according.to.kim

Simple homework station

Here's the homework station we set up in a corner of our living room last week. We had removed (and disassembled) this desk from the girls' bedroom about six months ago as there wasn't enough space, so when I read Aby's Weekly Organizing Quick Tip: Get Organized for Homework, I knew just what to use for our homework station.

On top of the desk, we have a plastic drawer with supplies (pencils, erasers, sharpener, tape, ruler, stapler, hole-punch, glue stick, scissors, and new homework-only markers), a binder full of loose-leaf paper, and a couple French-English picture dictionaries we had kicking around. I put a red dot sticker on all of the supplies to denote they belong to the homework station; I hope we can manage to keep them here! Also, I plan to put a photo of our star students in the STAR picture holder on top of the drawer.

P.S. Thanks, Tracy, for your tip this morning about setting up a music mini-station for our new MYC students. I will do that! Glad to hear you like the program.

Get your Mabel's Labels HERE!

Our school needs a new play structure! The existing one is very old and doesn't meet safety standards; it needs to be replaced this year. Our school community has been working hard over the past six months to raise funds for a new one and we're doing great, but still have a ways to go. Have you ever seen the price tag for a new play structure? They're not cheap! 

I want to tell you about a great new fundraiser now underway: Until September 14, 2009, when you buy Mabel's Labels through this special Mabel's Labels website, a portion of the sale will go toward the new play structure at our school. Note: You will pay exactly the same price through this special website as you would if you purchased Mabel's Labels directly through their website. :-) Please take a look at Mabel's Labels (a Canadian company that ships everywhere!) through our special website and see if there's something you and your family could use. I bet you'll find something!

I can attest that Mabel's Tag-Mates are great. I stick them on many things the girls use away from home such as backpacks, insulated lunch bags, jackets, and hats. I also apply them to the tags on Webkinz animals because the girls take them out of the house sometimes too.

For the upcoming school year, I will be ordering Skinny Minis for the girls' school supplies, as well as some Shoe Labels. Can't wait to use the Skinny Minis rather than writing names on everything! Hmmm, the Big Combo looks tempting too, as I will need more Tag-Mates later this year and I could definitely use all the other items. Sticky Labels will be great for reusable water bottles and other containers. For those of you with children who have allergies or other special needs, be sure to check out the safety products. And for everyone -- children not required -- Mabel's Labels offers all kinds of household labels as well!

Please consider buying some labels through our special Mabel's Labels website and supporting our school play structure in the process. Thanks!

Guest speaker Daddy

Yesterday and today, Neil was a guest speaker in Sophia's classroom (grades 2/3) for about 30 minutes each day. (Georgia was there with him both times and Madeline once.) He showed the students a bison skull*, bison horn caps and hair**, bison photos, an elk antler, arrowheads and other stone tools; demonstrated how to flake obsidian to make arrowheads; and provided some information about various weapons of aboriginal people (drawing on his anthropology studies and other sources), methods of hunting bison such as jumps and pounds, and other bison history and facts (drawing on information gleaned from the 2007 International Bison Conference we attended, our visit to Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump, personal experience, and other sources).

It sounds like Sophia and her classmates really enjoyed seeing and touching the various artifacts and learning about these things! This was Neil's fifth time being a guest speaker in our girls' classrooms (previously, three times for preschool classes and once for grade one) and he will be going to Madeline's kindergarten class later this year.

*Unfortunately our specimen looks a little worse for wear since Sherlock chewed on the horns when the skull was weathering in our backyard a few years ago. Oh well.
**Thanks again to Mom and Dad for providing the bison horn caps and hair! The children enjoy being able to touch them.

***
Today I'm thankful for:

• email
• my bed
• online education

It's one of those weeks...

...in which we're just trying to stay on top of things and not miss something! It's just a little busier than usual. In addition to our regular school/work/home/food duties...

