Pages

Monday, December 28, 2009

Peanut

Peanut is what my husband called the baby when we, as a family, went to the first sonogram appointment. Baby was as big as a Peanut! Well, he has stayed Peanut since. A few weeks ago Bella told us that we cannot call the baby Peanut because people will want to eat him!!


Here is Peanut!
Christmas Eve at my Sister In-Laws Home.


My sweet hubby.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Merry Christmas!

It has been a while since I posted. This time of year is incredibly busy for me. It starts with the kids birthday in the middle of November, then Thanksgiving, Christmas (crazy busy). This year everything took twice as long because I get tired so easily. I am now 61/2 months pregnant.

We just returned from my husbands family where we spent Christmas. We love to go to Brownsville for Christmas but it is a very long car ride, 500 miles. I am glad to be home!

Here are a few pictures at home and in Brownsville before Christmas Day.

At home before a Christmas party. I took about 20 pictures of the kids so I could get some good ones for the Christmas card!

This was the first time the kids visited Santa. My son was never interested so I did not push it. Up until last year he was scared of just about anything in a suit!

Holiday Program at the kids school.

With the cousins at the Christmas Eve Mass.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

The School Room!

The day after Thanksgiving we started to decorate for Christmas which is very big in our house. While decorating I decided to move one rug from the living room to the dinning room and a few days later I had moved lots of furniture around and the school shelves from the dinning room to the play room and now the play room is a school room/playroom!

It has been almost two weeks since this new setup and it is working so great. The kids LOVE their school room, calling it the school room and wanting to be in there to do school work and also play! We are very good at keeping it organized because it is the school room!!

Here are some pictures. I will post about each area and some new works on my following posts.

Art/Math/Sensorial/Language/Cultural Area

Reading/Religion Area

Calendar/Writing Area

Pretend Play Area

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Language Works for Sweet Boy

Here is a plastic drawer that contains a few items that begin with the letter 'c' and the exact letters Sweet boy and Bella will need to spell out the words. I have three little drawers like these. I rotate the letters we are working on. This method of using the movable alphabet works great for learning different children and smaller children that may be overwhelmed by the amount of letters in the movable alphabet box.


Here the kids are working on their lower case cursive and printed letters.

The handwriting work is for Sweet Boy but Bella likes to use it. One tool I recommend for practicing writing the numbers, which I do not have but have ordered, is this Trace&Write Number Chalkboard Set from Montessori n Such.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Birthday Celebrations

It has been a while since I posted. I've been so busy with work, the house, and the kids! The kids just celebrated their birthdays this past week. Bella turned 4 and Sweet Boy turned 6. Here are pictures of their birthday celebrations at school!!


In the middle of the circle there is a sun with the months of the year around it. Above sweet boy holds the world globe and stands next to his birthday month. One walk around the sun from November to November represents one year of his life. I share with the classroom children one thing and one picture about each year of his life . The teacher will light a candle for each year.

Here is Bella's birthday celebration.

I took cookies for kids to share. Here they are on the classrooms back porch.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

More Fall Works

Grande, Mediano, Pequeño

Large, Medium, Small
The challenge here for Bella is to say it in Spanish!



Adding acorns.


Recognizing the numbers and counting the correct number of beads.


Transferring fall color pom-pons. First with just the fingers. I will then change to tongs and then to a spoon for variation and level of difficulty.


It is raining leaves in our area, so this is perfect for this time of the year!

I just purchased these leave shaped sponges today at Hobby Lobby, 50% off. I love them and I know when the kids actually notice them, they will love them to! By looking at my picture I see that I am missing the paper plates. They will place some paint on a paper plate and then dip the sponge and stamp their paper.

Pin Punching what I think is a flower. I like to take the many cookie cutters we use for play-do and trace them on these little construction papers so the kids have different shapes to pin-punch.


Tracing by numbers or letters. A favorite for both the kids. These are from a Halloween activity book. I tore them out, rolled them up and placed them inside a little pumpkin.

Notice the many pictures of Bella working but not many of Sweet-Boy. He has been working a lot with math at school so I have not put anything out for him having to do with math. We are working at home more on writing, spelling, beginning sounds, ending sounds, sight words and reading. I will take some pictures of what I am doing with him this week, I just keep forgetting. He also likes to do pin punching of the maps. He takes out the country, traces it and pin-punches it.

Montessori Giveaway - Phonics Miniatures

One Hook Wonder has a great giveaway. Check it out here. If you have not seen this blog before, it is Great! She schools her children at home with the Montessori method!! Lots of great ideas.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

The 8 Question Meme

Karen from Mi Escuelita Montessori tagged me for The 8 Question Meme

Six names you go by:
Ginnette
Gigi
Maria
Momi
Mama
Honey

Three things you are wearing right now
jeans
black t-shirt
black sandals

Three things you want very badly at the moment
Not to feel sick from the pregnancy
For this headache to go away
For dinner to taste good. I am making Pollo en Fricase...

Three things you did last night/yesterday/today./
Last night I went to sleep at 7pm
Yesterday, I met with our Architect - we are adding and remodeling the house
Today I had a level 2 sonogram and found out we are having a healthy baby BOY!

