Tips for math websites

I feel a whole lot better today but Dequan still has a runny nose. I think Dequan really likes the Christmas tree because he won't leave it alone. I hung most of the ornaments out of his reach but he has been pulling on the glitter and light string and the tree is leaning. Not so pretty anymore. Have I mentioned Dequan's crazy? He even beats the other two in craziness. He's hilarious with his little antics. He doesn't talk yet but he communicates with his whole body and seems to understand everything we say. He does everyhting we tell him to do, so funny. He's got the cutest laugh too. I was tickling him a few minutes ago just to see him laugh.

I have to say Hakeem is doing good in school (2nd grade). He brought home his first trimester progress report today and a diploma that says he's on the A-B honor roll. It makes me so proud. Last year he was on the A roll so let's see if we can't get him back on that for next trimester. I will have him practice math and reading over the winter break. Javari too so he's well prepared for Kindergarten next year. I printed some math sheets last week that we can use. Hakeem has been learning multiplication at home so I printed a multiplication times table worksheet up to number 12 for him. You can find it here if you would like one too. I printed some other worksheets from there as well for learning money, subtraction and more. They don't have to learn everything at school right?



Worksheet from math-aids.com


Here are some more math websites for kids that I like:

• AplusMath
• Math Fact Cafe 
• Coolmath4kids.com

You wish!

It didn't go like I hoped last night. Hakeem woke up crying before I even finished the last post. I ended up laying down in his bed with him and Javari and fell asleep there. Later on Dequan joined us and it got a little crowded in their full size bed. I didn't sleep very good as their bed is a little too firm for me and gives me a back ache. Hakeem was able to go to school today though and he had no pain all day. I'm relieved and I will probably get some good sleep tonight. I think I'm starting to get over my cold too, hooray for that. I took Javari to prechool today and earlier this evening I found a little bit of energy so I vacuum cleaned and then put up the tree, which the kids helped me decorate. Ah, finally that's over with. Putting together a plastic tree with a million unmarked pieces is not my idea of fun.

I had to cancel all my plans for this week except Javari's preschool because the brake light in my car came on yesterday and the car also needs a new battery ASAP. I don't want to take any unnecessary risks so I'm staying put until the brakes are fixed, hopefully tomorrow. Two weeks ago I had to fix the signals and the car has other minor problems as well. Man, I hate cars. I just keep throwing money at it that I'd rather spend on something else, like Christmas gifts for my kids. Speaking of Christmas gifts, I have to share the kids' wish lists. How likely do you think it is that they'll get anything on that list?? Pretty much zero.

I tried to talk some sense to Hakeem earlier tonight about getting a monkey. He really seems to think it's realistic to have a monkey even after I told him they're like babies and can be aggressive. Mmm, kay. And poor Javari has his heart set on a chihuahua. That's not gonna happen right now although I'd really like to have one someday. And speaking of chihuahuas, how cute are these ones!

Aww, tiny!

Sweetie pie.

And believe it or not, but I want a sphynx. Preferably a grey one with blue eyes. Look at this sphynx baby. Don't you just wanna kiss it?

Simple versus outrageous

I'm tired of being sick already! I've been sick since Saturday night. Hopefully I'll feel great when I wake up tomorrow, I can at least wish. I'm sad to say I have not put the (plastic) Chrsitmas tree up yet. I was going to do it today but I had no energy to do anything. Nobody got good sleep last night. Hakeem was awake most of the night with a tooth ache and Dequan had a hard time sleeping because of congestion. Still we had to get up early this morning because the landlord was coming by. I was half dead all day. I picked up some children's motrin for Hakeem because the tylenol was not working at all. It seemed to do the trick so he should be able to go to school tomorrow. I have to take Javari to preschool tomorrow and hopefully after that I'll find some energy to decorate the house. Inside only. A few houses on this street are covered in lights and Santas and reindeers and everyhting else. It's pretty but I wonder what their electric bills look like! In Sweden it's plenty if you hang some lights in one tree in the yard but most people don't even do that. On the other hand we put stars and electric candles in the windows. So cozy.

