Resolutions

So, when my husband asked I told him that I didn't have any resolutions and I guess that is a lie.

One of my resolutions is to write more. More journaling in my book to Jasmine, more posting on this blog and more creative writing. The last part is going to have to happen, I signed up to take a class at the local college and if I ever want to finish my Masters I will have to finish writing a book.

My second resolution is to finish more craft projects this year (and to remember to take photographs!) My husband said that I needed to finish some, but I really did finish quite a few last year. I know he was teasing, but really, grrrr. There are a few things that have been sitting around for a while (years) that are close to being finished, so hopefully they'll get done. For some reason thought I am already planning next Christmas' presents.

My third resolution is to take more pictures! We are so bad about taking pictures, it doesn't matter where we go or what we are doing, there is rarely a picture of it. I don't even have a Halloween picture of Jasmine for 2008. So, here are some for now.

This is my bed right now, luckily my husband is in Little Rock, AR, or else he wouldn't have a place to sleep tonight:

I am trying to organize my craft stuff, I know where everything is and what needs to be finished.

And here are two paintings Jasmine did while I started the great sorting:

Done in water paint.

and:

Done in paint dot markers, basically bingo markers.

Finally home - from 12/29/09

I can't even begin to explain how relived I am to finally be home.

The end of the year always seems difficult for me, but this year (2009) seemed worse than normal. Our funds are running low, we did some home maintenance and unfortunately a lot of travelling this year (2009). I'm not sure if 2010 is going to be any kinder to us, my husband is already going to be gone for half of January. So we are going to try and budget our spending, we would like to take Jasmine to Disneyland, Sea World and the San Diego Zoo after Labour Day, which is about two weeks after her birthday.

Plus there is a Korean school in Sparks that I would like to enroll Jasmine in. It is $100 for the first 3-4 months, and then after summer break it is $80. I know that is a lot of money, but my mom didn't start me in Korean school until I was 14 and it was really embarrassing sitting with a bunch of preschoolers going over the same work every week. I didn't learn anything. And since I'm not fluent in Korean myself, and my pronunciation is atrocious I can't teach Jasmine myself.

But, I know the things we have to worry about are minor, I just wished we didn't have to worry about them at all.

I also don't know where I want to go with Jasmine's homeschooling, she knows most of her ABCs, she has a little trouble with "i", "j", "m", and "n" but for the most part has everything down. She has mastered 1-13 and is working on 14-20. She knows her colors and shapes. So, I don't know if I want to continue with Letter of the Week. We haven't even gotten very far on it, just to letter "E." So I might find some harder things. Maybe we'll work on muscle control for writing, she is getting better, but still kind of wild with a crayon.

No news is good news?

I'm sorry I haven't been updating, but we have been travelling and internet service has been spotty. Our co-op finished on the 19th of November and won't start again until the 14th of January. Jasmine will be taking two classes of preschool next year since she did so well last semester. We have a bunch of plans for next year, I don't know how they are going to work out. I'll try to remember to write more about the plans after we get home.

Muffin Tin Monday

There's no theme for this week.



Jasmine had orange juice, bean sprouts, grapes on leaf picks, a triple berry muffin, baked salmon and strawberries.

Muffin Tin Monday

This week's theme is Outer Space.


This week from top to bottom, left to right:
1. We have orange juice, Minute Maid has a kids juice with vitamins A, B1, C, D, E, and calcium. The great thing about this is it is pulp free, so sippy cups and straw cups with valves (like the one in this picture) won't get clogged by the pulp. We were getting the orange juice with the added calcium, because Jasmine doesn't drink milk and will only eat a few dark green veggies, and the straws were always getting clogged even though that juice is supposed to be low pulp.
2. Mini-cucumber stars made with the recipe by M3 of Do They Have Salsa in China?. Jasmine loves cucumbers, so I figured we'd give this a try. I put them in a yellow muffin liner.
3. Next is multi-colored toothpicks with grapes. I glued a star onto the orange pick.
4. Corn in another yellow muffin liner. Jasmine knew the picture on top was supposed to be the sun right away. I cannot draw a straight line, so if my pictures ever look strangely slanted, its probably because I put things together crooked and took the picture crooked.
5. Originally I was going to try and draw the earth from space... luckily I gave up on that idea fast. It is supposed to be a picture of a planet with rings in space. Like I said, I cannot draw. Underneath the icing is Kozy Shack's Simplywell pudding in Green Tea Chai. I got these for myself, but Jasmine wanted one a few days ago and actually ate it. Its odd she will eat gelatin, but puddings or custard until she ate this. She still will not eat regular pudding, like vanilla.
6. And last we have apple asteroids covered in cinnamon.

Week Four

This weeks theme is Eyes and the vocabulary word is iris. I got the picture from an article on Discover Magazine about the genetics of eye color. The vocabulary word spot on our poster is blank because I put it with the image of the eye.

We started the week off slow, there was a lot of wind last weekend, so for Monday and Tuesday Jasmine and I were sneezing a lot.

Monday: We went over the letter "D" and did a capital "D" worksheet from School Express found here. I also printed the lowercase "d," but we did not go over it.

Tuesday: Jasmine colored the diamond from last week with blue glitter. I defrosted some frozen blueberries, I couldn't find any fresh ones. I hung up our blue window cling.


