Or Wii time! I love their intense concentration. Notice Amelie has a book because I wouldn’t give her a controller.
6 months with Amelie
Whoooooshhhh! In some ways our first 6 months with Amelie flew by because all of us were in transition. Having no “Infant Buffer” was a challenge for all of us in one way or another. Now we have settled into a routine and I can look back and see how far Amelie has come and how far we have come as a family. It’s hard to believe it’s been 4 months since her first surgery. She is so proficient with her hands that it’s hard for me to remember what they were like before. She understands nearly everything we say to her and she is learning more and more English each week. She has gained 7 pounds and grown 3″ and her proudest accomplishment of the summer is learning to jump!
We love you Amelie!
Sunny Seashells Unit
I have seen these Download and Go unit studies by Amanda Bennett on other homeschool blogs, but hadn’t ordered one yet. When we planned our vacation I decided to buy Sunny Seashells and got everything ready. We didn’t start until Museum School and Chinese school were over so we would have time to just focus on this unit. I hoped it would get Nadia extra excited about our beach vacation and she did!
This is what we started with.
The unit is set up to be a 5 day learning adventure. We took a lot longer than 5 days because Nadia is at the low end of the age for these and I wanted her to enjoy it, not feel like it was information overload. Each day has book suggestions and videos links built in. I ordered about a dozen books from the library and we set the laptop on the table each time. There are family fun suggestions included and craft ideas. Each day had a “shell” of the day and Nadia liked some more than others. Each day also had a country of the day that was featured and Nadia would find them on the world map and color them in. My friend Cynthia from church brought Nadia a shoebox full of shells for us to use and then when she found out how much Nadia loved them she gave her the box full. Nadia was totally shocked, “MOM! Did you know that she gave me the whole box? Can you believe that?”
Looking at all the shells through the magnifying glass.
Spelling out vocabulary words with our tiles. Nadia is now hooked on pointing out things that are “transparent.”
The girls watching videos. Then Amelie showing me her shell while yelling “SEEEESHELL” (her variation of the word)
Nadia’s favorite video of the week was one we actually clicked through to from one of the unit study videos. We watched it at least 20 times and Nadia would say, “NO don’t eat me!”
Very glittery crafts! One for Cynthia with a lot of rhinestones for giving her the shells.
The last photos show her finished lapbook. When we got done she said, “Mom you are really fun to do this with. It’s like a party with you!” And at least 10 times today I heard, “I am so excited for our vacation. I want to find some shells!”
I think these units are really fantastic – I learned a lot or perhaps learned again things from when I was little 🙂 I love that it’s broken down day by day and you can do as little or as much as you want based on the age of your child. The videos and other links being built into the PDF are a huge convenience. We will buy more of these to use in the future.
Owl Babies
I saw this on the Totally Tots site and ordered the book from the library. The book is by Martin Waddell. Here is what we started with:
I read the girls the book 3 times and then got Nadia started on the craft part. She was very serious about the painting and googly eyes.
Finished.
This really is a cute, sweet book. We also watched videos about owls, named all the words we could think of that started with “O” and practiced the Bible verse Psalm 118:1. “O give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good.”
Since we did this over a week ago Amelie has been carrying the book around and asking me to “ree ree ree” to her several times a day.