Update on Selena

So far things seem to be healing with Selena’s lungs, we are still questioning the asthma issue. I wish her doctor would never even said those words. With all the asthma that runs in my family of course to hear that dreaded word, just makes me more observant of everything.

We have gone from treatments every 4 hours, to only twice a day now. My only regret is that I didn’t ask for an inhaler as well, which would have allowed us to get out of the house and go somewhere. Instead we have spent the entire week at home since we are not able to take her nebulizer everywhere we go. Lesson learned!

She still has a bit of a head cold, but it appears as though that is breaking up since she complains her nose is running away all the time. We are all still fighting a bit of a cold though.

I will leave you with the most current picture of our Spring, while parts of Western Washington woke to snow this morning, we woke to sun, and I took full advantage to get out and inspect how Spring is beginning to make her appearance.

A couple of the cutest quotes from Selena was: “When I grow up I am going to be a woman!” I asked her what type job she wanted to have when she grew up. She informed me, “I will clean, sweep and mop floors, oh and have babies.”

Yesterday morning when we discussed that it was St Patrick’s Day, and I asked Selena if she was wearing any green, she informed me, “You won’t catch me dead in green, I don’t like that color.” PINCH time!

At The Boardwalk Review

One of Selena’s favorite books she received from Tiger Tales was At The Boardwalk by Kelly Ramsdell Fineman, illustrations by Monica Armino. I must admit it is probably my favorite book as well, I think that is because it reminds me of my favorite childhood poem:

At the Sea-Side

By Robert Louis Stevenson

When I was down beside the sea

A wooden spade they gave to me

   To dig the sandy shore.

My holes were empty like a cup.

In every hole the sea came up

   Till it could come no more.

Selena and I enjoyed reading this book together, as well as she enjoyed reading it independently. It’s poetic form was perfect for learning many of those uncommon or more difficult words. Selena compared the Boardwalk in this book to our beaches, and quickly came to the conclusion that our beaches do not have as much to offer as the Boardwalk in this book. Though I do believe she does not remember our trip to Ocean Shores, where the main street does have many things including a carousel. We both recommend this cute story for any child, the pictures are beautifully done and very eye catching.

As an extension I wanted Selena to build her own boardwalk. She chose a light tan for the boardwalk itself, and blue for the sea. My first thought was to get a little pattern work, and some math introducing 1/2 and 1/3. So I cut strips for her to form her boardwalk with.

After we discussed and played a bit with the different size strips so that Selena had a good feel of how the smaller ones could go together to become the same size as the whole strip, I turned her loose to create her boardwalk. She worked very hard until she felt her boardwalk was long enough. She then decided to add sand, seagulls and fog, which are all items found pictured and spoke of in the book.

Her final Boardwalk project. We reread the book a couple of times after this project while Selena pointed out the different things she incorporated into her picture.

I was given a copy of At The Boardwalk to review. I received no other compensation, the review is my own  honest opinion about this book.

Update on Selena

We made the trek to Olympia yesterday, to see what her doctor thought on her cough. Her lungs were clear, but there was still a wheeze and of course the cough to address. Selena brought home her little Penguin, igloo and all.

OH and a dinosaur mask! We had to entice her to take her Nebulizer treatment by letting her play her Nintendo through the process. Also putting the penguin on a pillow and covering it with a blanket helped, but I did catch Selena peeking out of the corner of her eye a few times just to make sure that penguin was not going to jump out at her.

Now we just are hoping this isn’t going to be the onset of asthma, since there is so much of that runs in our family along with her mommy.

Thus Far or Little School

Selena is still fighting this Bronchitis, so today we took it easy and didn’t do very much. Although she did give me an idea of something I think she would have fun learning, she began to try to group animals according to their features. She tried went through several animals and labeled them as mammals, reptiles, then broke it down even further in many different directions. I am just going to have to make a chart with pictures of numerous animals and let her begin to explore.

We watched as it snowed yet again at our house. I truly do not even think Selena was all that thrilled with the snow.

No wonder Selena is having such a hard time getting over her bronchitis, when one day it is near 50 degrees, and the next it is freezing. This is March weather for you.

We will probably be making the trek back to the doctor today, depending on what they say when I call. Until she feels better we will be just hanging out and taking it easy.

Oh For The Life of Small Town USA

Yesterday our quaint little town, the town where crime is swept under the carpet, barely a word is heard, was shook to its knees. Many of you may have seen it on the news, and since this is a family friendly blog, I will only provide a link to the news story should you want to read more about what happened.

Selena and I had to go to Olympia for her doctor’s appointment, this event happened at 12:10, we were just loading in our car at 12:20. As I turned on the car the radio announced what had just taken place. I was going to be heading in that direction to get gas before heading on to Olympia. As we drove through the streets, it was very obvious that businesses had locked their doors, and the police were talking to anyone they could find. I chose to wait until I got to Olympia to get my gas, and only stopped briefly to call Papa to tell him what had just happened.

It was very strange on the way home to actually be hearing what was going on in our small town and realizing it was all unraveling right within my neighborhood, not far from my home. I decided I was not going to get Selena’s prescription filled, since going that direction would mean we would not get home, and I wasn’t even sure if the pharmacy would be open. Just as we reached the school kiddy corner from our home, a police officer jumped out of the school parking lot and flagged me to stop. I could see right at the corner of our property a police car blocking the lane of the road heading into town. Would I be allowed to go around him and go home?

I had to answer numerous questions from both the officer who appeared out of the school parking lot, and the officer at the car before they would let me go around and proceed to my driveway. Once home we locked all the doors, and turned on the radio to listen to the news. I by the way turned the TV on to distract Selena.

