Addy Learns

Dori nearing the end of reading lessons

2011-09-20T15:29:00.001-04:00

We use a phonics program called "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons." Despite the cheesy title, it's a solid method (like SRA of my youth) that really does take 100 easy lessons to complete. Dori finished lesson 89 this morning. We started a tradition with Addy of having a party to celebrate finishing the 100th. Dori has requested a fancy tea party.

Sonlight mapwork

2011-09-20T12:34:00.001-04:00

Our curriculum, Sonlight, seamlessly works geography into literature and history so it seems painless. We're reading about slavery, so Addy is filling in the names of all the slave states on an outline map of the U.S. We've been reading about settling the West, so spots in Oregon and other western states are marked.

Periodic Table of Our Family

2011-09-02T21:40:00.000-04:00

We're using NOEO Chemistry I and read a book today called, surprisingly enough, "Periodic Table of the Elements." We learned how the 60-some known elements at the time were listed on cards and organized by similarities across rows and columns. Then we created lists about each of us in the family on cards and sorted them various ways so each column and row showed something those members have in common.

American history in marshmallows

2011-09-01T12:43:00.001-04:00

I combined three facts to create a special treat for after sit-down school today.

1. We had a box of Corn Chex that no one was likely to eat.

2. Aunt Nini brought these red, white and blue marshmallows for making s'mores and we still had some left.

3. We are studying American history. I'm not sure what this has to do with anything either, other than that I made the treat into a flag.

Egg cartons and muffin tins

2011-09-01T10:07:00.001-04:00

Today I put together a surprise for the kids when they wake up, using supplies from my kitchen.

The girls will be working with egg cartons. These hold 30 each and we rescued them after a community breakfast before they were thrown out. (I was too embarassed to ask permission to steal the garbage, so Bob did it for me.)

Addy's egg tray is a multiplication table with 5 columns and 6 rows. She will multiply up to 30 and put the appropriate number of beans in each hole. Daddy brought the beans home from a farmers' field tour.

Dori's egg carton is labeled 1-30 so she can practice her counting. I made sure the 5-10-15-20-25-30 numerals lined up so we can practice skip counting by 5s.

The boys each have a muffin tin. They will do free play, but I'll encourage them to put one item per hole as a fine motor activity. They may throw them on the floor or bang them together. Whatever. A secondary goal is to keep them busy while the girls work.

The tins are filled with goodies Aunt Carol gave us over the years, knowing they might make fun math manipulatives.

First day of school 2011

2011-08-29T22:37:00.001-04:00

Our yearly tradition is to have the kids pick out a favorite outfit for their back to school picture. It seems we keep adding bodies to the photos.

Civil War Days

2011-08-07T16:27:00.001-04:00

(Mom here.)

Two days in a row we got to travel to the small town of Port Sanilac -- girls in costume -- for excellent historical events that tied in with our American history studies this year. Yesterday was Columbus' ships. Today's trip was to Civil War Days at the Sanilac Historical Museum.

Bob and I most enjoyed the Lincoln-Douglas debate. Both reenactors were very good and drew in crowd interaction. The girls especially liked the Punch and Judy puppet show held in the old schoolhouse on the grounds.

The boys liked crawling and running around. Elias crawled up on a bench to see the Governor of Michigan at the time.

Dori spent a lot of time playing a game of gracies with a little reenactor boy, coached by a Union soldier. Addy is shown trying it. Two sticks are held in an X with a hoop on them. When the arms are opened the hoop shoots out for the other player to catch and send it back. I promised we could make our own set. The soldier recommended an embroidery hoop with 3/8" dowel.

A Civil War event needs a battle. We watched a small one with a handful of reenactors with their muskets and cannons on each side. Before we left the house that morning, Bob quizzed the girls about which side they were on, so they were proud to be little Union girls. While taking the picture below, it seemed to me that if this were a good reenactment my good little Union girls might have kicked that Johnny Reb in the crotch while he laid in front of them reloading his musket.

Going to the replicas of Columbus' ships

2011-08-05T12:54:00.001-04:00

Wow, this is really cool. I'm looking at a replica of Columbus' ships, and it fits right in with school.

We got to go on the ships. A crew member took us on a complete tour of the Nina and Pinta. Being a sailor sounds like a rough life.

We are dressed up like ladies of the royal court in 1492. Dori is Queen Isabella. Queen Isabella is the one who gave Columbus the money and permission to go on his expensive trip.

What I've been doing in school

2009-10-13T11:56:00.002-04:00

I've been doing a lot of history. I'm learning about the hundreds. We're learning about Vikings, who thought it was going to be the end of the world by 1,000 A.D. We've learned about Charlemagne and Alfred the Great.

Here's a story about Alfred the Great. One time he went to a shepherd man's house and he asked to have dinner there because he saw his wife was cooking. And so he asked her if he could have dinner there and she said yes, if you watch the food while I go get vegetables from the garden. And he didn't watch the food while she was gone so she shooed him out when she didn't realize this was a king she was doing this to.

And in science we've been learning about atoms. We played a trick on my Daddy and Grandpa. We put together water molecules. We made them out of these plastic circles — red is oxygen, white is hydrogen. And so we put together one oxygen and two hydrogens and made a lot of those and put those in a glass and told them to drink it. And I thought it was kind of funny. They really didn't get it, it seemed like, but they laughed pretend.

We've been doing language lessons and we've been learning pronouns. We've been copying poems.

And in math we're learning double-digit numbers.

With reading we've been doing a Pizza Hut thing called Book It, and my goal was to read 40 chapters every month. I'm doing really good. I'm five into week 4 for October.

Science Jim

2009-10-13T11:43:00.004-04:00

I did my first online class. It was called Astonishing Atoms. I learned what was smaller than an atom. I learned that if you took the energy out of a golf ball it would probably power the whole earth. I really don't know what I learned; I learned a lot, but pretty much I learned what an atom is.

Atoms are like little building blocks. All the building blocks that you were made out of could have been from the sun, from a tree, from a jumprope — could've been from a woodchuck.

There's matter and energy in the universe. As Einstein said, matter and energy is the same thing. [She's referring to E=mc2.]

Note from Mom: Addy did well with her first online class experience, which supplemented what we were learning about atoms with our NOEO Chemistry I curriculum. She had a couple great questions for the teacher that told me she was really understanding it. I registered for the class through CurrClick.com and it was well taught by Science Jim.

2008-09 Curriculum

2009-08-01T19:21:00.003-04:00

Archiving this so I can put next year's curricula in the sidebar.

