January 2011

We had such a busy December that we kept January very low key. Christian did lots of snuggling with his Dust Buster.

We volunteered at the school giving children the DIBELS test (counting how many words they can read correctly from selected stories). It took nearly three hours and Christian was a trooper!

Faith did this great animal habitat diorama.

It had to include four living things in addition to the pandas which were the main subject (bamboo, leopard, red panda, and a Hupeh Rowan tree) and four non-living things (soil, Chinese temple, clouds, bones from the leopard's meal). I think she did an amazing job! They each made their main animal out of Model Magic clay in class and Faith was super busy helping all of her classmates after they saw what a great job she did on her own :)

Buddy and I visited Faith (and did some PTA work) and had lunch at school with her.

Christian LOVES sending the bank cylinder through the pneumatic tube at the bank. He also loves receiving Dum Dum suckers.

For our January Fun Friday lesson in Faith's class, I told the children about elements and compounds. We made molecules out of colored mini marshmallows and toothpicks and I had them invent their own creative compound and write out the formula (example: PU2C-->Fairytale Land Molecule, with P=princess, U=unicorns, and C=castle).

On the 27th we went to the school for a reading activity. They had real-life applications for reading which included a short talk by author Val Bagley, reading the instructions to make a gingerbread man craft, writing postcards, and doing the written exam for their "driver's license" test. If they passed the written part, they got to do the driving test on wiggle cars! At the end they received a license which, as Faith was disappointed to find out, stated "License to Read." So cute!