Blog Archives

T is for Trying to Read. Blogging through the alphabet

2/21/2014

My son is an emerging reader. It's been a bit of a road for us. He struggles with hearing sounds... learning phonics was a bit of a bust for us, so we use reading kingdom as a daily activity...it's helping the best of everything we've done so far. Love the program and he thinks it's fun as well. :) The most important thing is... it's doing the trick for him. Nothing else I tried really worked and tried a variety of things but many them relied on a phonics approach and for my lad that just wasn't doing the job.. and that's my fall back position (how I learned) so it's hard to try to rethink it.

We're recently added reading for 20 minutes every day. We have these readers from Science Life Cycle books that are subject oriented that take approximately 20 minutes to read with some talking time in the midst of it. I was very impressed tonight with the lad's ability to read a book about "Chickens" tonight.

It's just so nice to see him improving.

We play a variety of word games when we can... anything from.. give me a noun, an adjective and a verb... okay.. can you read this story? Many times they are funny which suits this humour filled 8 year old just fine. :)

The other day I pulled out some letter tiles that I picked up from somewhere and I challenged him first... Can you make these magnetic words plural?

Then we started having fun with the tiles. The intrigue of doing this wore off quickly.

I spelled a word... and said.. so .. think you can change it to another word?
He did!
Then I changed it.
He changed it.

here he is, thinking a new word through...

That morphed into the lad trying to spell a word he thought he knew. It was a fairly long word THUNDER.. he spelled it as tondir.. pretty close I said... but it's
TH... UN...D...ER... (I really really emphasized the sounds...and yeah.. that's me falling back on phonics). :) And together we spelled it correctly - but those TH's are hard you know.. when you can't really hear that h (so he tells me.. the "T" and "TH" sound the same.. Just like "F" sounds like T and TH. He got Clan down quite easily after asking if it was a k or a c. (good question eh?)

The cat warriors books are current favourites of the lad, so he spent the next 10-20 minutes making words from the book.. Like Kit, kits, hunt, claw, clan, mice, bugs, hunts

Then the lad asked... Mom.. do you think we have enough words to make a sentence? Go ahead, try ... you won't know unless you do try. :) As you can see.. he succeeded! WOOT WOOT! :)

Berrykit is a funny little, very courageous kitten in the clan and the lad is just captivated by him and laughs at his antics often. He needed help spelling Berry but otherwise managed to do this on his own.

I am ever so pleased with how my lad is coming along. I really really try hard not to be bothered by folks who critic and comment on how their child learned to read at age 31/2 or how they never even had to teach their child how to read. Sometimes reading can be a challenge, and I'm so glad my boy is meeting this particular challenge in his life.

Come join with us as we blog through the alphabet over at Ben And Me. This week we are working on the letter T.

Winter Blues? Buy a Cat!

2/21/2014

when Chase was a kitten, he was often found here. As an adult he is often found here as well, just he's harder to take a picture of when he is. :)

Hubby sent me this article this morning, from Dr. Gifford-Jones.

Got Winter Blues ? Buy a Cat

It’s estimated that 11 million North Americans take a severe nosedive into what’s called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). So if you’re tired and don’t want to get out of bed, here is Rx 101 to shake off the winter blues.

Dr. June Nickolas, an English psychologist, carried out a five year study of this disorder. Nickolas reports that those who had a “whiskers” sitting on their lap had 60 percent fewer headaches, were 21 percent less likely to catch a cold or the flu and suffered less insomnia, impatience and tension.

I would have bet my last dollar that it was the elderly, lonely silver-haired lady sitting in her rocking chair that benefited the most from having a cat. I would have lost my money. Rather, it was macho males under 40 years of age!
So if the snow is still falling, the sky dark and ominous, and you’re suffering from SAD, don’t reach for Prozac. Buy a cat.

Gifford-Jones

So go on, get a cat. You'll be glad you did.
Having a cat (or two) will....
- dispel the winter blues
- give you something to cuddle with when your spouse or children are busy
- help you develop carpentry skills when you build them a wall rest
- give you something to laugh at when they sit up, stare at you wildly, and then race off madly just because you moved a toe
- help you relax and release the stresses of the day as you play with them using cat toys

Cats are good! (just don't think about the litter box). :)

Milo, as always finding SOMETHING to lie on. :)

Streusel Blueberry Muffins

2/19/2014

Hubby figured out the calories as he watches that kinda of thing. 210 each. :) If you want them less caloric.. leave off the streusel topping. :) But in his words "they are too good not to eat". :) (just what a cook likes to hear) This recipe originated here.

