Time4Learning

I've been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review. My opinion will be entirely my own, so be sure to come back and read about my experience. Time4Learning can be used as an online homeschooling curriculum, afterschool tutorial or an online summer program. Find out how to write your own curriculum review for Time4Learning.

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

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.

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!

Learning is fun

I was just thinking that it's important to not just focus on reading but other areas of knowledge as well, like math for example. So many kids struggle with math in school so I think it's a good idea to lay down the foundation for math concepts early through informal teaching at home. I was one of the kids struggling with math and thought math really sucked. One time I was so frustrated with my homework that I threw the math book on the floor and took off running in the forest behind my house. I hate running but that's how mad I was! I didn't get it until college and then I even had A's in all my math classes. I just wish I would have gotten it earlier and not struggled so much. Early math activities for young children may include; numbers, counting, simple addition, puzzles, shapes, patterns, the concept of more or less and bigger or smaller, color by number sheets, sorting, comparing, etc. Most important of all - make math fun and don't force it!

Javari told me today that 2+2 is 4. He sounded so proud when he said that. :)

What do you like to teach your kids?

Learning to read activities

Javari has learned how to write his name recently and that is so cool. Preschool has been very fun and motivating for him. It's also fun to watch him try to write other words. It's random letters floating on the paper. I just finished reading a book called Raising Confident Readers by Dr. J. Richard Gentry and was inspired. The book gives suggestions on reading activites to do with your baby up to kids ages 7. It suggests that you start with reading at birth and then slowly introduce other activities such as drawing and labeling a few items in the baby's room to book making and using blocks and letter tiles. My oldest is in second grade and he started reading shortly after turning 5. I was doing a lot of the suggestions in the book before he started school. I didn't read anything on the topic, it was just natural. I read books aloud to him almost nightly; he would draw sometimes; we had magnetic letters and letter puzzles; he watched the Leap Frog video The Letter Factory and learned all the phonics from it; he occassionally did workbooks and many other activities. Shortly after I started moving my finger under the text while reading Hakeem started reading all of a sudden. I was really surprised because I didn't think I was actually teaching him to read. It was the best feeling listening to him read, right up there with his first baby steps. I think it was good for him to be reading before starting Kindergarten so he wasn't behind in any way. I want to make sure my other two boys can do that as well.

Javari wrote his name really good today. I will give him a marker next time so you can see better.

You can get this book from the library.

Unfortunately with my 4-year-old I haven't been doing as much home teaching as I did with my first child. You just get busier the more kids you have. That's partly why I wanted him to go to preschool at least a little bit. He only goes two days a week for two hours at a time. He started six weeks ago but I already see him benefiting from it. He knew about half the alphabet before he started and I think by the end of the spring semester he will be reading a little bit or at least recognizing some words. Literacy is so exciting!

My baby is 11 months old now and there's quite a few reading activities I can do with him already. Reading aloud is very important. Earlier this week I got him some baby crayons and markers, you know the ones from Crayola with the big plastic grips for baby hands. It's for babies 18 months and up but the book suggests that I let him draw, or scribble rather, so we'll try. I have only tried once so far and he was just banging the crayons on the paper. I'm sure he'll catch on soon though.

They have the Tadoodles at pretty much any store, including Walmart.

A few days ago I decided to try the labeling around the room activity. It is recommended for both phase 0 and 1 (more on the phases later), i.e. for both Javari (age 4) and Dequan (age 11 months). I took a bunch of blank index cards and a marker and called all three kids into their room. After I wrote a couple of cards the older two were really into it and wanted to help (they pretty much snatched the marker out of my hand!). I wrote some of the cards in Swedish and surprisingly Hakeem wanted to help with that. He often says he "hates" Swedish. Spanish is cooler of course since he learns it in school and he has classmates who speak Spanish. Javari used his kid writing to spell words, which is really interesting to watch. It's important to praise, not correct.

Hand has the same spelling in both English and Swedish.

Javari's writing on top.

Hakeem wrote Jersey.

All in all a good start on Dequan's literacy journey and a continuation on Javari's. I will update more on their progress as we go. I'm taking down notes from the book so I can share some of the reading activities with you soon.

Sew great

Hmm, I don't know what I was thinking last night when I set the alarm for one hour earlier than I needed to. I guess I was thinking Javari starts preschool at 10:30 instead of 11:30. So I slept less than 6 hours - again. Oh well, maybe I'll feel like cleaning the fridge or something. Dequan just went back to sleep so I could do it. Nah.

