August, '05
Things are heating up here in soCal. The kids are enjoying summer, and getting along nicely
- most of the time. Natalie celebrated her sixth birthday! Andrew climbs all over the place like a 3ft. tall spiderman.
We're getting geared up for a little trip up to Oregon, and then settling in on a new school year!
April, '05
We recently returned from a much needed, week long spring vacation in Palm Springs. We all had
a great time. Natalie says that her favorite part was swimming in the pool everday! She did great in the water
(Andrew did, too), and now I'm on the hunt for a good place to go for swimming lessons. Natalie is doing great with
her reading. In the last week or so she's been choosing to read to us all on her own, and is becoming more fluent as
she recognizes high-frequency words in the text. We've been studying early US history, and are entering a short unit
on the pioneers. Natalie is loving the Little House series right now (book and tv show), so she's pretty excited!
January, '05
Happy New Year! This past week, Natalie started in on First Grade math. She's already
accomplished so much in the past 4 months! Natalie continues to enjoy History/Geography, particularly the studying of
different cultures (she shows a keen interest in the clothing they wear. No surprises there!). So far her favorites
have been Japan, China, Saudi Arabia, and the continent of Africa. We were fortunate to be able to visit the Gombe/Jane
Goodall exhibit at OMSI over the winter break, which tied in well to our studies in both history and science on our return.
Natalie is also excited to be participating w/other students from our Charter in raising money through the Read to Feed program
with Heifer International. Thanks to those of you who have agreed to sponsor her!
September, '04
I'm enjoying using the K12 curriculum. Natalie is learning so much in phonics, and history (geography
right now). I'm learning a lot in Art! We took a great fieldtrip to the zoo to see all the Australian animals,
and Natalie took photographs with a disposable camera to put into a photo album of her "travels" around the globe this year.
Today she wrote her first poem! Here it is:
I paint gardens purple
on bright sunny days,
So people can see me
blossom today.
I am a violet!
-- by Natalie, age 5 (Oct. 1, 2004)
August, '04
Natalie surprised me today by writing out her numbers (1-10) and all the uppercase letters of the
alphabet - from memory! I asked her if she knew she could do that before she started, and she said no. We were
both very proud of her accomplishment, and pleasantly surprised!
June, '04
Natalie is continuing to explore her new relationship with letters and their sounds. In the
past month she has begun to phonetically spell more challenging words (ones that don't follow the consonant-vowel-consonant
pattern we've been playing with). For instance, the first word she spelled was "loun" or lion. Right now
we are enjoying our summer and looking forward to Natalie turning 5!
March, '04
Exciting things happening in our house! Natalie is undergoing a time of amazing mental growth.
Literally overnight she has developed an interest and awareness of her letters and numbers. Every spare moment (when
she's not too absorbed in being a Princess, and sometimes even when she is!) she is busy writing letters on
her own, asking how things are spelled, pointing letters out in print, and asking about words she hears in speech. I
feel so fortunate to be able to witness this transformation firsthand! I've always heard that this would happen in its
own time, and it's nice to finally have that validated!