History and geography: Sonlight Core 1, “Introduction to World History, Part 1” literature-rich study of beginning of time through fall of Roman Empire with timeline and map/globe work

Reading: Sonlight Grade 2 Readers book list and guide

Phonics: Explode the Code levels 4–6, plus Starfall.com online activities

Spelling: Spelling Power, K–8 spelling program where child is placed at their own best level and practices only words they don’t already spell correctly

Grammar: First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind, first half

Writing: Writing Strands 1

Handwriting: Handwriting witout Tears cursive using own lessons generated with StartWrite 5.0 software

Math: finishing Singapore Primary Mathematics 1A, then move on to 1B, also 2A if we get that far

Science: Sonlight Science 1; focuses on planets, stars, human body, electricity, water and soil; hands-on experiments in water, light, magnets and mirrors; Usborne books make up core of program

Art: Picture study with American Girl Imagine: The Girl in the Painting then Come Look with Me: Enjoying Landscape Art with Children; drawing lessons through Drawing With Children

Music: Bernstein’s Favorite Children's Classics study of orchestra through “Peter and the Wolf,” “The Carnival of the Animals” and “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra”

Foreign Language: American Sign Language through Signing Illustrated

Physical Education: being a kid, plus participation in President’s Challenge Program

Sunday School: “Growing in Christ” from Concordia, the Missouri Synod publishing arm (but Mom is the teacher, so we’ll ensure ELCA slant)

Maybe playing with both kinds of keyboard: musical and she wants to learn to type fast

Also learning through life: lots of reading, real-life writing, practical life activities, crafts, nature walks, field trips, taking care of Buns and the kitties, being Dori’s big sister, participating in community life with Mom and Dad, etc.

2008–09 Extracurricular activities
4-H Club, monthly meetings
Little League tee ball, June
AYSO soccer, August–October
Homeschool gym days, twice a month
Cross Kids, monthly: group for 1st–6th graders at church
Vacation Bible School, Summer Sizzlers classes, soccer camp, Summer Reading Program, Nature Center programs, field trips and other things that come up

My bunny and me

2009-08-01T19:10:00.002-04:00

I showed my bunny at the fair. This is a picture of me and my bunny named Buns a couple days after she got shown. The reason I am holding her in this picture is because she had to stay at the fair for a few nights and days because it was kind of hard to bring her home right away because Daddy had to go and take Grandma and Grandpa S. back to their home because they came with me to see me show my rabbit. So I had to take her home.

It was fun showing Buns at the fair. The judge told me she's a little fat and that's also what the rabbit breeder told me the same thing.

Earth Day bags

2009-06-29T10:31:00.002-04:00

I drew on these paper bags for Earth Day. Each bag I had to think of something in nature to draw on it. It was fun because I like drawing and I like nature. It was a great mixture.

"Let the sun rise" "I ♥ animals"

"Hey you up there, stay green!" "America is getting wild about nature"

Note from Mom: Our county ISD holds an annual Embracing Our Earth event. Students create designs on grocery bags to promote the event, and they're distributed at local grocery stores a couple weeks prior.

Dig It! The Secrets of Soil

2009-06-29T10:22:00.002-04:00

This is a poster for the Conservation District Poster Contest. I made it like someone was really tiny and looking at all these stuff in the soil.

I found out that there's all kinds of bacteria in the soil. If there is this pollution, someone spills something into the soil, one of these bacterias will eat it up and that makes that bacteria stronger for the next spill.

Earthworms pull leaves into the soil, which helps plants grow.

The magnifying glasses that you see in the picture are showing all the tiny bacteria in the soil.

Vote for Addy's picture in farm photo contest!

2009-05-18T13:42:00.000-04:00

When Addy isn't playing in the maple woods or the hay loft, her other favorite place is in the barn at my family's dairy farm with Uncle Duane. Duane snapped a beautiful photo of Addy with a red-and-white Holstein calf this winter.

If you can, please take a second and vote for Addy's photo to win the contest. The deadline is May 25. (Click on "Vote today!" Then Begin Survey. Hers is photo 5, child relaxing in straw with calf.)

http://www.countrylivingassociation.org/?page=FS4JKPhotoContest

Touching an alligator

2009-04-27T14:32:00.002-04:00

I got to touch an alligator to try to make it go to sleep. The guy said if I touched it wrong I would get a puddle of consequences. I knew what he meant. It meant the alligator would pee on me. The guy really used a squirt gun to squirt some water out. My eyes got really big when when I thought it really peed, says Daddy.

Note from Mom: We attended a great Earth Day program in our community called Embracing Our Earth. One presentation was from Animal Encounters and covered the food chain in a tropical rainforest. It was very good. Before Mike brought out a small alligator (either the one in the picture above or one of its counterparts) he asked if anyone has ever wanted to wrestle an alligator. No one. He asked for a volunteer to try, and Addy was the only one to raise her hand. He brought out the gator and asked if she'd like to put her head in it's mouth. Of course, she said yes. Apparently he didn't know what kind of kid he was getting to volunteer. He actually had her pet the alligator on the belly while he held it on its back and that caused it to fall asleep. First he joked that if she did it wrong, she'd get the puddle of consequences and he used the squirt gun.

Multi-Cultural Night at Lakers

2009-04-27T14:24:00.003-04:00

We watched some dancers do a really cool dance, and they had a part where the kids could come up and dance, too.

After that, we went into hear a man talk about modern Greece.

Note from Mom: Ironically, this picture showing the back of our little homeschoolers' heads is on the front page of the public school web site where this event was held. The school organized a community wide Multi-Cultural Night with a variety of speakers talking about a variety of cultures. It was a good event, too bad the attendance was light. We had a good time. We ate a meal prepared by the chef at the local good restaurant (yeah, there's just one) and he included foods from around the world. The kids weren't so keen on all the foods, but it was a nice idea. We spent our time watching the flamenco dancers, then seeing a man present his travelogue from Greece. It was a nice tie-in to our current lessons on ancient Greece. It was about as exciting as most travelogues are, but Addy was surprisingly interested. She's the one who wanted to stay later, but bedtime was approaching.

Super Valentine's card

2009-02-11T10:50:00.004-05:00

A long time ago I had thought of this logo, but I really didn't get a chance to tell it to my Mom and Dad. I thought of it again by Valentine's Day. I told Mom about it. I told her instead of a diamond with an S in it, a heart with an S in it.

Mama put it on her computer on a program called Adobe Illustrator. She made it and then she knew what colors I wanted already somehow. It happened to be that we were having a Valentine exchange at Delta College. We are giving out these Valentine's cards at Delta College.

I thought of a saying for it, "Your heart is super!" Mama told me I should put our names at the bottom. I thought of putting "Super love from Addy and Dori."