I have a new obsession....sewing. I want to get a sewing machine and some fabric and just get started. I love getting started on things and then I never keep up with it for long. Prime example: scrapbooking, I do it twice a year. So I don't know if I should spend money on a sewing machine. I think I will really sew some clothes though. It will be cheaper and I can buy some fun Swedish fabrics (it's great quality too) and make typical Swedish children's clothes for my kids. I haven't sewed in years but how hard can it be to make a T-shirt or shorts for example. I would like to sew some toys too, maybe baby blocks. I used to live in Eskilstuna, Sweden for a year because I went to college there. There in the building next to my apartment building they had a place where you could use the computers, a wood shop, and a sewing machine. I went there a couple of times and used the sewing machine to sew curtains. It was free. I doubt there's a place like that here but I really wish there was. I wish I could open up a cozy little tea shop with yummy Scandinavian pastries, sandwiches, and exotic teas from all over the world (maybe some coffee and ice cream too). I would have computers with Internet and sewing machines for use for a small fee. There would be a kids' area with some toys and games. The decor would be Scandinavian or cozy European. Anyone got the start-up funds? :)

Upcoming agenda:

Friday - Playdate @ McDonald's
Saturday: Asian Moon Festival @ the Springs Preserve
Sunday: Lego Club at the library (Hakeem finally got a spot, he's so excited)
Monday: Cleaning and laundry day
Tuesday: My mom and sister are coming to town! :)

Hakeem with the poster he made for the student council election. He did it all by himself and even came up with the message. :)

This picture is really bad but you get an idea of Javari at gymnastics. He's in the orange shirt to the right.

Dequan "watching" Javari at gymnastics.

Open houses

It was a busy day today, or maybe I should say yesterday since it's 1:30am now. We started this morning with an open house at Javari's new preschool. There's lots to play with there and they have different areas with a play kitchen, train table, lego building, drawing, etc. Javari likes it there but he thought there were too many people today. It was really packed as they had one open house for all the classes. He was too shy to say hi to the teachers but I'm sure he'll be more comfortable once class starts in two weeks. Hakeem and Dequan had fun playing there as well, and Dequan was putting everything he could find into his mouth. Hopefully he won't get sick!

Inside the preschool.

Outside the preschool.

After that we went to McDonald's for lunch and some more play. Hakeem has mentioned several times today that Dequan got his first McDonald's toy ever. It's a special occasion I suppose. :)

Dequan with his new toy, a submarine.

The older two played "red light green light" with a bunch of kids. Javari told me he had found new friends, cute.

Hubby was working in the morning but he came along for Hakeem's open house in the evening. My big boy is going to seond grade, wohoo! Interesting how the do the classes though. In Sweden we have the same class mates for the first 9 years of school. Hakeem's class has been split up and mixed with other classes. In his new class there are three kids from his old class (out of the kids that were there today). I don't know if this an American thing or just his school. I wonder why they do that. They also have a new teacher every year, whereas in Sweden you normally have the same teacher for the first 3-6 years.

New class room and teacher this year.

Just can't get them all to look at the same time.

Starting next week I have to get up super early in the mornings. Feels awesome when I've been on an entirely different schedule all summer. Better get used to it.

Suck it...

My Kodak scanner makes all my pictures stripy. And I have already replaced the all-in-one-piece-of-crap once so I'm about to kick it to the curb. Suck it Kodak and your so-called support!

I have a bunch of family photos I want to scan, but here are a few old ones that I already have on the computer...

My mom when she was little, very cute.

Here she is a little older.

This is my grandparents' wedding picture.

I just have to recommend these must-read books:

This is Waris Dirie's true story about how she grew up in Somalia, was circumcized and forced to marry an older man. It is sooo good and not your everyday romantic crap (but I do read that too of course). The second book is more of a follow-up of what happened later so the first book is the best one.

This is what I'm currently trying to plow through:

Swedish books I got from a friend. Some are from the 60's.

This one is on my wish list:

"Zoya's Story: An Afghan Woman's Struggle for Freedom"

by John Follain and Rita Cristofari

New Baby

My website has been down for a while thanks to a crappy webhost and me being very busy so here's a little update. We had another baby boy, Dequan, in November last year. He is now 6 months old and just the best baby one could have. He's always happy and easy going and sleeps like a rock at night. Javari is now 4 and Hakeem is 7. Hakeem graduates from 1st grade next week which he's pretty excited about but I know he will miss his classmates. I graduated from college a couple of weeks ago so I now hold an Associates in Business...finally! I'm thinking about going for a Bachelors in web design but we'll see. I'm taking a break for now, except for my short summer class in web development. I'm really looking forward to that. I'm also looking forward to my two oldest kids attending swim class this summer. It will be the first time for Javari so that's exciting. Other than all that we are doing pretty good but growing tired of Vegas. I think I can only take another year here. Tomorrow it's going to be 97 degrees (36C), nice huh?!

Baby Dequan

Javari, Dequan and Hakeem

My graduation