Two things you ate today.
Eggs and a bagel
Chicken Salad

Two people you last talked to on the phone
My Mom
My Brother

Two things you are going to do tomorrow:
Grade papers
Volunteer at the kids school

Your three favorite beverages:
Coffee - although not my favorite at the moment
Margaritas - can't have them at the moment!
Grape juice

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Elementary Montessori Training and Volunteering

Elementary Montessori Training
Montessori Training begins again this weekend after a nice break! When I started the training, the 2 year cycle had already began but they still allowed new people to begin. So, I am now starting what I should have taken at the beginning "The Primary Overview". The primary overview is 6 weeks of courses on the philosophy, theory and curriculum. I am very excited to be starting this course. After this, I will have left the Math and the first part of language. Because the baby is arriving in April, I will not be able to take the Math and what I am missing of language. But that is Ok because once I finish the classes, I have to do a 9 month internship. I do not want to do the internship until the baby is 2 or 3 years old.

Volunteering


Picture above obtained from Martin and Anna's Website.

I need to remember to take pictures of the kids garden.

I have also been volunteering at the children's school helping with making materials and helping the environmental teacher in the garden with his classes. Making materials is a great way to get an insight on what the children are doing in the classroom. We also get to make extra copies for ourselves if we wish.
In the garden the children are growing vegetables and herbs. By helping out I get to see what they are growing and learn about gardening. This is something I have been wanting to do at home with the children but just scared to start since I do not know anything about it! But from what I see, it look fairly easy!!

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Outside Environment

Bella was very excited to tell us all about her outside work environment. She told us what works she could take outside, how many students could be outside at one time, and all of the steps in between! Open house was in the evening. Please forgive my dark pictures.


Looking at the porch of the room next to Bella's.

Notice the rain boots. All the children have rain boots so that if the grounds are wet and muddy they can still go outside and play. They have really used these lately. It has been raining every week around here. Crazy rain!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Sweet Boys Classroom

Sweet Boy - that is my son and this is what we actually call him most of the time because he is sooo sweet. His teachers adore him because he is so kind, helpful and concerned for others. He walks his sister inside her classroom EVERY morning. Here we are at Open house. He showed us around his room and showed us some works.

My husband taking a picture of him!
I see some music and math works in the background.


The kitchen in his classroom. Notice that it is not as busy and "cute" as Bella's classroom. His room is not as cluttered. I'm not saying there is anything bad about her classroom, I actually like all the "cute" stuff!

Practical Life area.

Not sure what all of the works are back there. But another shot of the classroom.


Tracing.

On my next post I will show pictures of the porches. All rooms in the school have a porch area with tables to do works, washing work are done here, and art easels are outside for painting work.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Open house at the kids school

The kids school had an Open House this past week. I took tons of pictures so I'll be posting about it a few more times! At the open house the children have the opportunity to show their family what they do at school. We just follow the children and ask them to show us works they have had lessons on. They show you around and you follow their lead. They may do a work or not. Our kids were so excited!

Here is a few pictures of Bella showing us how to do a water work.

This is the entrance to the classroom. She is getting the rubber apron.


Putting on the apron.

Getting water and sweet boy looking on~

The kids are in different classrooms. I will post pictures of sweet boy and his classroom next.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Spanish this week

My son has not been wanting to do any Spanish work lately and for that matter English either. He brings home from school little books to read in English and refuses to do read them. After me working at it, he sits with me and actually does pretty well but it is hard to get him to actually do it.

Any how, I'll talk about our Spanish. He has been very negative about it and I do not push it. I just try to find ways that he likes to learn Spanish. In my last post I told you about the blog Homeschool Creations. So, I tried the crafts as a way for us to speak Spanish and at the same time work on the letters for Bella. He really loved the letter crafts.

I also got some Spanish materials from my Mom who works in Foreign Languages in our school district. They had a lot of materials they were going to get rid of so she brought them to me. In there, there were transparencies which are not used any more because of SMART boards and computers. The transparencies had things like At the toy store, At the supermarket, etc... Sweet Boy loved us talking about those in Spanish and answering questions about them. You know that made me happy! He wanted to go through ALL of the transparencies!!

Bella on the other hand asks me to work on Spanish! She seems to really like learning the language. It also might be that she is three years old. Sweet boy does not feel the need for it.

Here is a picture of our crafts. I say ours because I cut everything out!!

C - Cangrejo - Crab
D - Dinosaurio - Dinosaur
O- Oruga (Bella's Oruga, not finished)

Thursday, October 8, 2009

New template and Pumpkins

I'm working on setting up my new template. Please let me know if something is not working or if I left something out!

I am starting to feel so much better. I am starting to want to school again! I've been reading lots of blogs as I lay on the couch or the bed and have been inspired! Here is a new blog I found. I just love all of her letter crafts and organization posts. You will see us doing some of the things she does! The blog is Homeschool Creations.

I purchased this apron last year after Halloween. I believe it came from Target. I just love it! I have Christmas aprons a friend of mine made for the kids a few years back, Valentines and this one. I love to change them out.




Friday, September 25, 2009

Thank you Bloggers!

Thank you to all of the Blogger's out there. You help motivate me. You know that I've been very tired and sick due to my pregnancy. This leaves me with absolutely no desire to do ANYTHING. But after reading one of your blog posts I get energized and motivated. Then, once I see the kids enjoying a craft or a school work, I start to feel a little better.

I did not take a a lot of pictures this week. Here is what I did capture.

After talking about the 'D' sound, Bella went to get this book called Little Digger. She said "D, like little Digger!".

Painting
The kids made Fall art work for our frames. I traced pumpkins, acorns, and flowers so they could paint or collage.




And we visited the Library!