Decorating Swedish style.

Decorating American style.

Saint Lucia..

I'm sick today. Not fun but at least I have time to write a little post and share some pictures. Friday I took Javari and Dequan to the indoor botanical garden at Bellagio. They weren't quite finished with their holiday display so we couldn't go in the middle part, but we got some ok pictures anyway. Yesterday we went to the Scandinavian Christmas party like we've been doing every year for I don't know how many years now, maybe 5. Hakeem and Javari participated in the Lucia train dressed in long white dresses. They did a really good job. It was Javari's first time and Hakeem's second. After that it was time to eat some Scandinavian goodies. If you would like to learn more about Saint Lucia go to Wikipedia.

Lucia.

Botanical gardens at Bellagio.

Javari with no hair gel, haha.

The small version of the Eiffel Tower.

The Lucia singing in church yesterday.

Lined up for pictures afterwards.

"Stjärngossar" Javari and Hakeem.

Dequan eating a yummy sandwich.

Waiting to fish for a goodie bag in the fish pond.

The things in the tree behind Javari are called "smällkarameller" and they contain candy. I think I will make a tutorial for them soon.

Some of the goodies I found at World Market Friday.

German chocolate Santas from World Market, yum! I ate them all in two days with a little help from the kids. So sick but good. :)

Sleep sitter?

Haha, poor Dequan. He went to sleep a little while ago but he keeps half waking up and when I check on him he's sitting up sleeping. I have never seen that before. :)

Here's a cute picture of Dequan from three days ago:

Javari and Dequan wore matching clothes at Javari's preschool Thanksgiving party:

Hihihi

Brothers

Yesterday was Thanksgiving and hubby went all out and bought a turkey and a ham. I was just gonna buy a few slices of turkey so I thought that was pretty ambitious, haha. I helped cook it though and we made a couple of easy sides. Hubby put some jams topped with marshmallows in the oven. He's the only one in our family who eats that. I can't even bring myself to try it. I put more effort into cooking the Christmas meal. For me it's very important that I uphold Swedish Christmas traditions and I buy all the typical Swedish Christmas food that I can find here. It's all about the food! Ok, family too. Last year I got the tree out like a day or two before Christmas Day. Dequan was born in November so that's my excuse! I promise I'll do better this year, although I hate putting the plastic tree together. It has too many pieces! Not to mention we have a 1-year-old now that will take all the decorations off so we can only decorate the top. That will be awfully pretty.

I did it again

Yep, I raised another crazy one.

Bonjour, Hola, Hej, Hello

The title represents all the languages that Hakeem and Javari were speaking/learning today. They had French class with a couple of other families, and when we came home we continued with Spanish videos and games, and Swedish songs and rhymes. After that the boys wanted to make up their own songs and draw pictures to them (like I did on my Swedish song cards, except I didn't make the songs up). Then they played with their Little People toys, which they haven't played with in a long time. I spent the whole day with the kids, only spent maybe an hour on the computer this morning and didn't get back on until after the kids went to bed. I can't remember the last time I spent this much time with the older ones. It was fun to learn something together. I need to focus on math with them someday too. I showed Hakeem how to do single digit multiplication last week and he got it right away. He hasn't had multiplication at school yet and he's in second grade so I was pretty amazed. I gave him several problems and he figured them out so fast. Way impressive! We used this website to generate lots of problems: http://mathfactcafe.com/ You can specify a range of numbers to include as well as how many problems you want on one page. You can print the page too but we didn't do that.

Yesterday we did a service project with the playgroup. We filled three shoe boxes with toys, hygiene items, candy, books and more for Operation Christmas Child. Tomorrow the kids and I will take the boxes to a nearby church for further distribution to various countries. I hope we can do more service projects like this one since it helps kids to get a sense of community and helping others.

