October 14-20, 2012

We're still trying to get back in gear after a challenging first half of the month.  We took an extra day off this week to spend some time with Daddy, then got back to work.

What we did last week:

Henry 

• Saxon Math 1: Lessons 47-49 (writing the number 43, counting by 2s; writing the number 44, telling time to the hour; writing the number 45, identifying even numbers to 20)
• The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading: Lessons 98-100 (the vowel pair OA as /ō/; the vowel pair OW as /ō/, sight word: was; the vowel pair OE as /ō/, sight word: shoe)
• Zaner-Bloser Handwriting Kindergarten: Pages 117-122 (5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)

Oliver

Ollie is chugging along in therapy.  He's got quite a few signs now: pretzel, cracker, car, train, music, up, banana, and milk, among others.  He's starting to play along when we sing songs like "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Wheels on the Bus."  I'm also seeing a lot more of him following one-step directions, things like "let's go to the potty" or "it's time for bath" will get him right up and headed to the bathroom.

His big thing right now is putting the Hooked on Phonics pre-K DVD into the computer and having me get it playing so he can watch all of the different letter songs.  We're doing a lot of that.

Jane

Jane is right there with Oliver, watching Hooked on Phonics.  She can point out O and E, but everything else gets called A or B.  We're still working on shapes.  She can draw a circle, but won't point one out.  She calls them all "moon" instead.  She likes stars, too.

Peter

The blessed angel child slept through the night for the first time this weekend.  And when I say slept through the night, I mean that I put him down at 8:00 and he didn't wake up until 7:19 the following morning!  He didn't duplicate that feat the next night, but I am seriously heartened and hopeful that he'll throw at least one of those in the mix each week.

New "pet"

We found this specimen while cleaning up our woefully neglected garden beds.  I had a hard time identifying what it was, but I am very fortunate to have a cousin who is friends with an entomologist who enjoys getting random pictures of insects sent over for identification.  This is a tersa sphinx moth caterpillar and we're going to try very hard to keep it alive and kicking through it's metamorphosis.