Mustang's New Year's Interview, age 8

Self Portrait

The real deal :).

My final interview was with Mustang, I didn't try with Explorer.

What is your birthday?  September 23, 2005

Who is in your family?  Explorer, Mini Cooper, Charger, Mom and Dad

What is your favorite color?  red

Who is your best friend?  Holly and Claire (they are sisters)

What is your favorite holiday?  Halloween (because we often spend time with Holly and Claire)

What is your favorite activity?  playing dolls with friends

What is your favorite animal?  horses

What would you like to be when you grow up?  A mother (loved this)

Where do you like to go on vacation?  Hawaii

What is your favorite subject in school?  math

What do you like to eat for breakfast?  Captain Crunch Berries

Lunch?  Pizza Rolls

Dinner?  Lasagna

Snack?  fudge

What is your favorite restaurant?  McDonalds (3 for 3, lol)

What is your favorite toy?  Any 18 inch dolls

What is your favorite game?  Hide 'n seek

What do you like to do for fun at home?  play dolls

What is your favorite book?  Samantha

Who is your favorite fictional character?  Rebecca (American Girl)

What is your favorite song?  Connected (Barbie movie)

What is your favorite video/movie?  Saige Paints the Sky

Who is your hero?  Holly and Claire (yes we are really going to have to learn what heros are-Holly and Claire are very nice girls BTW)

What was your favorite part of 2013?  Getting to go to 3 different sleepovers

What do you wish for in the new year?  To buy Isabelle's design studio (um...have you seen the price on that?  Now taking donations, lol!)

So there you have it.  My kid's first comments of the year.  This was really fun!  I am looking forward to getting back into the routine of blogging about our weeks.  School started this week and it is off to a great start!

Happy New Year & God Bless,

Lisa

A Birthday Interview

Last week was Mustang's EIGHTH birthday.  Yes, I am feeling old, and that time goes way too fast!  But, I wanted to remember this sweet time in her life with a little interview.  I am sure we will look back at this someday and wish she was still just eight :).

What was the best thing that happened to you while you were seven?  That I got to go down the huge water slide at the swimming pool.

What is your favorite color?  Red

What is you favorite book?  American Girl Books

What is your favorite TV show?  Superbook

What is your favorite food?  Ice cream

What do you like to do when you have free time?  Chase my brothers and sisters.

What is something you want to learn this year?  Science

What is something you want to do this year?  Have a sleep over

What do you plan to do with your birthday money?  Buy things for my American Girl doll

What do you want to be when you grow up?  An animal farmer's wife

Getting answers from her was kind of a challenge, lol.  My normally talkative daughter clammed right up.  I'll probably get more answers this week after she thinks about it all day :).  But those were the quick answers.

Actually, I can elaborate on the animal farmer's wife.  She wants to have a small farm that has lots of different animals and wants to help her husband take care of them.  I think she wants to be a homesteader :).  I'd be interested to see if that is what happens!

Looking forward to this new year of craziness.  I have heard that when you are 8 and 9 years old, you are the most like you will be when you are an adult.  So, I'm looking forward to getting to know my daughter.  Praying that the Lord will open her heart to His will for her life this year and that He will do amazing things through her energetic spirit!

We have another birthday today, Explorer's, but I'll save that for another blog post :).

God Bless,
Lisa

Montessori Monday: Mustang in the Kitchen

I don't like to cook.  I'm not all that good at it either.  So, to say that I had not been interested in having cooking be a part of our lessons would be an understatement.  If you really know me, you know that Mustang learning to cook is 110% child lead learning!!

About 3 weeks ago, she decided she wanted to cook a dessert.  She was not going to use a recipe, she was going to make her own up.  I have to tell you that it wasn't exactly the best thing ever, but we all ate some of her creation.  I had suggested using a recipe, but she would hear nothing of it.  BUT, when Daddy suggested a recipe she was all ears.  At least someone got through :).



Mustang remembered that at last fall's homeschool swap, she had picked up a cookbook:  Better Homes and Garden's Junior Cookbook.  She pulled it out and announced that she was going to make every recipe in the book-in order-from start to finish.  She wanted to make one each week.  So far, she has been committed to this.






Before we go shopping each week, she looks at the ingredient list and we determine if we have all the ingredients.  If not, she tells me which ones to add to the list.  She also helps me find the items in the store.


When it is time to cook, she likes to gather everything she needs before she starts.  She sets them on the kitchen table, since it is at her height.