The weather is pretty pissy so we'll be staying indoors a lot now. Perfect excuse to be learning something. I try to make learning fun with music, games, coloring, reading, movement, playing, imagination, etc. Formal learning is for school, at home you can make it informal and just plain fun. It is very important for Javari who is 4 that it is fun. If he has to sit still for a long time and do a lot of writing or answering questions he gets bored quick and just whines. It's also important to avoid testing at this age and to not test the kids at home. I like the Montessori teaching and how they avoid testing and too much instruction. They let the kids figure out a lot of things on their own. I would love to take a Montessori class to learn more, and I wonder if I could find some of the materials they use somewhere? It would be nice to have a couple of things at home.

Sorry, no pictures today but next time for sure. It's time for me to get some sleep. Hopefully the kids are worn out after everything today and wake up late tomorrow. I actually got 9 hours of sleep last night! It was much needed. Bonne nuit, Buenas noches, Godnatt, Good night.

Dequan's Birthday Party

I think I mentioned that Dequan's first birthday was last week. We celebrated it with a little party two days ago. We had planned to do it at the park but it was too windy so last minute we decided to do it at our house. It got a little crazy trying to tidy up before the guests came (I got some help from the first guests), and then it was pretty crowded in our little house with 6 adults and 16 kids! And the clean-up afterwards is always fun...play doh on the kids' bed, water on the floor, candy wrappers all over the kids' room, toys everywhere, leftover cake, dishes, etc. Well, at least nothing broke haha.

I took Dequan for his one year check-up yesterday. He didn't gain much since the last check-up, he weighs 23 lbs putting him in the 65th percentile. He got two shots, didn't like that of course. Today I took him to get his blood drawn as we're still trying to figure out what he's allergic to. His allergy levels were really high a few months ago and the doctor said yesterday that it's possible Dequan is allergic to many things, like pollen, milk, etc. I guess we'll see what the tests reveal soon so I try not to worry about it. Think positive thoughts for him.

Cute comment of the day from Javari: "This morning the baby loved me a lot!" Awww.... :)

And here are pics...

Dequan chilling on the floor the morning of the party.

Posing on the table.

Pizza time!

He took a little nap in the middle of his party.

Playing "red light, green light."

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Dequan...."

See the cake? Home made by me, Swedish style of course.

"This is suspicious."

Checking out the new toys.

Crazy kids. :)

Hakeem wanted to cuddle.

Hubby.

At the Dr's office yesterday.

"He he, I might get in trouble for playing with the Dr's chair."

"This is fun!"

Sorry about the million pictures, it's hard to choose only a few. :)

Los pollitos

Believe it or not but I have a Spanish kids song stuck in my head. Los pollitos dicen pio pio pio....no stop! We have been talking about doing Spanish classes (and other languages) for the kids in the playgroup so tonight I found our Spanish activity book called "First Spanish" (from Scholastic). In it I had a couple of papers with Spanish and French songs that Hakeem got from a Spanish activity we went to when he was real little. I just love the Los Pollitos (little chicks) song. I sung it to Dequan a couple of times tonight and then it got stuck and it's replaying in my head over, and over, and over. Well just the first line because it's all I remember by heart, even worse! Here's the video. Watch the video and maybe it will get stuck in your head too, hehehe.



This one is totally cute too:



I'm sure you can tell which song this is:



Speaking of Spanish songs. The boys love La Bamba with Alvin and the Chipmunks. It's quite catchy, and screechy (like nails on the blackboard)! There's no way to avoid Spanish when you live here so you might as well just learn it. Hakeem has a few classmates who speak Spanish and he has Spanish class once a week (starting in first grade). And here is the song, cover your ears!

The Halloween weekend

This is late but here are a few pictures from the Halloween weekend.

Halloween party with the playgroup.

Activities included apple bobbing, pumpkin painting, a spooky craft, and more.

Mummy wrap.

Trick or treating at Home Depot.