Monday
Madeline - return library book (done, but a day late)
Neil - prepare water bottles, backpacks for dance
All - attend Sophia & Madeline's dance class
Sophia - prepare for spelling test

Tuesday
Kim - write/send cheque for milk program
Sophia - take spelling test (5/4!)
Neil - prepare snack for Brownies enrollment (brownies w/frosting, from scratch)
Sophia - practice Brownie promise & law
Kim - attend dance class (and leave early)
Madeline - attend Sparks meeting (and leave early)
Sophia - attend Brownies meeting
All - attend Brownies enrollment

Wednesday
Neil - peel & cut up orange
Madeline - take orange for fruit salad day
Sophia - do book report, start to finish
Madeline & Kim - prepare summer memory leaf (picture & words)
Sophia & Kim - read two French books together (guided reading program)

Thursday
Kim - download & review assignments for DYL week 2
Kim - help Sophia dress like her role model (me!)
Sophia - dress as her role model
Sophia - hand in book report
Sophia - return library book
Sophia - return guided reading books
Neil - prepare brown clothes & snack for Madeline
Madeline - wear brown for la journee du brun (brown day)
Madeline - hand in summer memory leaf

Friday
All - no school; do housework? (please!)
Kim - take day off work to help with housework?
Kim - attend Christmas card camp

Saturday and Sunday
Family/Thanksgiving/Celebration of Life (funeral) activities

Last day of vacation

I was very glad to have two days at home before going back to work. I did get a lot done but could do so much more (as always). Most importantly, we almost finished unpacking and I took Sophia and Madeline shopping for their school supplies. I will label everything this weekend.

We had our laptop hard drive looked at yesterday (for the third time) and were not surprised to learn that we'll have to send it away to the land of last resort (www.WeRecoverData.com). The hard drive is quite dead and cannot be handled locally. I am not very hopeful at this point. We also had a new drive installed in the laptop. At least that didn't cost very much.

In other news, Sophia, Madeline, and my niece Bronwyn had their ears pierced today. They had been wanting to do it since early this year but we managed to keep putting it off for one reason or another. Now it's done and we begin eight weeks of cleaning three times daily. Fun fun. For the piercing, Bronwyn went first, then Madeline, then Sophia. The first two were quite calm about it while Sophia was anxious and a lot less calm, but she was fine soon after it was done.

Daily pic: 20 Dec 07

Today was kind of like an early Christmas! (Other than being at work and all that.) Neil received a $100 Future Shop gift card that he won by voting in the online CFL All-Star Balloting. We received reimbursements for 18 months of health care expenses that I finally submitted a couple weeks ago. (I'm bad for putting off stuff like that.) It was quite a lot of moula from more than 20 visits to the chiropractor, our new eye glasses, etc. I am SO thankful for the benefits we receive through my work. I also received this gift basket from one of my dealers. Nice, huh? ("One of my dealers" -- that still doesn't sound right to me! For clarification, I'm a Dealer Rep and "dealer" is short for SaskTel Authorized Dealer.) Here, too, is a glimpse of where I spend most of my work time -- on the computer and on the phone.

I had my camera at work today because Neil and I went to see Sophia's Christmas program at the senior citizens' home in the early afternoon. It was wonderful! I'm so glad we went. Grades one, three, and seven performed about five songs together, with a bit of narration by grade seven students between the songs. All songs were accompanied by piano, and some of the older students played flute and violin at various times. I think the school must have a great music teacher and they must have practiced a lot because the songs were excellent! I was very impressed.

This evening, I went to the advanced adult Irish dance class, just to practice, as they had invited the beginners to join them over the holidays (since we aren't having our own classes over the break). Very glad I went. I couldn't remember steps I learned on Saturday, so now they're more stuck in my brain -- I hope! Plus, it was great to get moving after those two huge lunches in a row. I always enjoy watching the advanced dancers as well.

Christmas events

Neil took this lovely picture at Madeline's preschool Christmas party this morning. She's opening a little gift from Santa (that we helped him select). I wasn't there today; instead, I'll take time off to attend the preschool pajama party that happens to be on her birthday next month.

At work today, we enjoyed a delicious staff appreciation lunch. The managers in my department brought food in for the occasion. It was partly catered by Peg's Kitchen (perogies, cabbage rolls, sausage), and we also had a chocolate fountain with Callebaut chocolate and all kinds of goodies for dipping. Yummy! I didn't eat supper tonight and I'm still not hungry.

