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.
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