Now.. I had planned to make these with my boy, but then the day ran longer than expected (due to having to shovel a whole lot of heavy snow off the driveway)... and the lad needed some down time and what not.. so I figured I'd make them on my own. I'm kinda glad I did as it wouldn't have been an easy recipe for the lad to stir through. But "MOM, CAN I HAVE ANOTHER ONE???" That's a good reward don't you think?? :)

How to make them

Ingredients.

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries

1/2 cup butter3/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon lemon zest

1/2 cup milk

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
5 tablespoons white sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter, diced

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease 12 muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners.

Combine 2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in medium bowl.

In a small bowl, sprinkle 1 to 2 tablespoons flour over blueberries, and set aside. (This simple trick will keep you from having "purple" batter)

In a large bowl, beat 1/2 cup butter with 3/4 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, and stir in vanilla and lemon zest.

Fold in dry ingredients alternately with milk. Fold in blueberries. Remember, fold gently, don't stir. Spoon batter into prepared cups.

Combine 2 tablespoons flour, 5 tablespoons sugar ,and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon in a small bowl. Cut in 2 tablespoons butter with fork or pastry blender until mixture resembles course crumbs. Sprinkle over batter in muffin cups.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire rack. These muffins freeze really well, and re-heat in the microwave successfully. Hope you enjoy!!

Things I changed.
1. I used frozen blueberries as that's what I had on hand
2. I used a bit more milk as the batter was very sticky (about 1/4 cup more).
3. It took 23 minutes in my oven and they came out of the muffin tin very clean and easy.
I almost forget to tell you that I'm linking up with the Tuesday recipe link over at Home to 4 Kiddos. You can find me over HERE.

What to write, What to write

2/17/2014

So Blogelina is having a bit of a do this week. They are challenging us to write a good post and then submit it to their comment club.

I thought it might be fun to participate and so here I am, sitting down to write a post that will hopefully inspire and wow you. I find myself going.. uh.... okay.. so what do I write about?

In my head I have such thoughts as... today is family day... it's a day that four possibly five Canadian provinces have chosen to make into a holiday. It's supposed to encourage families to spend time with each other.

I wonder if I'll find the time do more snowshoeing with my family? If we'll have fun at the raptor event at the Pinery? and then at the community movie later? Fireworks are planned for tonight as well.. I've never been in the winter before.. I don't tend to like fireworks as they are so noisy...but it might look rather cool against the snow at night.

I worked this morning early on a facebook book for my fan page, I wonder if people will truly like it OR if they'll just say they do to be nice? So tell me... what do you think of my efforts? I'm not sure if I'm totally satisfied with it myself... I may have to do some fine-tuning, so feel free to make suggestions.

I have to admit to feeling a bit sad this morning. I had a young rabbit die last night. It's be acting "off" for the day but was jumping around, eating, drinking like young bunnies should, just seemed a bit "off kilter" for lack of a better word. I've had buns do that before and the next day they are fine, I expected that to occur with this one Bugs me when they die and I have no clear reason as to why. I had high hopes for Lana but it just wasn't meant to be long term. :(

I'm hoping to get some good homeschooling done with the lad this week, and I really need to start planning my co-op class a bit more.. perhaps tonight I'll get some work done on that. Starts in another week or so!!!!

I'm still pondering the wonder in my head.. when I read from Hebrews 12 this morning about the race we are called to run by God himself.. a race that will land us in unshaken location.. a location not harmed or moved by the effects of sin. Makes me aware all the more of God's unchangeable, unshakeable love for us.

So what kind of thoughts are running through your head this morning?

Review: Our Lizzie

2/15/2014

I honestly can't remember where I picked this book up from. People give me things for my annual rather large yard sale so I suspect it came from one of those boxes. Boy, am I glad I read this book. It has caused me to want to read more by this author.

The story is written about the Kershaw family that lives in Lancashire at the turn of the century. This book is history come to life. Learning the trials and tribulations of a single family (focusing on the oldest daughter Lizzie) as World War 1 approaches. This book had me spell-bound and I stayed up a couple of late nights just reading it. I so much needed to know how everything worked out for the family and the people involved them all. The couple of bad characters were well-brought to life for me, and I really felt like I knew Lizzie and that I could just sit down and have a cup of tea with her.

Anna Jacobs helped me to really see England "back in the day", understanding some of the tensions that occurred, the attitudes, and how stuck people could be at times in where life placed them.

It was a carefully wrought book and I would recommend for older teens or adults to read due to the subject matter. Good book.

