Halloween in a New Neighborhood

D knew by mid-September that he wanted to be a mummy for Halloween. I had visions of me wrapping him up in toilet paper and then going trick-or-treating in the rain. Not a pretty scenario. Luckily we found the perfect mummy costume at a store right down the street from our new house. Scary mask included, but not shown here. While at the store, B was immediately drawn to the fireman costume. I warned him that if he wanted to be a fireman, he HAD to wear the hat. HAD TO. He has a history for wanting to wear a certain costume only to cry about not wanting to wear the hat once Halloween finally arrives (for example, the elephant head/hood on his Dumbo costume, the engineers cap on his train engineer costume, and his surgical cap with last year's doctor outfit). And what do you know?? He actually LOVED his hat this year. Except that he kept insisiting on wearing it backwards. I had to show him pictures of fireman out of various children's books in order to convince him that the brim is indeed worn on the back.

On trick-or-treat night we were dressed and raring to go by 5:15, even though nothing 'officially' started until at *least* 5:30. After 11 years at our old house, we were curious to see what Halloween was like in our new neighborhood. We were more than pleasantly surprised at the turnout. Grandma came to hand out candy for us so that we could all go out together (thanks, mom!!), and what a bucket of loot our boys ended up with! There are approximately 10 roads of side-by-side houses in our development. By the time we finished trick-or-treating up two roads, the boys' pumpkin-buckets were filled to the brim. We had to return home to empty the load and went back out for round two. It was SO MUCH FUN to see so many costumed people clustered together under the dim street lights of our cute little neighborhood. People were sitting outside on their doorsteps with big bowls of candy to hand out. People were peaking out windows waiting for the next group of scary goblins to ring their doorbells. And best of all, Hubby and I got to enjoy watching our own little boysies having the time of their lives.

At our old house, D got tired after five houses. That's because of the distance we had to walk between each house. It was an effort, to say the least. Here, we conquered five houses in five minutes. Even though last year at this time we'd never have foreseen where we'd be today, we are finding new joys with each passing day. What a difference a year makes.

Weekly Report~ October 23, 2009

This is B's idea of hide-and-seek. He cracks me up! Even on the worst of days, B manages to add a good helping of humor to the mix. But boy oh boy is he pushing his limits lately. Everything (and I mean EVERYthing) is a battle. He reminds me of what his big brother was like when he was four. Yet, he behaves wonderfully at preschool and is absolutely in love with his teacher. It's adorable, actually. This week they carved pumpkins and made a lot of autumn related crafts, including a leaf rubbing that he is incredibly proud of. At home, I am continuing to practice the ABC song with him and playing letter games in order to help him begin learning letter sounds.

D has been filling his evenings with chemistry experiments, math drills, learning the poem "Work" from his FLL book, and a lot of writing. He loves to write! I am excited to see this because I know writing can be the source of frustration for many parents. My frustration comes in many, many other ways, so it's nice to find something that he's happy doing without any prompting from mom first. He also continues to be fascinated with Ancient Egypt, so our library book bag is filled to the brim with books about mummies, pyramids, Gilgamesh, King Sargon, the Nile River, and King Tut. We watched a National Geographic DVD about Egypt one rainy afternoon, and he was glued to the tv through the entire series. I'm working hard to make sure our home is filled with a learning atmosphere so that the boys are drawn to science, history, and literature naturally. It's easy to accomplish a lot of "learning" when they think they're just having fun!

The number 13... SO not scary!!

Serendipity has brought the number 13 front-and-center in our lives this month. We have been getting our house ready to put on the market, and after 13 weeks of grueling, back breaking work, DH's hard work paid off. We met with a realtor who told us straight-out that 13 is her lucky number. She has spread her luck our way. On October 13th we had our first showing, and an offer was made the following morning. Without getting specific about financials (you can look it up online if you're that curious), the offer was made for $x13,900. And our fantastic realtor was able to bump-up our closing date to a week earlier than planned, now scheduled for (you guessed it) November 13th. Finally, on a romantic note, Monday DH and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary!! I think it's time to play the lottery.