And our blue ice cream scoop.


Wednesday: was the letter "D" craft. Jasmine made an Duck C using the letter "D" and some feathers from No Time For Flash Cards.


We also colored a "D" worksheet that had an upper and lower case "d" with pictures of things that started with "D" from Mommy Nature.com. Here is the worksheet.

Thursday: was number four. We added another fish to the fish bowl. We got ready for Halloween by making a ghost found on The Artful Crafter here. Instead of a CD we used a paper plate and I let Jasmine paint one side white.


Friday: the nursery rhyme for Friday was Lavender's Blue. I got the full rhyme from Wikipedia. I didn't save where I got the image of the lavender from, but a easy search on Google Images will bring something usable up.

Friday was also Halloween Day for us. Nevada Day is also October 31st, but is celebrated on the last Saturday of October, which happened to be Halloween this year. We went trick-or-treating, Jasmine was a pirate. Saturday we went and watched the Nevada Day parade downtown.

Here is a view of our Learning Poster.


For November we have lots of leaves on our calendar.


What we are currently reading:
Jasmine's selection: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle


I got this for Jasmine after we did the "C" caterpillar from last week and she seems to really enjoy the book.

My selection: The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home by Susan Wise Bauer


I borrowed this from the library and have only just started reading it, so I don't have an opinion on it yet.

Week Three

I know now if we are going to order printer ink online to do it when the printer first starts protesting that it is running out of ink. It took a lot longer to get than I thought it would, about a week and a half. And with my mother visiting we hardly had time to get anything done.

Our travel plans for Thanksgiving got pushed back until the first week of December, and as far as I know we don't have any other plans so hopefully for a few weeks at least we can get back on track.

This weeks theme is Kittens and the vocabulary word is claws, but I changed the theme and the vocabulary work to "Cat," because I think that cat is a reasonably easy three-letter word to spell. I got the picture of the cats from http://a2.vox.com/6a00e398f645e4000500f48d1521a20001-320pi through Google images.

Monday: We went over the letter "C" and did a capital "C" worksheet from School Express found here.

Tuesday: I could not find a diamond activity, so I ended up printing a diamond outline. Later I found shapes and colors window clings at Dollar Tree.



So we will be using those to help Jasmine learn the shapes and colors. They also had a border trim for the shapes with the same pictures as the clings and I cut up one of the trims to use on the Learning Poster.

I also printed out some different colored ice cream scoops from here, and will be using them as we follow the Letter of the Week curriculum.



Wednesday: was the letter "C." Jasmine made an Caterpillar C using the letter "C" and some sparkly pom-poms. I got the idea from No Time For Flash Cards.

We also made a cat with "C"s for its legs and tail, but unfortunately I cannot remember where I found the template for it. I did learn that if a craft needs to be colored and cut that it should be done on separate days.

EDIT: I found the webpage, it is from First-School. And can be found here.



We also colored a "C" worksheet that had an upper and lower case "C" with pictures of things that started with "C" from Mommy Nature.com. Here is the worksheet.

Thursday: was number three. Jasmine can already count to three (and beyond, although she always forgets eight, I don't know why.) So, we continued to count to ten using the number strip. I placed it lower so she can easily reach it.



Friday: the nursery rhyme for Friday was Pussycat, Pussycat. I got the image and rhyme from Mama Lisa, again.

Here is a view of our Learning Poster.


For October we had tons of pumpkins on our calendar.


I also got an alphabet wall border from It's Educational, our local teacher supply store.


I liked how this border had pictures to go along with the letters. It also came with a mini alphabet that I could hang at Jasmine's height.


What we are currently reading:
Jasmine's selection: Where the Wild Things are by Maurice Sendak


Jasmine loves this book. One night during bath time my husband read this to her and it has been non-stop ever since.

My selection: The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey by Trenton Lee Stewart


I got the first book because it sounded interesting, and when I finished that one I had to get this one, the second book, right away. I don't know how I'm going to be able to wait for the third book to come out in paperback.

Muffin Tin Monday

We missed the last two Muffin Tin Mondays, my mother was visiting and we just got so busy that I couldn't really plan anything out.

This weeks theme is Fall Harvest/Halloween. So I used pumpkin muffin liners and pumpkin picks that I got a year ago. Today I just made a snack tray and we have clockwise, apple pieces, cucumber slices, pieces of bread (Jasmine asked for them), and corn.

Muffin Tin Monday

Today's theme is "All about me."



Top, left to right: Jasmine took her orange juice, vitamins (vitamin C, mulit-vitamin, calcium and Omega-3), olives for her Italian side.
Bottom, left to right: Jell-O, cheese sticks (it is the only cheese like thing I can get her to eat after 3 years of not being able to eat cheese,) and seaweed wrapped rice for her Korean side.

Muffin Tin Monday

I've joined Muffing Tin Monday.

This week didn't have a theme, so I just put a snack tin together for Jasmine so she could snack throughout the day. I swear I'm not feeding her rabbit food, she actually likes these foods.



We have from left to right on the top row: Orange juice (really half orange juice, half water), goldfish crackers, cucumber spears. Bottom row: carrot sticks (this is a second refill, Jasmine ate them all while I finished putting the rest of the tin together), celery sticks, beans sprouts.