Sophia's class went to Government House this afternoon and learned how the pioneers celebrated Christmas. She was very impressed by all of the poinsettias there, as well as the Christmas tree decorated entirely with little gifts and food (like popcorn, candy, and orange slices).

This evening, I prepared lots of veggies and dips for our Christmas "food day" at work tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it! Potlucks are always so good.

Tomorrow afternoon, Neil and I will both go to Emerald Park to see Sophia's class perform their Christmas program at a senior citizens' home there. I will use a couple hours of overtime for that. Wish I had more vacation days left! Oh well, at least I have enough for next week and it will be so awesome to have the whole week off -- and be at home most of the time (a rare treat for me).

Finally, Sophia will have her class Christmas party on Friday. Madeline is now finished school for the holiday. Both teachers' Christmas cards and gifts have been given/handled. One parent collected $5 from each student for a gift for Sophia's teacher (works for me!), and to Madeline's teacher, we gave a nice bookmark with a beaded tassel.

Daily pic: 11 Dec 07

School photos are here! I like them. And I'm extra pleased (perhaps relieved) to have them because I have no school photos of Sophia from last year (kindergarten). They were just terrible and the retakes were just as bad, so there was no point in buying any. She simply was not interested in having some stranger take her picture last year and that was that. (In these, the backdrops are different because the preschool uses a different photographer from the rest of the school.)

School notes - Sophia

Report card & parent-teacher meeting: (I no longer have Sophia's report card for reference, so I'm just going on memory from two weeks ago.) Sophia appears to be doing well in grade one. She could use improvement in some areas like taking care of her personal belongings (no surprise there!), but she's doing very well in other areas like reading skills. One area where she really needs to improve is speaking in class. When we met her teacher on November 23, she said "Sophia is a very quiet student. I cannot get her to speak up in class. We're going to be working on that a lot in the future." She also said Sophia is a good student. I'm pleased.

***

Field trips: A couple weeks ago, grades one to three (including both Sophia and Bronwyn) went to the Globe Theatre to see A Christmas Carol. Sophia got to sit in the front row. And a couple weeks from now, Sophia's class is going to Government House. That's great because she's been wanting to go ever since Bronwyn visited Government House before Halloween. I bet it's decorated beautifully for Christmas.

***

Christmas program: The school is not doing a traditional school Christmas concert this year. Instead, they "have chosen to go out into the community to do benevolent work in the form of a Christmas program in assisted living facilities and senior citizen centres. Parents and families will be most welcome to join us on these days to see your children living the true spirit of the Advent season; serving others." Sounds interesting! Sophia's class will be visiting a personal care home next Monday. It's at midday and far from my workplace, so I'm not sure I can make it. I'd like to be there though. We'll see.

School notes - Madeline

You may recall that when Madeline started her second year of preschool in September, I was a little disappointed to learn that all of her classmates from last year were in the morning class while Madeline was in the afternoon class with all new classmates. Well, I thought, it's good to make new friends anyway, and some of them may be in kindergarten with her. No big deal, right? After the first few classes, Neil relayed to me that Madeline knew all of her colours, numbers (1-10), etc. in French while the other children were just starting to learn those things. I hoped that that would just boost her self- confidence (not that she needed a huge amount of boosting).

When I was in the classroom as the parent helper on November 2, the teacher asked me if there was any possibility that we could have Madeline in the morning class instead -- pending board approval since that would make the morning class full plus one and she wasn't sure if there'd be a problem with that. She explained that since all of the other children in Madeline's class were preschool rookies and some of them much younger (up to two years' difference), and Madeline so far ahead of the them in learning French and preschool protocol, that Madeline was not getting the attention she deserved in class and she was bored. Madeline was not learning anything new because the teacher had to spend so much more time working with the rest of the group just getting them to pay attention and whatnot. And the other class, who were all second-year preschoolers like Madeline, were advancing tremendously. Plus, they were doing four activities per class while Madeline's class was only doing two.