She measures out the ingredients (with a little help) and mixes them together.  I do the actual cooking part-I'm not ready to let her go on a hot stove!

She serves the food to the family when it's ready.

So far, she has made pancakes and French toast.  She found out that she doesn't like the French toast.  The rest of us do, though!

She has learned so much through this already.  We have talked about measurements, quantities, making a shopping list, doubling a recipe-due to our large family-how to break an egg and much more.  Since she has chosen this work (real work I might add), she has been so much more receptive to learning the things necessary for cooking then should have been if I had decided we would do this.  She has also been so pleased with her accomplishments and has delighted in telling friends and family.  I might even be learning a few things myself!

We counted 56 recipes in the book, and she has made two.  So, this will take us all year! I'll keep you updated on her progress.

Next up?  Monkey bread!!

Thanks for stopping by and God Bless!

We are linking up

Self Directed Learning REALLY Works!

Today we woke up to terrible stories of destruction and loss in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.  We live a loooong way from any coast and have, thankfully, never had to endure more then the remnants of any hurricane.  Understandably so, Mustang was full of questions!

What IS a hurricane?  How can it cause so much trouble?  Do we need to worry about a hurricane?

After our regular lessons were over, I pulled up a super short (just under 5 minute) YouTube video on hurricanes.

 

Because I didn't think that the 5 minute clip could possibly teach enough about hurricanes for her to take anything away from it, I started looking for another video.  I found a few long and dull ones, but nothing really great.

While I was on my search for the video that would REALLY help, Mustang was drawing on her chalkboard.

I almost missed it.

Her hurricane.  She even named it!  

And when I asked her to identify the parts she quickly pointed out the wind, rain, and eye of the storm.  

I was a bit amazed.

When she doesn't care to know something, it will take her ALL.DAY.LONG. to complete an assignment.  When she WANTS to learn it-5 minutes.

Hoping she has something she wants to learn about tomorrow.  That was so much easier then lesson planning!

I hope your schooling is going well and that you were not harmed by Sandy.  Praying for the recovery.  

Thanks for stopping by and God Bless!

Mustang's Weekly Wrap Up

So I started to write everyone up in one post again, and it was too long and confusing and I couldn't add any commentary.  I am going to do separate posts for each kiddo as I have a chance.  There will be some duplicates, and some not.  Hopefully, I wont bore you!

Mustang is age 6 1/2, she is still in Primary Montessori since we are really just starting.  She is on the fast track (pretty much as quickly as I can buy and present the materials), but we are starting with period 1, in all but Math and Language.

Some of her highlights from the last few weeks:

Practical Life:

Button frame (this was easy for her).  

She has been helping a lot in the kitchen.  She asks all the time if she can help me with the dishes.  I am trying more and more to let go.  I just ordered child size cleaning supplies, so hopefully she will enjoy using them.

Sensorial:

Geometry cabinet presentation tray, later blindfolded.

Touch Boards-she liked them the most of all my children.  She is really into her sense of touch at the moment.

Geometric solids.  I used a natural set I already had on hand and added in the Platonic solids made of cardstock.  Mustang really wants to make her own nets-I told her she could soon!

Mathematics:

Our fast track has been taking us down a review of math as we go through the math materials.  She is ready (previous knowledge wise) to start the golden bead material.  But, I wanted to get there the correct way.  So, we have been using the materials ahead of it quickly.  She is almost there!!

Sandpaper letters.

Number rods.

And extensions.

Table top rods, intro to addition and subtraction.

Spindle boxes.

Cards and counters.  These are homemade using red floral gems.  This was very basic for her, but we had never discussed odd and even numbers.  So, it was fun for her to learn something new.

This cards and counters worksheet is from Wikisori.

Language:

Mustang is still going through her All About Reading and First Start Reading.  

She was excited when I downloaded books for her to read on the Kindle Fire!

Art:

Well kind of art.  She was observing Charger working on his math and drew this 10 rod.

 Then, she drew a barnyard scene-we have been reading Charlotte's Web.

Another day, she drew a spider web and a lot of spiders.  Unfortunately, all the drawings were on our dry erase board.  That's a large part of why I took the photos-this is my only way of preserving the drawing.  

Culture is kind of at a stand still.  I just received our sandpaper globe and landforms, so we should be moving forward next week.

Oh and we had one other unplanned Practical Life!  HAIR CUTTING!!!  Mustang thought that she would like to be like her aunt, so she cut Mini Cooper's hair!!!  Grrrr!!

Mini's hair on Tuesday.