News flash: Addy was an essay contest winner

2009-01-25T22:16:00.003-05:00

Note from Mom:

Addy's "Why I Want to Become a Farmer" essay was chosen as one of 20 winners out of a pool of about 200 entries. She is so proud. She says that while she's happy to be a winner and glad she'll be receiving an MP3 player, most of all she's just glad that people will get to read her essay because she really does want to be a farmer. Of course this makes me want to squeeze her cute little cheeks even more.

Her essay was the first one printed in Michigan Farm News.

Columnist Melissa Hart wrote about Addy's essay in the Farmers' Advance. The column also ran in two other farm publications, Farmworld of Indiana and Farmshine of Pennsylvania.

Addy's weather pictures

2009-01-14T16:49:00.002-05:00

These are my weather pictures. I drew them for a contest.

Note from Mom: Our local paper runs children's weather art along with the daily weather info. They invited local children to submit more drawings in these four categories.

Sheep

2008-12-22T00:12:00.002-05:00

Inspired by reading the book "Mountain Born" for school.

Flowers, trees and clouds

2008-12-22T00:11:00.000-05:00

Wizard of Oz

2008-12-22T00:10:00.002-05:00

Addy reads to storytime kids

2008-12-17T14:27:00.004-05:00

I read to storytime kids at the library. I read Puppies in the Snow. My storytime reader said she has that book and it's a really good one.

It goes up to 10 puppies, but Mama said maybe the storytime kids would get restless, but Miss Jane knew them a lot better than I did and she said just read 1 to 10.

The kids enjoyed the book. They counted with me. At the end, their mama dog was there to see them and she counted all the puppies to make sure all 10 were there, and we did the same.

When I was finished, they all clapped for me — the moms, the kids, grandmas, storytime teller.

Addy's turkey patch

2008-12-17T13:21:00.006-05:00

This is my turkey design. This is for a contest. I had fun making it and I also hope I win because the winner gets $100.

If I win, they will make it into a real patch.

Note from Mom: Addy loves entering contests and I like that they give us a focus to learn something new in addition to our regular schoolwork. We read about this one in Farmers' Advance. The contest is to create the design for a Wild Turkey Management Cooperator patch. The DNR will give the patches to hunters who bring in a wild turkey for inspection in 2010.

Addy's patch is in the shape of a tom turkey, complete with beard. She added another turkey inside the design, at the bottom. Within that is a yellow turkey footprint.

Cutworm

2008-12-10T11:19:00.006-05:00

I helped Daddy get enough cutworms to prove that cutworms are travelling into Michigan. I helped him prove it by giving him my cutworm moth out of my bug box. I went with him and looked for some more in the trap in a corn field.

Daddy gave me a cutworm moth to put in my bug box that I took to the fair, but I had to give it to him to prove that they're travelling into Michigan. He promised me that he'll get me one for next year.

Note from Mom: Addy said she felt proud of herself when she saw the results of her trips to check the trap with Bob published in the Pioneer ad, above bottom, in Michigan Farm News. Their trap is the one in the county at the tip of the Thumb (mustard color). Bob made the trap out of a milk jug, antifreeze and pheremone as an attractant. Addy sometimes went along this summer when Bob checked and emptied it. We sometimes wonder why schoolchildren are made to do meaningless, made-up projects when there is so much real and meaningful work in which they can participate. Not everyone has a father doing Extension research, but ...

Why I Want to Become a Farmer

2008-12-08T23:15:00.001-05:00

by Addy, age 6

I want to be a farmer because my favorite part is going in the pens and helping my Uncle Duane to feed the calves. I also would like to be a farmer because I like nature and I think if I were a farmer I’d be around nature a lot.

I like to be a farmer, too, because you get to decide how much food your animals will eat and without getting too much or getting not enough.

I would like to be possibly a maple syrup farmer or a dairy farmer. My Grandma and Grandpa B. do maple syrup and my Grandma and Grandpa S. do dairy farming.

I have been practicing a lot. I am in 4-H and I also have some little corn plants by my turtle at home. I have been raising a bunny, which is really good practice, and I am going to move into the country and in the early spring help my B. grandparents with the maple syrup. I think when you’re making maple syrup it smells really good in the air.

I think that being a dairy farmer, the barn always smells good with manure. I have smelled when people are harvesting sugar beets, and I think it smells really good, but it doesn’t smell as good as fresh sugar beets. I’ve eaten a sugar beet before. They taste really good and crunchy.

I am going to go to Michigan State to be a farmer.

I would also like to be an astronaut. I think if there is any life at all up there, that I will be one of the first ones to discover it.

I am independent. Even though I am a girl, I would like to be a farmer.

Addy on the Horses Count web site

2008-12-05T02:33:00.002-05:00

Thanks to Aunt Nini's work with the Horses Count in Michigan project, Addy's picture and short story are on this web site, also copied below:

http://www.horsescountinmichigan.com/YourHorseCounts/tabid/56/Default.aspx

"I don’t have my own horse, but I rode Sam for my sixth birthday. Horses are fun to ride and fun to look at and fun to pet. They’re good animals. I like all animals."

Butterflies

2008-12-03T23:57:00.003-05:00

by Addy

A butterfly is like
a beauty-fly, a beauty-fly.

Oh butterfly, oh butterfly,
won’t you come and play with me?
Now go call all the butterflies you know;
call all monarchs, call all painted ladies,
call all swallowtails, call all leafwings.

And tell them to come play with me too.
I will not hurt you, don’t worry.

I would like to see how beautiful they are,
see all kinds.

I love butterflies.
I love all kinds of nature too.

The Ants in Pants Dance

2008-12-03T23:44:00.005-05:00

by Addy

There once were these pants,
legs of ants,
feet of ants,
that always did the ants-in-pants dance.

Inspired by reading "Dancing Pants" by Shel Silverstein.

Addy and Dori

2008-11-29T22:46:00.003-05:00

This is me and Dori. We made necklaces out of paperclips. We learned that each paperclip is one unit.

Note from Mom: Hey, who has my name for Christmas? I could use a new box of paperclips. This project took them all and now the girls don't want to give them back. We were doing a unit on measurement in our Singapore Primary Mathematics 1A book. We learned about measuring by household units, then progressed to standard measuring tools such as a ruler. And then we made paperclip jewelry. Why not?

Addy makes words

2008-11-29T22:37:00.002-05:00

This is me, Addy. I am building compound words out of the cards that Mama wrote — the beginning and the ending.

Note from Mom: We use Explode the Code for our phonics learning. We're on Book 4. Addy was bored with the worksheets that day, so I turned the same thing into something a little more interesting.

Addy finishes books

2008-11-28T18:12:00.002-05:00

I finished Homer Price. After that, we read Mr. Popper's Penguins. Now we're on Mountain Born.

I would recommend Homer Price to a kid who likes to read about adventures. I would recommend Mr. Popper's Penguins to a kid who likes to read about penguins.

