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Monday, February 22, 2010

New Blog Look

As you know, I teach Computer Science. To be specific, my specialization is computer programming and I've taught myself a lot about web programming, web applications, and gaming.

I kept seeing all of these blogs with customized headers and finally today spent about one hour trying to figure this out, mainly trying to figure out how to use my Photoshop application!

I really love everyone's blogs or customized headers that include the bloggers children's pictures. They are just so adorable! I finally got a picture in there, a SKEWED picture :-) Photoshop and I are becoming friends! Maybe I'll teach a Photoshop class just so that I can learn it!!

Also, the reason I picked this blog design is that I am having my husband's students do a simple tree mural for the babies room. I will post pictures when they finish.

Friday, February 19, 2010

No heat in home = No school at home!

This week has been a very strange week. We spent 5 days without gas in our home. This means no heat, no stove, and no hot water. Our home is almost 100 years old and it was renovated before we moved in. The upstairs which has the Master Bedroom and what will be the babies room has electric heat. All downstairs is heated by gas. So we all slept in the Master bedroom. We went to my Mom's for showers and I just stayed there with the kids after they got out of school until it was time to come home and go to sleep. My Mom's house is close to the kids school so this was convenient. I did not want to pack so that is why we slept at home!

Anyhow, the gas problem was the entire street. There was water leaking into the gas lines and it took the companies crew 5 days to figure out where the leak was. Very miserable since we woke up to freezing temperatures every day in those 5 days and since the crew worked non-stop 24 hours a day, I barely slept due to the noise outside.

This was the scene in front of our home. There were 8 trucks just on our block and many more all up and down the street.

So, we did not work on school this week.

Valentines Pictures

Here are a few pictures from Valentines Morning.

I made the kids goodie bags with some learning items, hair stuff for Bella, and some candy!


Daddy!

My husband and the kids gave me a very pretty silver necklaces with a cross. The kids picked out the cross!

Friday, February 12, 2010

Snow in DFW???

Early morning Thursday.

Evening on Thursday.

Where are my feet!


Here is what we have done for the past two days!
We broke a record on snow fall in DFW for one day. I have personally never seen this much snow. We got about 7 inches in our backyard! Since we NEVER get snow like this, we were totally unprepared. No boots and nothing that does not get soaked by just being outside for a few minutes rolling in it. So yesterday I must have changed the kids over 6 times. Every time, I would dry the clothes and re-use! Exhausting.

I have also been working a little on my blog. Here are my changes: I broke out the blogs I follow into categories. I've been wanting to do this since I saw My Boy's Teacher, from the blog What DID we do all day, do it on her blog. I also added a link to all of my downloads. Pleas let me know if the link does not work.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Days of the Week and Months of the Year

Los días de la Semana y los meses del año

I have finally started on working on some new materials for the kids. I have lots of works printed but just had not had the energy to work on them.


Here is the inside of the folder that holds the days of the week work.
To add easy self-correction,
you can change the color of the letters of these so that the English Day matches the Spanish Day.
So Monday and lunes could be Red, Tuesday and martes could be blue, etc...


Here is the front of the folder. Glued to the front is the control card.


Months of the Year
I got these from Montessori Materials.

And here is where I keep folder work. We have a very limited amount of space for our school work so this works great!


I have these big flash cards on the shelf which contain the Spanish alphabet with a picture with each letter. I have all of these out on the shelf. The kids grab them and we play a game with them. With Bella, she lays them all out and I say "Where is the Bee?" "Donde esta la abeja?" and she finds the card. She will also try to find by the sound the letter makes. She grabs the card and says the letter sound. Bella is starting to understand and remember the differences between the sounds in Spanish and English. For example, the J makes an H sound. The H is silent in Spanish.
Sweet boy goes through them and tells me what they are. If Bella knows what it is, she grabs the card and tells me before I ask her.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Valentines Works


Februrary 1st I changed the colored pencil and marker holders and added heart cookie cutters to the play-doh tray. My sweet Bella noticed everything right away and told me "Thank you mommy for all of the beautiful hearts!!" She is SUCH a girl!

Here are the Valentines works I added or changed up from the winter works.

Valentines Card Making. The kids have made their Dad several valentines already. I am still waiting on mine!!


Cards and counters for Bella.


Pin punching hearts, x's and o's!
By the way, these are inside a box lid. The box lid has some padding on it so they use the box lid for pin punching. And the box lid acts as the tray also!


Heart beads to make bracelets this time.

Items came from the following locations:
1. Wood Trays - Wal-Mart craft section $4 each
2. Plastic Trays(Like the Red one Shown) - Dollar Store
3. Heart numbers - teacher store, Calendar Section
4. Hearts used for counters - Target Dollar Section (found this month). They also have purple.
5. Heart stamps and foam stickers - Target Dollar Section and Dollar Store
6. Heart Beads - Michael's Dollar Section
7. Marker and Pencil holders - Target Dollar Section

Thursday, February 4, 2010

We learn all day long.

One thing that I like to do is have little works/learning activities all around the house. I always find a way to turn everything into a learning activity. Here is one example:


This large movable alphabet was upstairs in the Master Bedroom with paper and pencil. Bella then brought down to the kitchen table some letters and I left them on the breakfast table for breakfast/lunch time conversation. Sweet boy and I made lots of words together while having lunch the other day. Bella likes to trace the letters and say their sound.

These little books are beginning sound books. There is one little book for each letter of the alphabet. Bella loves these little books.

Sweet boy is finally really getting into reading. He wanted to read ALL of the Bob Books! Here the kids are in the kitchen.

And here are the kids working on the hundred board. Sweet boy loves the hundred board. Bella is learning a lot from her big brother!

Some other items I have around the house: puzzles, books, legos, and games.