Five Minute Friday: Garden

2/14/2014

Every Friday, Lisa-Jo Baker invites us to take five minutes, just five minutes to write on one single word that she gives us. And then we are invited to encourage the folks who wrote before us. Today the word is garden.

I Love to a garden, so I was quite pleased with this topic.

Shall we start?

Three
Two
One
Go

Gardening I think is part of my blood. I've been gardening since i was a little girl. My mom would have me come out to help with her rather extensive garden.   She had six children, life on a farm, and everyone needed to be fed. So us three girls and mom spent ALOT of time out in the garden.

Trips to the gardening stores in the spring, picking up plants at the nursery, ordering on-line from William Dam. It's what we did.

Weeds.   Oh my the weeds...I had no appreciation for them at the time. I just wanted them gone.

Since I raise rabbits now.. I can say I have an appreciation for them. I let them grow until they are big enough to feed but not big enough to threaten the real food.    Drives my hubby nuts.. he wants them gone when they are just starting.

But that's kinda how he lives his life too.   He notices something out of kilter he wants it fixed up as fast as possible, whereas I tend to be more .. ah.. it's a bit of a problem now but not too bad I can work with it.

Not perhaps the easiest way to live life is it?   So much easier if you deal with issues immediately.

It's a more biblical approach as well.   We need to be careful of the weeds in our lives. Not letting them take too firm a hold.

Just as sometimes I forget a weed and it becomes much harder to pull out, we need to watch for the "off-kilter things" in our lives and root them out before they become too big to deal with easily or well.

We need to garden our own selves.

And that's my five minutes folks. :)

Come join us won't you?

Just a good day of learning

2/12/2014

So Currclick does these freebies. This weeks freebie is Daily Bird - Cardinal. This was the third stage of our homeschooling today. The first two steps were Reading Kingdom and Science4Us.

click image to get to the product. :)

So we learned a lot about Cardinals this morning, as we have a pair at our feeder on a regular basis and never see more than the one pair. We learned that's due to their having a four acre territory that they vigorously defend. :) Neat huh?

Off then to do our names of Christ. Today we learned about God being the God Most High. The lad had a difficult time wrapping his head around that idea, of God being so very very big and wanting to be in everything we do. But once he sorta grasped the idea he was full of conversation and I know he'll think on it. :)

Reading about the monks in India and their worship of Buddha led us to two short studies. One, the sadness we have for people who genuinely worship a pretend God and who in the worship can still create objects of beauty as we studied the second study.. the caves of Ajanta. It was so neat to see what they created and how they did the work. Using trees, water, and stone tools. Very cool The lad said "I would have wanted to be those hunters mom. Hunting a tiger and then seeing all that painted stuff. That would have been cool mom."

click image to go to source Shunya.net.

Math was done viaIXL this morning, he practiced seeing what symmetry was. He will need to go over his multiplication tables sometime before bed as well. :) Grammar was done this morning by making up a fun story with nouns, adjectives and verbs. We had a good time laughing over the story and words used. :) We plan a snowshoeing time for phys ed and then doing some science from the ScienceAndMath dvd we're working through for a review. So that's about all I have right now. I hope to make cookies with the lad later as well, but time will tell. Might have to wait until tomorrow for that though.

Cheers all!
Oh, before you leave, take a moment to tell me about your day? Was it good? Did you get much accomplished?

Wordless Wednesday: Joy

2/12/2014

Join others of us as we use pictures to speak. :) Wordless Wednesday.

Review and Giveaway: The Marriage You've Always Wanted

2/12/2014

Are you married? Are you planning on getting married? Gary Chapman has written a book that helps you ask and answer questions about your marriage. His goal is to help you have the best marriage possible. Come, check this book out with me.

Product details
Softcover book - The Marriage You've Always Wanted.
Author: Gary Chapman
Pages: 136 with 7 pages of resources following.
Publisher. Moody Publishers
Price: $15.99
Contact information:
Visit the official website: http://www.5lovelanguages.com/resource/the-marriage-youve-always-wanted/
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/5LoveLanguages
twitter: https://twitter.com/drgarychapman
They even have small group curriculum available here.

My Review

Nine chapters that cover such topics as "Why do People Marry?" "What love really means"    "Decisions, Decisions" to name just three of them.    Each chapter is written in a conversational tone with research supplied on occasion in the chapter.   Helping people understand what they are saying, and sometimes even what they might be thinking, is a big part of what this marriage book contains.   The questions at the end of each chapter help you think through the issues, and encourage you to make changes.