Homer Price is a kid who is good at building TVs and saving people from robbers and finding out who other people are. My favorite chapter was about when Homer Price found some formula to making medicine.

Mr. Popper's Penguins was a book about Mr. Popper got a penguin sent to him in a little box with holes in it and then that penguin got kind of sick and he called someone who had another penguin and his was a little bit feeling sick, too, and they both wondered if it was because they had no one to play with, and then they had 10 eggs and then Mr. Popper and Mrs. Popper trained all those penguins to each do something special. The penguins performed lots of times.

I read classic literature to Addy as part of her Sonlight Core 1 curriculum. We study about two per month.

Addy's shapes math

2008-10-28T22:30:00.004-04:00

Hi, it's me, Addy. I've been doing shapes on math. And I'm doing really well! This next exercise is going to be really fun. I just did a really hard one and I got them all right.

I like doing shapes math.

Note from Mom: I'd like to tell the entire homeschool community how thrilled I am with Addy's math curriculum. She just completed an elementary version of a Sudoku puzzle, using shapes instead of numbers. We use Singapore Math, which published even its U.S. edition long before Sudoku became popular on this side of the ocean. Addy is finishing up Primary Mathematics 1A and will soon move into level 1B, then go onto 2A and so on.

Yes, she's doing school wearing her pajamas and a giant cow head. Doesn't everybody?

Addy and Dori raising money for Mission India

2008-10-25T12:49:00.005-04:00

Mission India is way to raise money for Mission India. We collect money and put it in a little rice bag and send it to somewhere so it can be turned into India money. Women and girls in India can't go to school so we are putting our spare money into the bag to send to Mission India.

The top picture is us picking up tomatoes to raise money. Each tomato we picked up the more pennies Mama would give me for the bag.

This is us returning bottles for Mission India. We found these bottles at the farmhouse.

Sending stuff to Iraq

2008-10-25T12:22:00.002-04:00

This is me and Dori after we went and got a few things for soliders in Iraq. Mama gave me a budget to work with and I kept track. She didn't want to spend any more than $20. I chose most of the things. Sometimes Dori wanted some M&Ms for them. We bought them and then we sent them.

Summer soccer camp

2008-09-25T14:26:00.004-04:00

Aunt Anita took me to soccer camp. I stayed at her house and every day we had to wake up early and go to soccer camp.

A British man taught me. He was a really good teacher. He could even throw the ball down and bounce it on his shoulder.

I learned some of the ways to turn the ball around and we even played some games during the breaks. He was even nice enough to give us water breaks every once in awhile and Nini packed food for me to eat during the water break.

Now I have an AYSO team and Mommy and Dad are my coaches. My AYSO team, I'm the blue. Someone from my church is on my team.

Addy is in the middle of the pack in the yellow shirt.

Addy and Dori, Declaration of Independence

2008-09-25T14:18:00.004-04:00

This is me and Dori dressed up as people in the Declaration of Independence time. We listened to the Declaration of Independence. And we sang a few songs about America.

There's an article about it, too.

This was on July 4th.

History remembered in Lapeer on Fourth of July
by Shena Abercrombie
The Flint Journal

Adele B., 5, didn't just watch American history come alive on the lawn of the Historic Courthouse in downtown Lapeer, she got to dress up in it.

Mom Sue B., dressed up Adele and Dori, 2, in period garb to attend the reading of the Declaration of Independence staged by the Heritage Research Institute Friday morning.

"We're homeschoolers and we've been reading about it at home," Sue explained, while loading the girls into a mini-van following the event. "She helped do the sewing on her outfit."

The girls donned near identical ensembles modeled after period pieces she found on historic Web sites -- then fashioned petticoats, bonnets and Colonial-era scarves from old bed sheets and other discarded fabric around the house.

The B.'s drove from [town] to visit the girls' grandparents, and happened to see a notice for the event in the local paper. (Actually we learned about it from a homeschool e-mail group and planned for it a few weeks in advance.) They joined a crowd that filled the courthouse lawn, and included local Boy Scout troops. Ervin said the color guard and Honor Guard from the Flint Central High School Junior Naval ROTC even made the trip to downtown Lapeer for the program.

"I thought it was great," Sue said. "There was something of interest for everyone. The girls got something out of singing patriotic songs and the setting was just wonderful."

It was perfect weather for the roughly 30-minute ceremony, which included an opening and closing prayer, a brief history lesson on the meaning behind the one of the country's most sacred writings, and of course the reading of the Declaration of Independence.

Turns out that's exactly how they used to do it in the old days -- in Colonial America.

"Historically, Independence Day was a day of worship that was celebrated with church services and prayer, public parades and fireworks," said Brian Ervin, president of the Heritage Research Institute, a Metamora-based nonprofit organization.

The group formed four years ago to educate citizens about the importance behind such documents, and the founding principles from which this nation and its government evolved.

"That's why we do it at 9 a.m., so people can still do the parades," said Ervin, who was dressed as a colonial officer for his part in the reenactment - the reading of the Declaration of Independence. We know that just reading some of the founding documents is educational. This helps us connect to history."

Rick and Linda Gualdoni of Alba Township try to make the Fourth of July observance an annual event. Self proclaimed history buffs, they took the time to greet Ervin and shake his hand following the reading.

"I think it's accurate as far as the historical perspective is concerned," Linda said. "We came to the very first one."

Rick's favorite portion of the document, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

"I like the fact that there is the acknowledgment of a creator in the Declaration of Independence." The HRI will stage another reading of the Declaration of Independence in September on Constitution Day.

Addy and Dori first day of school

2008-09-03T16:39:00.007-04:00

This is me and Dori, our first day of school.

First-grader school is very fun, except when we stopped kindergarten I was used to playing outside every day so I'm kind of tired doing some of the kind of school that you have to pay lots of attention. That makes me tired. But otherwise, it's very fun and we've started cursive early, but I kind of want to get back on manuscript because I'm starting to forget how to write some of manuscript.

When I was in kindergarten I was doing first-grade reading, and now I'm in first grade and I'm doing second-grade reading. I'm doing something called the Beginner's Bible. That means I read a Bible to my mom instead of her reading a Bible to me like we did when I was in kindergarten. But we're also doing a Bible that Mom reads to me, another one that's a little bit more adult-ish.

Math is actually fun.

I actually like science because it's telling about a long time ago, and one of the things I'm learning — it's really cool. People weren't invented back then, so there were little things that were like monkeys, but they had feet like we do and hands like we do and pretty much everything that we have except they live in the trees. And they hunted for small food and picked berries to eat.