I am SO glad the teacher brought this up with me! Since the classes were all full, I didn't think it was an option to move Madeline. The teacher confirmed that this is very much an exception as she normally wouldn't want an over-full class, but she thought it would be best for Madeline. She's never had a situation like this before where the two M/W/F classes were so different. The M/W/F classes are usually quite similar in skill level and the T/Th class is reserved for the younger first-time preschoolers. It was just a coincidence that all the 2nd-year students (except Madeline) were in the same class.

When I told Neil about this proposed change, he agreed it would be great to have Madeline in the other class. His only challenge is that he has only 15 minutes to get Madeline from preschool to the babysitter and get back to school for his lunch supervision duty. He can make it, but it's tight. As soon as the preschool teacher learned about that, she offered to keep Madeline in the classroom with her (she's there anyway) while Neil does supervision -- especially on days when the road conditions are poor. The school also said Madeline can walk around with him. Everyone is so accomodating. It's great! So the teacher got approval from the preschool board, and Madeline started in the morning class on November 7.

(Now the only problem is that, tuckered out from morning preschool, Madeline often falls asleep in the afternoon and then has trouble going to sleep at night. Lots of trouble. Ohhh, memories of Sophia napping... Well, it's only temporary -- and it's worth it for Madeline's well-being. Next year, we'll have her in afternoon kindergarten for sure!)

Daily pic: 02 Nov 07

Madeline was "in the spotlight" in her preschool class this afternoon and I was the parent helper. I'm glad I could be there today. I hadn't been in the classroom yet this year.

Daily pic: 01 Nov 07

It sure is nice to have a camera, tripod, and photo printer on hand when your child needs a family photo to take to school the next day! Yep, I've only taken a few more than five thousand photos this year and not one of them captured just the five of us. I really need to work on that! I would have attempted another shot after this one except Sophia and Madeline bumped their heads together a second before the shutter and started crying a second after.

Daily pic: 22 Oct 07

This is some of the artwork Madeline created during the farming unit at preschool. Like last year, Neil showed bison photos, hair, horn caps, and a skull to all three preschool classes. This year, he also took the animal footprint casts the girls made in South Dakota in the summer, talked about and showed photos of farm-raised elk and wild boar, and gave the preschool some samples of various types of specialty crop seeds and beans. They were used for the flower art project at the top right. Many thanks to Mom for all the photos and bison items, and to Neil's dad for getting the seed samples from the pulse plant in Avonlea! Everything was a big hit. Some of the parents told Neil that their child talked about it all week.

Daily pic: 12 Sep 07

Doing homework. I've been helping Sophia with her homework, so I was pleased when Neil decided to do it today -- especially because it presented a photo op! This homework business is frustrating because Sophia could totally whip through it in a couple of minutes, but she grumbles about it so much that it drags on and on. And she has to do it before she can play Webkinz which makes her grumble even more some days. I hope this gets better!

Aside from all that, I think the homework is interesting because I can see how it contributes to learning how to read. There are many lines of individual letters. First, it's all one letter (vowels to begin with) and they're small letters interspersed with capital letters (e.g., a a A a A A a ) and Sophia just has to put her finger under each one and verbally identify the letter (e.g., "ah" for a and "ah majuscule" for A). Then there are sets with various vowels which are all small letters (Sophia doesn't like the sets with mixed letters because she has to think harder). She is through all the regular vowels now and will soon start on other accented vowels (e.g., è ) and eventually consonants.

Daily pic: 11 Sep 07

Madeline had to miss preschool yesterday because Neil wasn't available to drive her (he was helping relatives with harvest), so her teacher sent home the craft they were doing in class. She made her shiny apple this evening and will take it to school tomorrow to be hung on the wall. (Hmmm, I think that stem is upside down. Oh well!)

Daily pic: 06 Sep 07

This is a picture Sophia drew of herself on the first day of school (I believe the pink thing on the right is a play structure). It's hanging in her classroom. After the school's annual welcome barbecue this evening, we visited Sophia's classroom and met her teacher.

Neil took Georgia to her routine pediatrician checkup today as well. (There isn't much to report, so I won't even give it its own post.) He said her heart rate is 70 and she's "the picture of health". Music to my ears! It's so good to hear that her heart rate isn't going down.