Thank you to everyone keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. This move has brought some major life changes our way, and although we'll miss our old house and cherish all of the memories we made there (first house, the birth of both of our boys while there, family dinners, birthday parties, and our first year of homeschooling), we're excited to move on.

Weekly Report~ October 9, 2009

School. I always loved it. The books, the teachers, the desks (especially the kind with the lids that opened and closed), the worksheets, listening to the chalk on the chalkboard, recess, my friends, sharpening my pencils, and reading. The actual *learning* part of school was ok, but not my top priority. I was in love with the physical and social experience of "school".

D, on the other hand, seems to be in love with the actual learning and could care less about the rest of the school experience. I want to give him what is best for HIM, but that's not always an easy thing to figure out with a kid like D. He's had two more meltdowns concerning school, and continues to express the desire to be homeschooled so that he can "be taught lots of stuff and do lots of science and not just sit around playing games like I do at school". And he's so intense and adamant in his proclamations that it's hard to argue with his logic. At the same time, on an emotional level, I feel that going to school has really been helpful in teaching him to listen to/follow directions from other adults, to learn there are certain rules that need to be followed, and to learn to respect authority. He has also made a handful of friends, but he does that everywhere he goes! The other bonus of going to school is that he consistently has a well-rounded week filled with gym, art, music, reading in group settings, learning how to get along with his peers for longer periods of time, and spending less time in front of the television.

As far as afterschooling, I let him take the lead this week. The LAST thing I want to do is push him too hard, or make learning a chore. The main reason I'm supplementing with him at all is because of his love of learning and his need for moremoremore. I'd hate to kill that passion by forcing him to do a lot of unneccesary work. Here's some of what we did do throughout the week:

• Lots of nature study (October is sooooooo my favorite month!)
• Finished our books on mummies and pyramids; read about Sargon taking over Mesopotamia in SOTW1
• Writing.... this is his favorite thing at the moment. He makes books and writes stories to read to me every night. The stories are typically about a boy going on an adventure and in some way or another discovering a crystal. :)
• Two math lessons in Singapore 1A
• Reviewing common nouns & proper nouns, doing picture study & narration in FLL

No science this week. I have a few experiments planned for this weekend, as D has 4 days off of school and we'll have a lot of free time to fill. As for my little guy--B--we've had more time together with D in school all week, and it's been nice to just hang out with him. We went to the library story hour, ran errands, played together, and spent a lot of time snuggling.

Wordless Wednesday

Weekly Report~ October 2, 2009

Fall is in the air, and the leaves are changing colors before our eyes. It seems a bit early this year, perhaps due to the rainy summer? All I know is that it will be over in the blink of an eye and we want to get out and enjoy autumn in New England while we can. In the meantime, D had an *excellent* week at school. And B made it to all three days of preschool~ no more fever or snoogy nose. I am in the process of trying to find a balance between school, playtime, screen time, outdoor time, play dates, and afterschooling for D. Luckily, he has a LOT less interest in television now that his days are full, but he does still ask to play on the computer almost every day. He also wants to be outside alot, he asks for playdates almost every day, he craves 'alone time' as well as the occasional 'brother time', he wants to build with his Legos, and he wants to draw. Every day. Now, we all know there are not enough hours in a day to fit all this in, but try telling that to an argumentative six year old!!

I encourage spending time outside as well as playing indoors with or without friends/brother until dinner time, and after dinner is when we focus on afterschooling (although he chooses most of what he wants to do at this point and considers it as 'fun time', so let's not ruin things by calling it school).

Here is a taste of what we did this week:

Real Science 4 Kids Pre-Chemistry~ Unit 1 & lab; Janice Van Cleave experiment book~ two chemistry related experiments and notebooking pages.

Math~ Timed addition sheets, a "math maze", and other review problems.

SOTW~Section on Egyptian pyramids; map, maze, and built a pyramid out of Legos.

FLL~ Learned the definition of common and proper nouns; did a few pages out of a workbook I bought at the bookstore.

Independent Reading and read-alouds

This coming weekend I will give D a placement test to see which level of Singapore Math I need to order for him. Other than that, DH is working his tail off trying to get our house ready to go on the market a week from Saturday. We can't wait for that house to S.E.L.L.