2007-08 Curriculum

2008-08-29T19:53:00.002-04:00

Copying this here to archive it:

History and geography: Sonlight Core C, “Introduction to World Cultures,” a literature-rich program, we also use a timeline and globe
Phonics and reading: finishing Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons in first semester, reading the books it recommends all year, plus lots of other independent reading
Phonics and reading: Starfall.com Learn to Read online activities, plus Level I Reading and Writing Journal for phonics practice
Math: Singapore Earlybird Kindergarten Math 2B, then Singapore Primary Math 1A
Handwriting: Handwriting without Tears finishing Letters and Numbers for Me, then Handwriting witout Tears cursive using own lessons generated with StartWrite 5.0 software
Science: Sonlight Kindergarten Science, in which we use Usbourne books and “Discover and Do” DVD to guide hands-on experiments
Art: Come Look with Me: Enjoying Art with Children, then Animals in Art
Music: Calvert School “Melody Lane” video program plus The Usbourne Story of Music
Sunday School: “Seasons of the Spirit” at Immanuel, “Witness” at Cross
Also learning through life: lots of reading, real-life writing, practical life activities, crafts, nature walks, field trips, helping Mom teach sign language classes, taking care of Dori, participating in community life with Mom and Dad, etc.

Extracurricular activities
Homeschool co-op, meets weekly: fall classes are exploring the human body, sign language, U.S. geography and crafts
AYSO soccer, Saturdays August–October
4-H Club, monthly meetings
Public library story times, weekly plus pajama story times monthly
Considering other classes or lessons, such as piano, swimming, gymnastics or dance

Addy’s Nature Adventure

2008-07-04T00:09:00.000-04:00

I like exploring nature. Like in my Grandma and Grandpa’s maple woods. But sometimes I help in the sugar shack.

Nature is one of my top favorite things. But God is my very, very, very top favorite thing. Nature is my second.

Sometimes, when I’m walking in the woods, I pick up a stick to pretend it’s a cane.

And once, when I was over at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, they were making maple cream and I got a couple of tastes. It tasted great, kind of rough, kind of smooth. It was double sweet. And sometimes she also makes maple candy. The maple candy is sweet—almost, but not quite, double sweet. The shape of the candy is usually maple-leaf shape. When you’re in the sugar shack, it smells great. This year, late spring, we were in the sugar shack making maple syrup and I got to taste it right hot out of the pan they cook it in. It is great fresh out of the pan.

What I sometimes do when I want to help, is bring in some wood to put in the pile. When Grandpa needs wood to chop up and put in the pan, I take it out and give it to him. I also sometimes climb up the ladder and see how much sap is left in the bulk tank to make maple syrup. When it’s sap, it looks like water, but when it’s maple syrup, it’s brown and looks rich.

More Butterflies

2008-05-06T18:47:00.002-04:00

4/18/08 Friday (9:30 p.m.)
The big ones are between 5/8 and 3/4 of an inch, but the little one is only exactly a half of an inch.

They have grown a lot in 12 hours!

4/22/08 Tuesday
They are huge. There are lots and lots of webs on the outside now.

They are huge! They are about 1-1/2" all stretched out.

4/25/08 Friday
They are 1-3/4". And on is hanging. And others aren't hanging, but they are flat at the top of the bottle.

Wow, and their webs — one went all the way to the top of the bottle!

Their food is messed up now, but I think they've all had enough for when they pupate.

Their heads are hanging down and they're trying to put their heads to each other. Now one is crawling down.

They have greenish sides like a string woven in them. And one tried to eat the web that they made.

They're just doing a lot of amazing stuff.

4/26/08 Saturday, 7:40 a.m.
Two of them have spun chrysalises, and all the others are down, but they don't have chrysalis.

5/6/08 Tuesday, 3:29 p.m.
Two butterflies have hatched. We gave them a slice of orange because they'll suck the juice out of of it with their proboscis.

The ones that have hatched, their chrysalises are empty now and they look pink.

I have caterpillars!

2008-04-18T21:35:00.004-04:00

Thursday morning
I have caterpillars! They will turn into butterflies.

There are six. At least three will stay alive. And three might die.

They are really really tiny black caterpillars.

Friday morning
They have shedded some skin now and there's a lot more balls of food so they've been eating really good.

The webbing has gotten shorter and there's a little bit of shedded skin in the webbing. There's a little bit of webbing on the other side, too.

They're all a little big longer or a little bit shorter than a half of an inch.

Friday night
The big ones are between 5/8 and 3/4 of an inch, but the little one is only exactly a half of an inch.

They have grown a lot in 12 hours!

We completed a unit about butterflies and moths and now we're raising a batch of six Painted Lady caterpillars. We ordered this kit and they were shipped to us from Carolina Biological Supply Company. Addy had fun tracking their FedEx delivery route on Google Earth from North Carolina to Ohio to our house with stops in between. Unfortunately our camera is broken so we can't track their growth with photos yet.

Sonlight catalog

2008-04-09T00:00:00.004-04:00

Two pictures of Addy appear in the 2008 catalog of our curriculum provider, Sonlight. She wants you all to see them.

Caption:
Five-year-old Addy B of Reed City, MI, does Singapore Math with her dolls and shoes. “Sonlight’s Singapore Math really works for us,” writes Addy’s mom Sue. “Addy has started to demonstrate number concepts in her head that apply to everyday living. “Earlybird Math 2B gives a gentle introduction to the concept of subtraction with an example of children removing their shoes. To make the concept more visual, we grabbed some of Addy’s dolls and shoes to practice.” For Addy’s first year of Sonlight, she’s using Core K with all the electives.

Caption:
“After reading the story of baby Moses in Sonlight’s Egermeier’s Bible Story Book, my five-year-old daughter Addy wanted to make a basket just as Moses’ mother did,” writes Sue B of Reed City, MI. “I like that Sonlight does the planning work for me so we can spend time using our creativity to fi gure out fun ways to extend our learning. Every morning after breakfast, I open my blue Sonlight binder and know that the day’s lessons are planned out for me. It allows me to concentrate on the children rather than lesson planning.” Addy has studied all Sonlight’s K programs in her first year with Sonlight.

Dairy Foods: Barn to Cow to Table

2008-03-28T00:43:00.006-04:00

This is my barn poster. I made a pie chart and two kinds of bar graphs. I also took pictures of cows.

Thank you for answering my question about what is your favorite dairy food.

From Mom: What a farm girl. This hat was my door prize at the county corn growers' banquet. I gave it to Addy and she has been wearing it ever since.

We used this opportunity to learn about math and Addy entered her poster in the American Statistical Association's annual competition for children in grades K-3. She was given the opportunity to choose any topic and her choice was: cows.