The goal is that marriage partners will go through the book together and then sit down to discuss the questions at the end, but the book is designed to be helped even if only one partner goes through the exercises.

The chapters are (at least for me) a quick and easy read.   It is such an easy book to read that didn't make me feel pressured, and in fact made me examine some of my own heart motivations and consider ways to make our good marriage even better. :)    It is a low pressure encouragement to do whatever you can to make your marriage better according to biblical principles.   I appreciated the use of scripture throughout the book to back up the biblical basis for thinking through what one is doing (or contemplating doing) in ones' marriage and the encouragement offered to make changes.

I can't say that I agreed with everything in the book, and when I mentioned one of the problem areas to my hubby he snorted. :)   And then we laughed. But that's all okay right? :)   One doesn't need to agree with everything in a book action wise, but one can agree with the basic principle behind it. Communicate clearly with your spouse.... apologies, reasoning, thoughts and emotions.   Just do it.   You don't need to do it always the way recommended, but you just need to do it.   Put yourself aside sometimes and just talk.

I would highly recommend this book for people who are contemplating getting married.   If people would talk more about some of the issues .. perhaps not expected in the marriage.... it would make the first few years of marriage much easier and establish better patterns for longevity in marriages.     It's a good. well-written book.

It's a good reminder to already married couple to continue to communicate about different areas of their relationship, if only to make them better. :)

Giveaway Details

"Disclosure (in accordance with the FTC’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”): Many thanks to Propeller Consulting, LLC for providing this prize for the giveaway. Choice of winners and opinions are 100% my own and NOT influenced by monetary compensation. I did receive a sample of the product in exchange for this review and post. Only one entrant per mailing address, per giveaway. If you have won the same prize on another blog, you are not eligible to win it again. Winner is subject to eligibility verification.”

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This book was provided for the purposes of my reviewing it and posting the review to my blog. No demands were made for a positive review, simply that I review it and give my honest opinion on it. No other compensation was provided. I provided this service through FlyBy Promotions.

When Tiredness Makes you need to be careful of each other....

2/11/2014

Do you ever have a day when you are all tired from one thing or another? really? You do? Oh great. makes me feel SO MUCH BETTER. :)

I did have high expectations for the day but it didn't take me long to realize they weren't going to happen. :) So I could take a moment to complain about the day, but I think I'd rather focus on what went well.

1. My son cheerfully completed Reading Kingdom.
2. He not as cheerfully completed Science4Us...but he did do it and then took a break as I said he might. :)
3. We watched and commented on the Movie Penguins Spy in the Huddle. I would so cheerfully recommend you all watch this movie. You will learn alot about penguins, though the movie does gloss over the fact that sea lions will eat penguins if they have a chance to do so.

4. The lad played Skyrim for a while and even read some things on his own even though it's easier to ask mom to read them. But he read them nicely on his own so improvement is being made. :)
5. We worked on a mosaic. The lad DOES NOT like mosaic.. they have too many spaces in them mom so they don't look nice close up. The ones on the computer are fine but I don't like them for me. It took him a while to come up with a valid reason for not liking to do it, so when I finally assisted him in his thinking process and asked him if he could at least try, he was willing to do so. :) Before that it was too much for a tired boy to trying to work through.
6. I completed a mosaic and did it well enough both of the males in my house could figure out what I did. :) YEAH ME! And with that I give you Firestar from the warriors series of books. :)

7. The lad chose lunch AND helped put it together.
8. The lad asked politely if we could have eggs, bacon and fruit for supper NO mom.. crackers instead??? We compromised on eggs, bacon, celery and he could have some crackers. He cooked the eggs WOOT WOOT!

being a silly goob posing for the camera.

9. It's Tuesday night so I generally take bunny pictures, so I brought them in the house to do so as it's COLD outside and I didn't want to freeze out there. The lad helped and then I said.. Hey... can you figure out which bunny has a broken leg? No.. well here, see if you can find which one is broken.

I don't know how the little runt broke his leg. It's not a bad break, but it is a break. We're monitoring him to see how he goes. I can't for the life of me figure out what he managed to break it on and am assuming mom stepped on him just as he hopped, but that's a bit of a guess. He hasn't lost any ground in growth rate so he's overall doing okay. I'm glad my son was able to see which leg had the problem. He's getting better at seeing these things and learning. It's a grand thing that. :)

So I guess overall our day wasn't as bad I as thought it was... but it was a bit hard at times and we needed to work hard at not snapping each others heads off. (though that expression makes my son laugh). We worked through it and that's a good thing indeed. :)

How does your family handle it when you are all tired and out of sorts??