Daily pic: 05 Sep 07

Madeline on her first day (second year) of preschool. She was looking forward to going back to school so much! And as luck would have it, we were assigned parent-helper duty today, so Neil was there through the whole class too. Oddly, Madeline is the only one from her class last year to be in her class this year. All of her former classmates are in the morning class, and all of her new classmates are new to preschool. It's too bad, but hopefully she'll enjoy being the advanced student in the class (but right now, she's a little sad that she didn't know anyone). There are five girls and five boys, so that's good. When I looked at the class list last week, I thought they were almost all boys based on their names (e.g., Jasper -- a girl!).

Daily pic: 31 Aug 07

P.S. 8:45 a.m. Sophia had a good second day of school too. She has been relaying many new rules to me, with great emphasis, such as: "It's my job to put my agenda back in my backpack every night, not yours. Madame says 'Don't tell me your parents forgot to put it in!' But if you remember and I don't, will you remind me?" It's very cute. It sounds like her teacher made a big impression on her. She seemed more exhausted after the second day than the first. On Thursday night, she was still talking when I was desperately trying to go to sleep.

Daily pic: 30 Aug 07

August 30 was Sophia's first day of Grade 1! I took the first hour off work so I could see Sophia get onto the bus at Sharon's house at 8:30. We waited for the bus quite awhile because we were there much too early and then the bus was 10 minutes late (we wondered if it was coming at all). When it finally came (going the wrong direction as the driver had missed a turn somewhere), it was a scramble across the street and onto the bus. I barely had a chance to take a photo. Sophia hopped onto the bus no problem and didn't even look back (although that would've been good for a photo!). No tears or anything!

I went straight to work from there, but Neil went to the school to make sure she didn't have any problems at the other end. He said she was a little teary (probably just when she saw him) and clung to him until it was time for her class to enter the school. She went fine though and didn't beg him to stay. Phew!

I didn't see Sophia again until after 8:00 p.m. (I had a very long and exhausting day). It sounds like she really enjoyed her first day. The highlights were:

• she got to hug her kindergarten teacher lots,
• she got to hug her preschool teacher lots,
• she liked her Grade 1 teacher,
• she had lots of recesses,
• she got to colour,
• she loved the lunch Neil made for her (tortilla, cream cheese, ham, and pickle roll-ups, carrots, strawberry yogurt, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and water),
• she liked the bus ride, and
• she's happy that the same driver (a woman) will take her to and from school.

I'm so glad! I must say that having Sophia attend the same school for both preschool and kindergarten is just priceless. Sophia does not like new situations, but she was pretty comfortable on her first day of Grade 1 because she had been there so much before.

Daily pic: 14 Jun 07

This is our PUPS portable storage container being unloaded from the truck. It's where all of our furnishings will be stored while our floors are refinished. That truck/crane contraption is pretty cool. It took this guy about 12 minutes start to finish to unload the container and put it exactly where I wanted it on the street. If we had wanted, we could get the filled container moved to their warehouse (or wherever) for a temporary period, but I obtained a street-use permit for a couple weeks so we won't need to move it.

Today was busy. I worked this morning, then went home for lunch and made Rice Krispie squares for Sophia's "Family Day Celebration" at school at 1:30 p.m. (I'm so glad we went to it! Sophia smiled throughout singing songs and performing the actions. There was also a great photo slide show of all the kindergarten children throughout the year.) Once home from that, I painted the first top coat in Sophia and Madeline's room. Immediately upon finishing that, I cleaned up, sliced a watermelon, and we rushed out the door to attend a school barbeque/council meeting. At least supper was taken care of tonight! Unfortunately, a threatening thunderstorm put an early end to that event. At least we were finished eating by then. Shortly afterwards, Neil packed up Sophia and Madeline and took them to Laurel's for a sleepover, while Georgia and I stayed home and supervised placement of the PUPS container (in the rain). Finally, I worked on dishes and painted more after Georgia went to bed. And, yeah, I DO have a cold now. Go figure. (Why don't I have Cold FX on hand?!)