of her Amber Brown books before supper. Good thing I picked out a few more books for her as well.