Spinning eggs

2008-03-03T21:03:00.005-05:00

This is me spinning eggs for an experiment. The experiment is that I have to spin the eggs and figure out which two eggs have been cooked and which one didn't get cooked — which two are the hard-boiled eggs.

I figured it out by spinning the eggs and I had to put my hand on it and take it off right away. And if it kept spinning, it wasn't hard-boiled. If it stopped spinning, then it was hard-boiled.

Because the hard-boiled eggs were cooked, so the shell inside wouldn't spin around.

Mom's note: The white and yolk wouldn't continue to spin in the cooked egg.

Spices

2008-03-03T21:02:00.004-05:00

From Mom: Addy didn't feel like writing, but she learned about the explorers tasted the spices that they travelled the world to find. The cinnamon in her mouth is bark that Liz and Marc brought back from their first trip to Thailand.

My picture of a duck

2008-02-22T03:31:00.010-05:00

I made this picture of a duck for a contest. It was very very fun, although getting the outline of the duck was a lot of work. Once I got to put the colors in it was getting funner and funner and funner. After I got the duck all drew in I drew water around it and the trees, little island. That's what I did.

This is a mallard boy duck.

Addy entered the Junior Duck Stamp contest, which we heard about when checking into good places for nature walks in our new area. It is put on by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Children learn about conservation, then create a portrait of a North American duck, goose or swan. We use the Usbourne "First Book of Nature" as part of our science learning and happened to be reading from the section about birds anyway, so it was a nice tie-in.

Earlier this winter we had twice tried to see the wildlife artist Michael Glenn Monroe at a book signing in Big Rapids, but his visits were postponed both times (once he was commissioned to create ornaments for the White House and went to meet President and Laura Bush as if that is somehow more important than going to Big Rapids, and the second time a snowstorm kept him away). Addy had been looking forward to it, so we found a signed copy of his "The Wonders of Nature Sketchbook: Learn About Nature and How to Draw It" at a local bookstore. In the book he demonstrates how to put together simple shapes to create animals, including a duck. She practiced his method to make her duck, then used bird books to figure out how to color the mallard.

Addy titled her work "Nature Picture of Boy Mallard." Students are encouraged to write a conservation message to submit along with their picture. She wrote, "Take care of the earth, and take care of the things in it and around it."

My first time watching lunar eclipse

2008-02-22T03:29:00.006-05:00

One day I watched the lunar eclipse. And at first the left bottom side of the moon got darker and darker and darker. Then when the lunar eclipse was actually starting I saw it got bluish-blackish, and then it was getting kind of orangish. And then it got red. Then it was finally almost over and I had fell asleep.

Temptation in the wilderness

2008-02-22T02:57:00.005-05:00

This is me and my friends and we're coloring Jesus in the wilderness.

This day in church we learned about temptation. Temptation is when you really want to do something, but you know you shouldn't. Once we learned about a lady who made cookies and she told her son to wait and he didn't wait. He was feeling temptation. But he snuck one, and then him and his friend snuck another and another and they said that wouldn't be too much. But they didn't eat their dinner. Her mother said, "You ate some cookies, didn't you?" So what I learned is you should wait.

This is the picture we were coloring: Jesus was really hungry, but he knew he shouldn't use his powers to turn anything into food. And the devil came down and said, "If you are the son of the Lord, then turn those rocks into bread."

Whoa. This was taken our last day of church in Big Rapids and Addy dictated this to me 4 weeks later. I can't believe her recall. I barely remember talking about the cookies — and I was the teacher. It sure is nice to know that when I feel like I'm herding cats in the Sunday School classroom, something is actually sticking.

Making teepees

2008-02-22T02:54:00.005-05:00

This is me and Dori making teepees. First you take a half piece of a circle and then you like fold it into a cone shape and leave a hole in the top. And you put the straws through the hole. And then you tie the teepees together. Then you stick it onto a piece of paper!

We really like the Usbourne book "Living Long Ago," which is part of our history and geography curriculum. This was part of the unit about houses and homes people lived in. The book offers lots of fun activity ideas for trying the concepts learned in the reading. Of course Addy wants to do every single one. It's nice that Dori can start to participate now, too. This was back in Reed City.

I went to see John McCain

2008-02-22T02:51:00.006-05:00

I went to see John McCain, but I ended up seeing Mrs. McCain. We had a book for John McCain to sign, but when we found out Mrs. McCain was there we didn't ask anybody to sign it because John McCain wasn't there. I learned a lot. It was very very very very very fun.

The night before Michigan's Super Tuesday, it was more important for John McCain to be at the Auto Show in Detroit rather than in Grand Rapids, so we met Cindy at a rally at the Kent County Republican Headquarters instead. The next day Addy wondered if we could go door-to-door campaigning in Reed City for McCain. We let her hang a poster in her room instead.

At the rally we made her shake hands with U.S. Sen. John Thune from South Dakota and with Cindy McCain, telling her she would appreciate it later. At left is Addy with Cindy, at right we're standing in front of the Straight Talk America bus.

Pilgrims

2008-02-22T02:49:00.007-05:00

This is my Pilgrim village. Their boat to get here was the Mayflower. Actually the Mayflower wasn't the first boat to get here.

I built this village by myself. I put everything around where I wanted. I let Mommy and Daddy help me. It was very fun, but after we took a picture of it we had to throw it away.

We're obviously behind on the blog; she made this village before Thanksgiving with a paper punch-out kit Aunt Carol found somewhere. I did make her sacrifice it when we were packing for the move. : ( It had been up for three months by then.

Note from Mom

2008-02-09T22:38:00.000-05:00

It has been wonderful to watch Addy learn and grow this year. We were off school a couple weeks while I was in and out of the hospital, so once we got back into things it allowed me to see her in a new light. I suppose it's sort of how you never notice your own kids getting taller, but the kids you see once a month shoot up each time.

It's the little things this week that shed light on what's going on in her mind. We opened her art book and she recognized a painting by Picasso, something I couldn't do until ... oh, about three years ago. So what if she called him Kipasso?

Bob and I were talking to each other and mentioned something about the numbers 7 and 5. Addy, who wasn't really part of the conversation, piped up in what I did not believe was enough time to do any addition and said, "Oh, so there are 12 of them?" I had to use my fingers — no kidding — to figure out what she was talking about.

I read from the Bible and began to tell about a famine. She interrupted me: "Oh, I know this story! It's about the seven fat cows and the seven skinny cows and the seven fat cows meant seven good years and the seven skinny cows meant the people would be hungry!" This happened to be a different famine story, but I was amazed at her recall. Soon enough she'll learn there are plenty of famine stories in the Bible!

I went to a spelling bee.

2008-01-09T21:58:00.001-05:00

I went to a spelling bee. Everybody had fun watching me and I had fun in the spelling bee. I spelled mop, M-O-P. I spelled hat. And I spelled dad.