Mini Cooper's hair on Wednesday!

Yep, over 6 inches.  It looks cute-after I fixed it-but I'm a little sad (now that I'm not angry).  I'm glad that hair cutting is not a normal part of the Montessori Primary education :).

To see what other kids around the blog world are doing check out Montessori Monday on Living Montessori Now!

Learning to Serve

Over the last few weeks, Mustang has had two special opportunities to serve others.  I have to say, I was very proud of her participation!

Our small group got to serve at our church soup kitchen.  Each Tuesday night, they offer dinner and Bible Study at our inner city location.  

We served chicken and noodles, veggies, rolls, and apple crisp.  Our fearless leader is an AMAZING COOK!

We also served cookies, which Mustang helped put out.

And lemonade!

To about 90 people!

Mustang was a little young to help serve the actual food, but she did an amazing job of helping people take their food to their seat.  Some of the visitors were elderly or had small children and needed an extra hand or two.  She and I did this job together.  We were the dinning room waitresses, offering to get refills, more helpings, and extra napkins to anyone who wanted them.  It was a lot of fun and a unique chance to serve with my daughter and hubby!

For her second service project, Mustang got to paint.  She loves to paint so this was a fun one for her!

A local charity is holding a fundraising event very soon.  At the event, attendees will receive a bowl of soup for their meal.  They will get to take home to bowl that their soup is in.

The organization needed 1000 bowls painted by local school children.  And, due to one of our homeschool mommies being on their volunteer board...that includes HOMESCHOOL children :).

Mustang painted a BEAUTIFUL bowl!  When she found out she would not get to keep her work of art, she almost said no.  I was very proud of her for doing it anyways!  I have to admit, after seeing her bowl I was the one having a hard time letting it go.  I will have to have her make some bowls for me, too :).

With this week being Valentine's Day, I encourage you to find some places where your children can serve.  It's a lot of fun and very rewarding.

Thanks for reading and God Bless!!

AWANA Cubbies Graduation

Mustang had her Cubbies graduation a couple of weeks ago. She is in Kindergarten at our house, but her birthday falls just after the local school cut off so she was still considered a Cubbie. She LOVED Cubbies, and I am so thankful she had an opportunity to go. Charger is already counting down the days until he gets to start in the fall!



My nephew also graduated. Here, he is getting his award. Do you see Mustang's face? Since our last name starts with a letter late in the alphabet, she had to wait to the very last to get her award. She isnt the most patient person, so this was a challenge for her!



Check out that smile!! She was soooooo excited to finally be getting HER award :).



Coming to show me her new award, and cool Cubbie pen!



Mustang and my nephew gave a puppet show with their Cubbie pens (just for me).



Mustang with all her Cubbie leaders.



And one of Mini Cooper just because lol. We all got to attend a family night awards night. It was a lot of fun! They also served pizza, soda, candy AND ice cream. We were spoiled!!

Having grown up in the AWANA program (minus Cubbies because they didnt develop it until later), I know first hand how wonderful it is for teaching scripture memorization. And, once those verses are in your mind, they are there forever. I cant ask for a better way to help instill the knowledge of the Lord in my kids' hearts and minds. If you have a local program, I highly recommend checking it out this fall! You dont have to attend church there to get involved-we dont currently attend church at our AWANA church.

Hope you are having a great Wednesday! And congrats to any of YOUR AWANA graduates. God Bless!

Weekly Wrap Up-Basketball Camp!!

Well, this week WE didnt do much. Well, other then getting up much earlier then normal, driving 30 miles into town, running errands and then coming home.

Now Mustang, on the other hand, did a lot!



This week our homeschool co-op hosted a basketball camp. Mustang was very excited to get to go.



She learned a lot!



She even made baskets!



Today was the last day of camp, so we all stayed and played for a few minutes.





The older kids at the camp were so awesome to the younger ones. They helped both my kiddos make baskets. They answered questions, and were so encouraging to Mustang, especially. GREAT kids!!

The best part was Mustang's opportunity to learn how to wait her turn, not be the 'star,' not always get her way, etc. You know-learn to be "socialized" lol. I appreciate that she was learning from well behaved 5, 7, 10, 12, 15, and even 18 year olds (and many in between) and not just a room of 5 year olds who are all having a problem with the same thing. She had great examples to follow, rather then the blind leading the blind :). And she really did enjoy herself and learn a few new skills.

Next week will be much quieter since we get to stay home, and get a little more sleep! Hope your week was great, too.

We are linked up at:






God Bless!!