Home School June Week 2

This week's themes were Months and Seasons of the Year. Ella can now name all twelve months and some things that happen in certain months.  She knows there are 12 months in a year and four weeks in a month.  She can name the four seasons and describe them.  Ella also mastered 10 more sight words, bringing the total to 30.  I love seeing her recognize these words in books when we read together.

Certain mathematical concepts are a bit of a struggle for Ella, partially due to the language of math and non-exposure to these concepts in the first six years of her life.  She counts easily and has 1 to 1 correspondence and answers the question how many with no problems.  For simple addition and subtraction, she needs manipulatives or math sliders to solve the problems.  However, in situations where she doesn't think she's doing math, she sometimes surprises us.  For example, she asked us one night this week who would be eating the pizza for dinner and I said, "Well, there's six of us, but Rex and Emilia cannot eat this pizza."  And Ella quickly responded, "Then four of us will eat it (Craig, my mom, Ella and me)."  Along the same lines, she does better with math word problems than with strictly numbers ones.

Our work minus the book reports and journal entries

This week Ella and Emilia also earned their first prizes in the local library's Super Summer Reader program.  Each read four books (having someone read them to you is allowed) and in return both girls received a new book and a coupon for a meal at a local restaurant.  Of course, with the rainy weather we've had here lately, there's been a lot of reading: Spring Is Here, My Daddy Loves Me Because, Four Seasons Make a Year, Eloise Takes A Lesson, Water is Water, Moo Baa La La La, How Things Grow, I See Things Differently, The Big Book of Feelings, Home Sweet Home, Rosie's Family - An Adoption Story (Ella learned the words birth parents, birth mother, and birth father).  Ella especially enjoyed the Eloise book because Eloise is six just like her and they share some personality traits.  Ella went so far as asking me to participate in acting out some of the scenes from the book which had her laughing hysterically.  We'll certainly try to get more Eloise books and I told Ella if she works really hard for the next six weeks, we will watch the Eloise movie at the end of the summer break.

And lest you think it's been all work around here, the kids had some fun, too, joining another adoptive family at Pogoplay, learning how to bake a yeast cake from Oma, playing in the rain, and finally swimming in our pool again when the sun returned.

A baking lesson with Oma

News From MOJ In Bulgaria

Last week, a meeting took place between the Bulgarian NGOs working in international adoption and members of the Ministry of Justice in Sofia.  The discussion during this meeting centered largely on the availability for international adoption of young, healthy children from Bulgaria and the fact that the wait times for children fitting these criteria continue to grow longer.  This trend is partially due to more and more children being placed into foster homes and Centers for Family Type Accommodation where registration for international adoption lies at the discretion of a child's social worker.  Once again, MOJ intends to take measures to improve this situation, but whether they will be successful or how long it may take to see results remains unknown.  MOJ has attempted to increase the number of children registered for IA several times since joining the Hague Convention.

You can read more about the meeting on the website of Family National Association.

In light of this news, several NGOs and US placing agencies are currently encouraging their clients to expand their age and/or special needs parameters or even consider a switch into a different country program.  MOJ is asking families in process to update the list of special needs they would be willing to accept or consider and has added to this list further conditions that may decrease referral waits.

First Pomegranate

One of the fruits symbolic of the country of Armenia is the pomegranate.  This is partially due to the movie The Color of Pomegranates, a 1969 Soviet film portraying the life of Armenian poet Sayat-Nova.  Pomegranates are also believed to have originated in the region of modern day Iran, a neighbor to Armenia, so it's not far-fetched to think that pomegranates have been enjoyed by people in that part of the world since ancient times.

Yesterday, Ella had what I assume was her first taste of pomegranate, prepared for her by my mom who's visiting.  True to her Armenian heritage, Ella liked the pomegranate very much and ate almost all of the juicy, red seeds before declaring that she'd had her fill.

Home School June Week 1

I have been very surprised with how exciting and enjoyable home school has been this first week since summer break has begun. Ella has been motivated and interested and I think it's been quite helpful that I prepared my topics and materials well ahead of time.

Our themes this week were colors and weather.  We had daily math, reading/sight words, ESOL, twice a day weather checks, and day of the week. Ella pretty much knew the days of the week already, so this was just to reinforce the concept.  Our book was Weather Words and What They Mean.  Ella enjoyed some sequential processing games on the computer, used an online beginning reader program, and watched a few videos about weather. Among other things, at the end of this week, Ella is able to read 20 sight words, name the primary colors, say hello in two new languages other than English and Armenian, and spell our last name.

Our sight word kitchen cabinet wall.
Twenty of those words came off
at the end of the week
and nine new ones went up.

Ella also got her very own library card and signed up for our library's All Star Summer Reading program where she can earn prizes for reading a certain number of books.  This week we read The Tooth Fairy Tells All and Brown Bear, Brown Bear along with the above mentioned book.  Ella's teacher sent home a very nice Summer Reading Journal, so we have been writing book reviews as well.

