Gibraltar and Spain

P viewed a map of Spain and Morocco. He looked at photos of Gibraltar and looked at how the forts on the rock controlled shipping in and out of the Mediterranean.

Largest Countries

P Identified Russia and Canada as the two largest countries in the world. He also identified Japan Spain, and Morocco on the map.

There is a FIRE in the house!!

We received vocal smoke detectors for our house to replace the traditional ones. With P & K's help, we recorded an emergency message that is meant to wake them up (studies show that sleeping children do not wake to standard fire alarms but do to ones that have a familiar voice). As there isn't much time on the recording to speak, we ended with: "P**!! K**!! There's a fire in the house!!"

They still remember the rest of the message that we wanted to use: "Touch the door: if it's hot -- stay; if it's cold, crawl!" We discussed that a hot door means that there is a fire right outside the door and they shouldn't open it. Because their windows are hard to open, they need to stay put near the window and try and open it, otherwise they would need to wait for help. However, if the door is cold, they can open it, but need to crawl along the floor to safety (the front door) to stay out of the smoke.

Christmas Eve

P sang in the Shalom Chorus for the Universal Unitarian Christmas Eve service. They sand three songs in the service, including 'Somewhere a Child', which they sang with the adult choir.

Geography Identification

P identified the United States, Canada, Mexico, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Greenland, Russia, China, and Egypt on a world map. He was also able to name and identify the seven continents and the four major oceans. Finally he named all the planets in order of distance from the sun.

Christmas Carol Pageant

P took part in a production of the Christmas Carol at fellowship. He also sung with the Shalom Chorus before and after the play.

In the afternoon, P and K watched animations on how CD players worked. We looked a record album and discussed how the laser replaced the needle for reading grooves. We also talked about how DVDs and CDs differ from VHS tapes.

Hayride

P practiced his part in the Christmas Carol pageant for the Unitarian Universalist service. We spent the afternoon on a hay ride in Micanopy. P and K saw various trees and a pond, and we looked at a grasshopper up close. After leaving the hayride, we spent some time at Paynes Prairie and discussed how the prairie changes with the seasons and with rainfall.

Speech Evaluation

P exhibited a moderate phonological disorder which significantly impacts intelligibility. Test results indicate deficits in articulation only. Oral structures and function are adequate for speech sound production.

Goldman-Fristoe Test of Articulation (GFTA-2)
Results: SS=49, %ile=2, AE= 3-0; sound-in-words subtest: errors noted in production of/s, z, ʃ, tʃ, dʒ, l, r, θ, ð/, /r/ blends, /s/ blends; substitution of /θ/ and /ð/ for /ʃ, tʃ, s, z, dʒ/; stimulatable for /r/ is good; not stimulatable for /s/; /e/ɚ/ in "gɚl"

Khan-Lewis Phonological Analysis (KLPA-2)
Results: SS=70, %ile-7, AE=3-9; phonological processes used: liquid simp. (58%), deaffrication (50%), stopping (6%), cluster simp. (4%), stridency deletion occurred 17x

The Great Fozzie Release

Even though the weather is getting colder, we figured if Fozzie is to stand any chance, s/he needs to be released as soon as possible. So, we tried, but Fozzie wouldn't fly!! We left and came back several hours later and finally "he" flew off!!

Winterfest 2008

Grand Kitten Re-naming

We finally brought our kittens home (Magic was a hestitant weaner -- will fit in great here!), and the kids renamed them.

Introducing: MAGIC EARTHMEN!!!


Introducing: PRINCESS NIGHT!!!

Fozzie Emerges!

Lubee Bat Festival

Today we attended the Lubee Bat Conservancy's 4th Annual Bat Festival, and enjoyed learning about bats, what they eat, how they echolocate, and about the water cycles in general. We saw the bats in the conservancy and both P & K remarked on the smell. They also created their own bat art.

Goodbye Eva

It seems that Eva has died. Fozzie and Wally seem to be doing okay -- Fozzie is now still in the cocoon, though we can still see his caterpillar body.

More Caterpillars

Wooly Bear Caterpillars from our yard, North Central Florida. Favorite food is this weed:



Black -- Giant Leopard Moth (Fozzie)

Fozzie is now spinning its cocoon!! Very exciting to watch. Now the wait for the moth to be born. We are concerned that it'll come out when it is too cold, though.



Orange -- Virginia Tiger Moth (Wally)


White -- don't know. Just molted to be black top and orange bottom! (Eva)

Butterfly Plants Kill Moths!

It is sadly true, but we are worried about Fozzie -- Ms. Piggy has most definitely died, and Fozzie is thrashing around and exuding some liquid. It isn't good. We figured out that the plants we bought to feed the caterpillars is actually KILLING them. So, out it goes, in weeds come.

Update

In the last few weeks, we've finished Mrs. Piggle Wiggle as a read aloud, Whittington by Alan Armstrong as a read along (book and CD), and 6 Magic Tree House books as self-read (#4 Pirates Past Noon, #13 Vacation Under the Volcano, #15 Viking Ships at Sunrise, #23 Twister on Tuesday, #24 Earthquake in the Early Morning, and #27 Thanksgiving on Thursday). We have, of course, been reading other things from our library, but these are the ones we've borrowed and will be returning today.