As a spokesperson stated in the news briefing, this event does not only affect those injured, but it does affect the entire community. Living here where we do, means everyone knows everyone, we hurt when things go bad, we feel just as scared, and violated as if it happened to us or in our own home. Something about living in a small town is it is your home, the entire community, the entire town, every shop owner, every police officer, attorney, judge, or person who walks and drives the street is your neighbor, your friend, your family. We sometimes forget that just because we live in a small town does not make us immune to the realities of the world, it isn’t until something like this happens before we realize that we too have to be just as aware of our surroundings like anybody else.

I will say this it was at this point though that I truly was never more thankful that Selena was with me, and not in lockdown at the public school. I was glad I could answer her questions and concerns, that I was the one who could hold her and calm her fears as she realized something was truly wrong when we had such a hard time getting home. For those who think we as homeschoolers shield our children from the world, let me tell you that truly is not the case, the world still spins around us. Our children see way more then those in the schools, they are not protected by the walls and the locked doors during such an event. They do have one thing though, the security that comes from knowing that they are with their family, with lots of love, hugs, and as many answers as we can give.

Our Curriculum

When I sat out to find a curriculum for us to begin using with Selena I didn’t want one that was too full of fluff, I truly wanted one that would zone in on the basics, one that we could add our own interests, and ideas to. At first I wasn’t sure about Keepers of the Faith but I just kept going back to it until finally I told myself I won’t know if this will be a fit for us or not until I get it in my hands and we try. When we got it, at first glance I still was not sure if Selena would truly take to it or reject it. We have had to make a few adjustments, and of course there was the actual teaching Selena how to use the curriculum before I began to see that my choice was the right choice.

At first Selena was not into the phonics at all. I can’t say I blame her on first look of the book with all its lists of words, there are review pages that do incorporate the words into stories, but the lists by far out way the actual stories. The only thing that Selena asked me was if I would make flash cards instead of her reading out of the handbook. At first I wasn’t sure I wanted to make flash cards, but after making the first set, and seeing how much easier it is to teach Selena to slow down and truly sound every letter of the word out instead of depending on memorization, I have to admit that her suggestion was the best suggestion she could make. I like their approach, as well as the fact that at the back of the book they do give all the rules to the English language. Many of the words Selena does know, but she has found it quite challenging at times to break the words down by phonically sounding out each letter. She has also found numerous words she has never heard before. She quickly asks what these words mean, so we grab the dictionary and look it up.

I see Selena beginning to slow down a bit in her independent reading, to sound out the words she isn’t sure of. I also see her vocabulary increasing. I think the fact that she is learning new words, that we have incorporated the use of the dictionary, and that she sees how this is improving her reading ability in such a short time, has been a huge plus for her to keep plugging away.

Look how difficult the words get as she moves on through the workbook. Of course the idea with this is to teach her first to break a word down into syllables, and pronounce it from there. I see a lot more dictionary work in our future.

The one thing that Selena truly did have a bit of a problem with was the handwriting. Most of the curriculums we have seen start with learning to write capital letters. Selena just did not feel comfortable yet with learning the lower case letters. No problem for me, we just jumped ahead to the upper case handbook and will work a little backwards.

I think it is cute how Selena is making up her own little rhymes to help her remember how each letter is formed. I figure whatever works, is just fine with me. 

There are a couple other books one on Christian Character, and her handbook that we have glanced at and done a little work out of, of course we will begin to dig deeper as we go along.

I love the fact that we can spend as much or as little time we want on the fundamentals, then we can come off with whatever our hearts desire to make our school day interesting and fun. I do want to add that I did add some Kumon workbooks for early math to our curriculum, since this curriculum doesn’t start any sort of math study until next year.

Over all I am very pleased with our choice, while it seems at times we are repeating things that Selena already knows, I see her connecting with the curriculum, and I love that we are free to throw in as much about the world around us that we desire, we can read all the materials we want to read and not worry about particular lists of recommended books.

I would truly recommend this curriculum to any homeschool family, but I do want to express I believe it is very important that you know your child’s learning curve and style.

I was not asked nor provided anything for this review. The review expresses my own opinion.

Planting A Tree

A couple of weeks ago Selena and I ate at I-Hop, they gave us some seeds for a tree to plant. Selena has been wanting to plant these seeds since we brought them home. Though I feel it might still be early with the frosty mornings we are receiving, I gave in and set the seeds to soak yesterday.

Before we headed out to plant the tree we read Johnny Appleseed. Selena enjoyed the story and asked hopefully that her seeds be that of an apple tree. After a little examination and a little research we discovered that our seeds were of the pine tree family, but that didn’t disappoint her one bit.

I love these All Aboard Reading books, they are easy enough for Selena to read fairly independent, while still allowing room for her to expand on her vocabulary, and practice sounding out words. They are short, but to the point, not going off in some non-fiction variation of the main character or subject. Yet, simple enough for they young mind to get a good grasp of the information.

Yesterday, even though Selena still had a cough, it was sunny and a pleasant 50 degrees. A good day to bundle up and head outdoors. The first thing we did was choose the right spot and begin to remove some rock, along with dig our hole.

We then retrieved our seeds to plant them. Selena proudly carried them from the house to her hole.

I believe it was about the time that we put the seeds into the ground that Selena decided to try to wake up a mole. I laughed and told her good luck, that the mole was probably long gone, but she didn’t care, she was off on a mole hunt.

We stayed outside for a while, Selena played and I began a little Spring clean up. After coming in Selena kept telling her tree to grow, grow, grow. We will just have to wait and see what happens.