Emilia worked on reviewing letters, painting, standing on one foot, listening to books (Brown Bear), and inset puzzles.  Her expressive language has made leaps in the last six weeks or so and we now hear her using some adjectives as comparatives and more consistent plurals of nouns.  This week she surprised us with sentences like, "Look, two cars, a green one and a red car", "Ella's sleeping!" (screamed toward us from the van's third row where the girls reside while we're driving), and "I want cut knife. No, don't touch."

To show off our efforts, we taped everything we worked on this week to the dining room wall and took a photo to remember it.

And lest you think it's been all work around here, we've had fun, too, visiting the zoo, camping with extended family, having dinner with our cousins, and swimming at home.

Relaxing in the cuddle swing
that hangs in our front room

Field Day

A couple of weeks ago, Rex and Ella had school field trips on the same day.  Ella's class went on a farm adventure.  She was close to losing her mind with excitement.  Rex's class headed to the zoo.  Craig, Emilia and I accompanied him and his friends there.

Ella's picnic lunch:
she's so easy to feed

At the farm, Ella saw, touched and learned about multiple farm animals.  She was brave and milked a goat, brushed a pony, and held a chicken.

Meanwhile, Rex and Emilia had a blast at the zoo.  Rex has improved so much in his ability to walk when held by the hand and stay with an adult.  His favorite thing at the zoo is the carousel.

After the school field trips, we decided to take a family field day to Coney Island where we all had so much fun with the rides for about three hours.

Harvest Coop

For years and years I have wanted to join a farming coop that would deliver or allow me to pick up (close to our home) fresh local produce.  Unfortunately, in any of the previous locations we have lived this was not an option.  Therefore, imagine my excitement when I found out a few months ago that a coop delivers weekly boxes at the office of Rex's cranio-sacral therapist, seven minutes from our house. I immediately signed up for a medium weekly box at $20 and yesterday we received our first one.

We got four kinds of leafy greens, radishes, green onions, beets and turnips.  I will roast the beets and turnips and we'll eat the radishes in salad along with the lettuces.  I might try my hand at making kale chips... time permitting.  The green onions are a favorite for Ella and me and there's no shortage of uses.  I am pleased with what came in this week's box and can't wait for the next one.

Summer's Taking Shape

We are only four days away from the start of summer break, so it's been fun to make plans for those glorious laid-back months.

My mom is here with us for the entire month of June.  We have some fun stuff lined up for the month, including camping and the Bulgarian Adoption Reunion.  We are also hoping that Oma can help us get the 2015/16 fall and winter wardrobe into shape by making adjustments and repairs.  The girls are over the moon excited to have their Oma here.  During June, I plan to do daily academic work with both Ella and Emilia.  She will focus on reading, writing, math and building vocab and Emilia will review her current knowledge of letters, numbers, shapes as well as continue to tackle basic math concepts (see Ella's home school schedule below).

In July, Ella will be attending summer school for four weeks.  She will go to class for four hours each morning and get instruction in math and reading.  We think this will give her a great academic boost for first grade.  For that month, we'll be hanging around at home and enjoying the entertainment offered by our backyard: swimming, swinging, climbing, sliding, running, riding tricycles, jumping on the trampoline, looking at bugs and rocks and leaves... no shortage of things to do.

The first half of August will be true time off for the girls and me.  Craig and Rex will also step away from work and therapies for several days, so we can all kick back together.  We're already looking forward to this special time as a family before school starts again in mid-August.

ELLA'S JUNE HOME SCHOOL

Daily: sight words, math with manipulatives, one ESOL worksheet, weather check, day of the week

Week 1 Theme: COLORS & WEATHER

1)      Daily weather check and chart

2)      Weather terminology

3)      Primary and secondary colors (hands on mixing activity)

4)      Water color activities with weather imagery (rainbow, rain and umbrella, sunset, snow covered trees, etc.)

5)      What’s in the weather today in …?

Books: Weather Words and What They Mean

Week 2 Theme: SEASONS & MONTHS

1)      The months of the year

2)      What happens in each month of the year (cut, glue, draw, write one page per month)

3)      Seasons and what they are like

4)      Which month is in which season

5)      What do you wear in winter, what in summer summer

Books: Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever, Four Seasons Make A Year

Music: Super Simple Songs Month Chant, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPeAo1hz8GA

Theme 3: OUR STREET, OUR TOWN

1)      Explore our street on foot with targeted worksheets

2)      Create map of Ella’s room, our property and our street

3)      What makes a town

4)      Create a town from blocks and other materials

Books: My Town (Young Geography), Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever

Week 4 Theme: TREES

1)      Kinds of trees, parts of a tree

2)      Trees in different seasons (four worksheets to decorate)

3)      Family tree

4)      Outdoor tree exploration (bark and leaf rubbings, etc.)

Books: The Giving Tree & Tell Me, Tree: All About Trees for Kids