We also have two Giant Leopard Moth caterpillars that we're raising in our homemade terrarium. A very large one which we've had for quite a while and a small one which is a relative newcomer. Both have molted once. The smaller one is acting as if it is going ahead and spinning a cocoon, so we're concerned "Miss Piggy" won't make it. Fozzie is loving the marigold plant we've added, however.

Scissors and Art

P made a representation of a train, including engine, coal car, and caboose while K practiced with scissors.

PK City

P and K spent much of today creating PK City. Copious time was spent perfecting animal life locations, arranging buildings, walkways and train tracks in relation to existing roads, and having nice spiders around to catch bugs.

Farm animals are found in pens, with guard dogs:


Water animals are located on the largest body of water:


A small lake is populated by a sailboat:


Traffic includes car, train, and pedestrian:


There is a town square, complete with a clock tower:


Even fictitious creatures, like dragons, have a home here -- lying in wait to destroy!!:

Shalom Chorus

P and K have decided to join the Shalom Chorus at the UU Fellowship. They practice weekly for about 30 minutes and perform about once every 6 weeks.

P is really enjoying it, and has shown great concern over his ability, including going up and talking to Ms. Ruth about not being able to match pitch exactly.

K feels shy, but loves being up on stage. We'll see how it goes for her.

Caterpillars

We have now found 2 caterpillars our on our amaryllis plant, and have adopted them. The large one is named Fozzie (we found him first) and the second is named Ms. Piggy. They are eating amaryllis leaves and we bring in other things from outside we find looking for other foods, as we only have two amaryllis!

Speech Screening

P went today for a preliminary screening for speech therapy at the local elementary school. He's had trouble pronouncing certain sounds for a long time, and as a homeschooled student, he's entitled to receive certain services through the local school system, one of which is speech. Based on the assessment, he'll need speech, though the SLP needs to schedule a more intensive assessment to determine the depth of his therapy.

Warhol Art

Today, we were talking about Modern Pop art, and found a fun project to do that mimics Andy Warhol's work over on Art Projects for Kids. We started with me drawing their outlines, based on a photo onto transparency paper, and they colored it with Craypas oil pastels.

P then wanted to draw his own outline and do an additional one.

Still Drumming

P is still involved in drumming at Studio Percussion each Tuesday afternoon, and is often practicing his songs for us.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (HP2)

So, Jeff started P on Book 2 tonight, and already got through the first two chapters: The Worst Birthday and Dobby's Warning. This looks like it'll be a faster read, considering P actually started reading chapter 3 on his own after Jeff was done.

HP1: Finished!

This past week, we have finally finished the last 5 chapters of Harry Potter, Book 1. I'm not sure if P is ready to continue on to the next book, and so I'm looking around for other options. Jeff and I found The Tale of Despereaux, which looks like a good read.

Drawing Play

P and K both decided to make some art today based on some of the creative play they had been involved in this morning.

P's drawing involved rolling hills, trees, houses, and an airplane.

K's drawing was of a cactus in the desert.

Learning math

We starting officially doing the Math-U-See Primer curriculum. P breezed through lessons 1 & 2, and will need to work on writing, which I expected. K also breezed through 1 & 2, though it was quite clear that she just didn't get the concept of "zero", so we'll be focusing on that for a short while for her.

The National Geographic Atlas

P has been reading the "Habitable Earth" chapter of the National Geographic atlas, using the map legends to determine where on the globe certain things are, like mild summers/cool winters (finding where in America has the same temperatures as western Germany), and determining what the temperature is in Florida.

Yesterday, he went through to locate where the major religions in the world are located. He also looked at the maps showing how plate tectonics have moved the continents over the past 600 million years. Each of these maps has a paragraph description that he's been reading to us, which, when ran through a SMOG readability calculator is apparently college-level reading!

Like his father, P just loves looking at maps and seeing how things are different in different places.

HP1: Quidditch and The Mirror of Erised

P and I took a little break from Harry Potter, Book 1. I'd thought we would be finished by now, but we both focused on other things instead. I am looking forward to selecting another book soon, so I hope to finish this one within the week.

World War II

While we were out today P pretended cracks in the parking lot near the restaurant were tectonic plates.

We continued our discussion with P about the causes and chain of events of World War II. Watched interactive maps on the year-by-year history of the campaigns.

European Theater Map





Afterwards we practiced the th and f sounds.

Tectonic Plates and World War II

We looked over the atlas with Parker and described the events of Word War II in general terms, and talked about all of the places where there were battles. We then talked about tectonic plates and shifting, looking at maps of how the Earth looked up to 250 million years ago, and the projected maps of what earth will look like 250 million years hence. P used his grits this morning to make 'continent plates', which he pushed together to make mountains.

New Life!

We were lucky enough to get a phone call from a friend who had a pregnant cat who was starting to have her kittens. We got to see the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th kittens born and latch on to nurse. P asked for the date, and then let us know that this would always be the kittens' birthday. It was a magical experience.