It was really hard to wait for my turn because I like spelling words. There were two kids who talked a little bit loud.

I won first place and I got a certificate and a coupon to Pizza Hut and M&Ms. I ate the M&Ms right after the spelling bee.

Maggie and Nini came.

Thirteen Grand Rapids area homeschoolers participated in the kindergarten spelling bee. They were all so very cute and all improved a great deal since the practice in November. They were given a list of 120 three- and four-letter words to study, ranging in difficulty from CAT to PUMP. After each round, any child who misspelled two words got a round of applause, certificate and prizes, then sat down. They didn't do a spell-down to the end as they would with older kids. Addy was one of five of the 13 who made no spelling mistakes, so they each received first-place stickers on their certificates.

Link to the results: http://www.homeschoolbuilding.org/Item.php3?id=7062

Reading "Twenty and Ten"

2007-11-29T13:06:00.000-05:00

I read Twenty and Ten. Twenty and Ten was fun to read. Well, not really, a little bit. So it was about there were some kids hiding from the Nazis. They had some Jewish friends with them. They wanted to hide the Jewish friends so they teased the soldiers and told them that themselves they were the Jewish people and so a shot came through the window — I guess a soldier was trying to shoot at them. The kids did a brave thing.

I went to listen to a lady talk. Her name was Diet Eman. She said that she helped some Jewish ladies hide from the Nazis so that was a very good thing Diet Eman did.

Note from Mom: I learned that Diet (pronounced Deet) would be speaking in Grand Rapids to a group of homeschooling families on my birthday, so I asked that a trip to see her be my gift. To prepare Addy, we read Twenty and Ten, which was part of this year's curriculum anyway. We only read it earlier than scheduled. In the story, a group of 20 French schoolchildren sent to live in the country with a nun during the war decided to hide 10 Jewish children. They showed great courage in doing so. That story is historical fiction, but based on real accounts of the war. The book gave Addy the general idea of who the Nazis were, though she keeps saying Yahtzees like the dice game.

We listened to Diet speak on Tuesday night. Addy had a really hard time deciphering her thick Dutch accent, but I assured her she will appreciate the experience when she is older. Now age 87, in her early 20s Diet was part of the Dutch resistance during World War II. She and her fiance coordinated the effort to hide hundreds of Jews from the Nazis, finding homes in the countryside of Holland and stealing ration cards and identification for them. She was eventually captured by the Gestapo and held prisoner. Her fiance was killed. She survived and now lives in Grand Rapids.

Bob thought it was quite an understatement that during several parts of her talk, she explained, "That was a terrible time."

Just this February, Diet was granted U.S. citizenship. She said filling out the forms was challenging: Have you ever been in prison? "Yes." Have you ever been deported? "Yes." Have you ever tried to topple a foreign government? "Yes." General Eisenhower had personally signed a letter of thanks to her on behalf of the United States of America for helping Allied forces escape, so she included a copy of that letter with her application. Citizenship granted.

I hope to read Diet's book, Things We Couldn't Say. I also understand that as part of his MSU master's thesis, a man filmed a documentary about Diet and others' efforts in the Netherlands during the Holocaust called Making Choices.

I was elected as a treasurer

2007-11-19T20:55:00.000-05:00

I go to 4-H. I was elected as the treasurer. On Monday night at November 19th. I am excited ’cause I like to take care of money. It will be lots of fun for me. The kids voted for me to be the treasurer by raising their hands.

How to make a Moses basket

2007-11-17T23:17:00.000-05:00

I got dried cattail leaves and weaved them together to make a little Moses basket. It was very fun, but at the end I couldn't really do it.

We read about Moses in our Egermeier's Bible Story Book. We didn't have handy any bulrushes as his mother used, so we gathered some cattails from a ditch. As you can see, we did this project awhile ago, on a warm October day. I built the base and taught Addy how to weave in the sides. It later crumbled apart before she had a chance to float it down the river in town as she wanted.

Inside, Outside, Upside Down

2007-11-17T22:22:00.000-05:00

This is Addy reading the Berenstain Bears book "Inside, Outside, Upside Down." It was the first book Glenn read all by himself. (less than 3 minutes)

Learning math by bowling

2007-11-17T21:55:00.000-05:00

I bowled to learn math. I kept my scores in a timeline book.

8-3=5 That’s Mama’s score.

8-1=7 That’s my score.

It was fun. After that my mom took videos of us doing ring-around-the-rosie.

This was back on October 17 when we had an usually warm day. I just couldn't keep the girls cooped up inside for school.

Six-minute video: The apple orchard and making pie

2007-11-12T00:04:00.000-05:00

Learning about the states

2007-11-11T22:06:00.000-05:00

Mrs. Johnson taught me geography. I had lots of fun learning geography.

I am at co-op. Co-op stands for cooperate. Co-op is fun to learn sometimes, but while the adults are just talking and getting ready for co-op we sometimes like to play outside or just run around inside the church.

I wrote out the names of the states, even though I didn't know them. The rules were Mommy could not help me with it, but we could go up to a table and look at what that state is called and try to remember how to spell it and then when we get back to our seat we can write it on where it is on the map.

Addy is in the bottom right corner of the picture in her Laura Ingalls outfit. Look for the big, blue bonnet. She wore it a few random places that week, for no particular reason. Dori is the little person with her hand on the table in the corner.

At the Klackle Apple Orchard

2007-11-11T21:50:00.000-05:00

I went to the Klackle Apple Orchard. My class was cancelled, so I had to go with a preschool class. But I am homeschooled and my class is a breastfeeding class.

I read a Johnny Appleseed book for school before we went to the Klackle Apple Orchard. The Klackle Apple Orchard was fun. Last year in my class I didn't pick pumpkins. I guess this year we got to pick pumpkins because it was fall time.

We picked the brand of apples Golden Delicious.

I picked a pumpkin flower. The guy who was riding the tractor for that year said we could pick a pumpkin flower. He said all it would do is die. But when we put the flower in the flower press, it was surprising to me when it came out. It was surprising to me that it stayed orange. We took it out of the flower press and we put tape over it to put it in my science notebook and I labeled the parts.

A breastfeeding class? What she means is that a group of families who met through La Leche League formed a group last year called Homeschool Preschoolers. We continue to meet to do group activities and take field trips. I guess Addy will always think of them as our breastfeeding friends. The weather was a little gloomy the morning of our field trip to the orchard, so everyone else bailed on us. We still went and joined up with a class for our educational talk and tour. The rain hid behind the clouds and we had a lovely day.

Hi, I won a contest.

