Friday, October 18, 2013

Week 10 ~ Cheerleading, Birthdays, and Lots of Learning

This week was filled to the brim with fun and exciting events. Between cheerleading, three birthdays and a return to our regular schedule ~ we were a very busy crew. We got lots of learning in, too. Of course, learning is happening all of the time.

Cheerleading ~ Goldilocks is on a special needs cheerleading squad. This week they cheered and participated in our local Buddy Walk for Down Syndrome. There are at least five girls with Down Syndrome in her squad. Goldilocks did great. She is learning the routine and got several compliments for being a good team member. I love it when she does well and gets positive responses!

Birthday Week ~ Our week started off with a Teddy Bear birthday party for Little Red Riding Hood on Sunday afternoon. She turned 10!! October is such a busy month for people. Our turnout was small, but she really enjoyed the five friends that were able to make it. To read more about it, go here.


The middle of the week found us celebrating Boomer's 3rd birthday. We aren't really sure when he was born since he was a rescue dog, so we celebrate the date that is 5 months earlier than the day we got him. He supposedly was 5 months old when we got him. I am so glad his puppy years are over. He is a wonderful dog and is the most well-trained dog we have ever had.

The end of the week was my husband's birthday. We surprised him by reorganizing his entire tool area. I am afraid it had become the dumping ground for everything that did not have a home. Incredibly, the "before" picture was taken after we had been working on the workbench for an hour!!! There is still work to do. However, I am so glad I got it this far!
BEFORE
AFTER


Our Learning ~ Besides all of the great learning gleaned from all of the events in our week, we did lots of book learning, too. We did the 3 R's each day.

  • We are working our way through the Beyond Five in a Row book, Homer Price. We are loving this book and the great Beyond FIAR activities.
  • We also finished The Island of the Blue Dolphin this week. Goldilocks will be doing some activities associated with this book next week. We are also watching The Voyage of the Mimi on YouTube. This was one of my favorite PBS shows when I was a kid. It is about humpback whales and a grandfather and grandson that get lost at sea for a little while. It sneaks in all kinds of science and math!
  • We also did art with Grandma. We learned about Jacob Lawrence with Meet the Masters and then Grandma led the kids through making a city skyline with tissue paper and liquid starch.
Tom Sawyer
Little Red Riding Hood

Goldilocks
  • We got in the mail an advertisement that happened to have stickers of different countries attached. I decided to have the kids find the countries on our world map and then figure out which continent each country belonged to. Then the kids added the stickers to our continent boxes. This led to much exploration of our continent boxes which we hadn't looked at in several months.



My kids continue to love to learn in stairwells. They did a lot of learning in stairwells at our old home and tend to migrate to our stairwell here in our new home as well. I am not sure what that is all about. However, I love the learning wherever it takes place.

Homegrown Learners

Blessings, Dawn

10 comments:

  1. My gosh it's a Birthday filled week over there huh! I love the cheer pictures! Happy Happy to all!

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  2. We did Homer Price back in August...and we loved it! I also loved all the skyline pictures. What a great project!

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  3. Great week Dawn!! I love the cheerleading. How fun. That's a lot of birthday celebrations! Happy Birthday to them all!! I love the skylines! Happy weekend!!

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  4. Wow -- so many birthdays! I think my favorite thing is that you all worked together to organize your husband's tool area as his present. You are motivating me to do the same! :-) Have a great weekend, Dawn!

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  5. Being in the stairwells is a Sensory Integration therapeutic/coping method which pulls in the textural part of SI. It's very cozy and comforting to be in a more confined, as opposed to open, place. It's like wanting to snuggle up in a blankie or something. My daughter used to curl up behind a chair to do various activities. It was the coziest spot for her to find. An SI proactive way to provide places like this would be like setting up old sheets to make tents. I used to love doing this as a kid. It can also make a great reading corner. Even building a little playhouse can work.
    Laurie

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  6. Wow, such a busy week and so productive. The party looks like a lot of fun. I think it's great that you celebrate Boomer's birthday too. The city skyline project looks like a lot of fun. That could probably be done with lots of time eras in history too. I'll have to think about that for us. Have a wonderful weekend.

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  7. Love the art and learning on the stairs.

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  8. Happy birthday to everyone! Your tool area look much like many area in our house!! (Shhh, don't tell anyone!).
    It is really lovely to hear how well Goldilocks is doing each week, you must be very proud. I'm off now to look at your teddy bear party post...have a wonderful week ahead!

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  9. Happy birthday Little Red Riding Hood! Double digits! And Dad and the dog! Busy birthday week! So cool on the cheerleading squad! Love the colors in the tissue paper skyline creations. My youngest son LOVES to play on the stairs! Only rule: Don't leave those toys behind to be stepped on!

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  10. Love your artwork!!!
    And Island of the Blue Dolphins has to be one of our all time favorites:)

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