2007-10-05T15:42:00.000-04:00

I went to the beach. I won a contest.

http://www.healthylakes.org/stories/photograph/2007/08/12/the-lake-that-had-a-lighthouse-in-the-middle-of-it

Addy received word today that she was the winner of a "Healthy Lakes" story contest in the children's division. The coordinator said she will receive a prize in the mail next week. Click the link for the story and a photo of Addy and Bob. You'll see that I typed the story exactly as Addy dictated it, with no editing. : )

Me and Dori looking at frogs

2007-10-03T22:01:00.000-04:00

This is me and Dori looking at frogs. It is kind of science for me. I caught them, but I set them down on that rock. Why it was science for me is because we were looking at the patterns. This was really fun for me to catch a frog.

Me and Dori at storytime

2007-10-03T21:58:00.000-04:00

This is me and my sister, Dori, at storytime. We are having fun listening to the books. Storytime is fun, you know. It is so fun I get excited when my mom tells me it's time to go to storytime.

Addy does her own math by herself

2007-10-03T21:44:00.000-04:00

This is me doing my own math by myself.

4+4=8

3+3=6

and 1+1=2

From Mom: I was pretty proud when I saw Addy writing her first equations after we did an addition lesson. Her 6 is reversed, but she is little! I didn't realize she really understood the concept of the "number sentence" yet, though it was clear she understood how to count up the pieces to make the whole.

My first 4-H meeting

2007-10-03T21:40:00.000-04:00

This is me and my friend, Sydney, making our craft from our first 4-H meeting. We had fun. Part of it we kind of had to be like indults [adults] because we had to sit down and listen to the rules of the 4-H meeting. So I had fun at my first 4-H meeting.

Making apples sauce

2007-10-03T21:35:00.000-04:00

This is me and my mommy making applesauce. I did almost all the coring myself with a little bit of help from my daddy. We used an apple slicer/cutter. So all of us, but not my sister, Dori, made applesauce. This is us making applesauce.

Go State!

2007-09-25T19:38:00.000-04:00

Your interesting tidbit of the day, from Sue: I just learned that the founders and owners of Addy's curriculum company (Sarita and John Holzmann of Sonlight.com) are Spartans.

John and Sarita earned their undergraduate degrees (both with honors) at Michigan State University. Sarita earned a B.S. in Dietetics while John earned a B.A. in Philosophy. John went on to earn the M.Div. at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.

Addy learns about handwriting

2007-09-24T14:53:00.000-04:00

Handwriting is in the middle. Handwriting in the middle means that I don't like handwriting and I like handwriting. That's why it is kind of in between.

We do wet, dry, try. First, Mommy writes a letter on the chalkboard. I erase it. Then I dry it. Then I write it. Then I do the same thing over again.

We use a system for traditional manuscript writing called Handwriting Without Tears. It is especially good for lefties, as it helps Addy see that she should start most of her letters and numbers in the starting corner (top left) to avoid reversals. The books give us good memory aids to help form the letters. We use a small chalkboard for the wet, dry, try method Addy described. First I demonstrate how to make a letter on the chalkboard. Then she erases it along my lines with a tiny, wet sponge to work on her pincer grasp and let her arm feel how to do the strokes in the correct order. Then, she dries it with a bit of paper towel to get more practice making the stroke before she moves on to paper. Finally, she practices the letter on paper. While some handwriting programs have the child trace one letter, then make a whole row of letters on their own (often getting worse with each try, I have noticed!), with this one she traces one, then makes one of her own, then traces another, and so on. It helps her keep it in the right form each time. By the end of a page, she can do each letter well.

Addy learning about the Earth crust

2007-09-24T14:42:00.000-04:00

This is pretend, but the outside of the egg is the crust of the Earth. The white part is the mantle. The middle is core. That is the pretend Earth. The middle is also hot in real Earth, but not really in the egg. That is the Earth.

The Earth isn't hot on all the parts. Cutting up the egg model was for school.

I like ancient Egypt

2007-09-24T14:29:00.000-04:00

Ancient Egypt isn't what it used to be. It used to be where their belief was they buried their kings, and then after they bury them they think it will come back to life. But now people still live in Egypt, but their belief isn't that. But they do bury them.

They have to cover their arms, shoulders and their whole face, but not their eyes. Miss Lynn is a nice person. I went to see her because to learn about Egypt, because she went to Egypt. She showed me something made out of sand. It is a pyramid. It got my hands all dirty, but I wiped the sand off. It was fun being at Miss Lynn's house.

After we studied ancient Egypt during week 2 of school, Addy spent an hour with our neighbor, Lynn, who visited Cairo on vacation last year. She showed her pictures of the pyramids and talked to her about what it is like in Egypt today.

Addy plays soccer

2007-09-24T14:18:00.000-04:00

I like to play soccer. Soccer is fun. There are six kids. I like to play. It is fun playing.

You can't use your hands. You can only use your feet or head.

There is Alexis, Annie, Emma, Jenna and Kendra. That is all the girls I play with. There are six girls altogether.

My number is No. 5, and I am 5 years old. Isn't that silly? Scoring goals is one of the fun things. I say, "Woo!" when I score a goal. I like the other parts of soccer, too.

I love soccer.

Addy learned

2007-09-08T21:47:00.000-04:00

I learned about string instruments for homeschool. Mr. Z. showed me the double bass. I liked listening to it. We all got to play it. Sydney got to, Jordan got to, and I got to.

First I watched a movie about string instruments and then I went to see a real double bass. It was fun. I loved it. Then I got to play with my friends a little while. We played fairies the whole time. Then I had to go.

Addy learned about string instruments in this week's Melody Lane video. We also read about them in an Usbourne book. Her friends' father plays the bass, so she went to their house and got to hear and play with it.

My first days of school

2007-09-07T16:19:00.000-04:00

My first week of school was fun. Today was my fourth day. Hi, my name is Addy. I'm a kindergartner. My real name is Adele, but please call me Addy.

I like science. And I like to be a kindergartner. I like the book called Finding out About Everyday Things. That book is really fun to learn about. And did you know that you can tell the distance that a storm is from you by that the light comes first and then count how long it takes for the noise to come to your ears? Sheet lightning is something that is lightning that it goes from one cloud to another.

I like reading the Boxcar Children book. Right now we're reading about the children are living in the boxcar. I don't know what'll happen after that. You'll never know. Or maybe you will. Boxcar Children is a book that the boxcar children found some dishes in a dumpster. It was treasure for them, but wasn't really treasure in real world.

"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." That actually is true. That is a very true Bible verse. True Bible verses are school verses.

In school, I am reading a very easy book called I Can Read It! That book is too easy for me, but I read it 'cause that's part of school.

Again, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

You're gonna see a picture of a number line on our sidewalk.

—typed by Mommy, exactly as dictated by Addy