Apologies in advance because I am writing this post completely on a whim but I have been thinking of so many things to write that I know I am going to forget. I figured it was time to stop waiting for the time and just make the time. So here it goes!
CONGRATULATIONS to our good friend (and translator) Gene and his wife Helen. They welcomed their second daughter into the world late last week. Sofia. No pictures yet, but they are doing good and are very sleep deprived right now.
Halloween was fun. Nana made her wonderful costume as usual, though I know it wasn't her favorite to make. Olena, who is ffffaaaaarrrr from a pretty princessy girl, wanted to be a dragon....a SCARY dragon. So here she is! All night she blew fire and roared at every kid that walked by.
School is going pretty good...I am not exactly great at all of this yet, but I am faithfully working on it everyday :) I am constantly reorganizing myself and restructuring the lesson plans, which is really time consuming. My biggest challenge is that Olena is not the same kid every day. Her sensory issues and challenges can change from one day to the next so with that I have to make sure that todays lessons meet her needs for that day. Maybe it is a tactile day and we have to use the salt tray to practice spelling, or it could be a day where she is craving extra input so I have to keep her physically involved (jumping like a frog, carrying a weighted ball while walking up and down the hall, sit ups, etc) while reciting things to me. Then we have of course have our mellow dramatic days which are usually cured with a whole bunch of writing and worksheets. So as you can see it is like I have to have a lesson plan A, B and C everyday ready to go depending on how my daughter feels when she wakes up. I won't lie, I have sat here and near tears thinking what on earth have I done to myself but I with a little regrouping and prayer I get right back to work and we get through it. There is no better feeling either to watch your child just soak up all this knowledge and actually learn it...and enjoy learning it. She is amazed with just about anything I teach her.
Surprisingly she has moved up to 1st grade math and is doing very well. I have a feeling we will be taking this slowly, but the kindergarten math was extremely easy for her. A few things she is working on: She knows all numbers 1-100, she loves working on the sequencing chart; it is a number chart 1-100 with random missing numbers that she has to write in. She loves these and will do 3-4 worksheets a day. What a nerd!
She has taken a liking to geography. She loves using the globe, labeling the continents and oceans. We learned about mountains last week and even made a paper mache volcano, which was a lot of fun and a sensory kids dream come true. If she could have paper mached her own body like a mummy she probably would have.
Of course she loves reading, and she is always asking about how to spell words. HS confession, I don't care for teaching it. Teaching the English language is just plain hard...we have too many "rules" to follow and too many sounds. I have been very tempted to make Russian our first language ; Rosetta Stone here I come!
OK enough about school...
We are lingering on the fence right now about moving forward with becoming Foster Parents. We are signed up for the next orientation in January and if we decide to go for it, we would start the required 8 week class the following week. I won't lie, I never thought I would struggle so much with my decision about having more kids. I always wanted more kids, and lots of them...always! but right now I just feel overwhelmed. Schooling Olena, taking her to OT, working nearly full time, keeping up the house work, I couldn't imagine adding another body to the mixing pot right now. We still plan to move ahead with the classes regardless, and to get licensed. Once licensed, you are not forced to take and kids so if it not a good time - we will wait, but at least when we are ready, the legalities will not be a problem.
We are starting a Campfire USA group. I am so excited!!! I found a small group here in my school district and had planned to join, but I happened to mention the idea to my HS support group and had a huge response from interested parents. With all the families coming forward I decided to become a leader and start our own group for the HS families in the county. We are a co-ed troop ages K-2. I grew up as a Campfire kid (aka BlueBird) and my mom was a leader for many years. I have great memories from the those days and I can't wait to share that with Olena.
Well I am beat, so I am going to call it a night. I will try to upload a few more pics and talk about a few more things sooner than later.
Good night to all!
CONGRATULATIONS to our good friend (and translator) Gene and his wife Helen. They welcomed their second daughter into the world late last week. Sofia. No pictures yet, but they are doing good and are very sleep deprived right now.
Halloween was fun. Nana made her wonderful costume as usual, though I know it wasn't her favorite to make. Olena, who is ffffaaaaarrrr from a pretty princessy girl, wanted to be a dragon....a SCARY dragon. So here she is! All night she blew fire and roared at every kid that walked by.
School is going pretty good...I am not exactly great at all of this yet, but I am faithfully working on it everyday :) I am constantly reorganizing myself and restructuring the lesson plans, which is really time consuming. My biggest challenge is that Olena is not the same kid every day. Her sensory issues and challenges can change from one day to the next so with that I have to make sure that todays lessons meet her needs for that day. Maybe it is a tactile day and we have to use the salt tray to practice spelling, or it could be a day where she is craving extra input so I have to keep her physically involved (jumping like a frog, carrying a weighted ball while walking up and down the hall, sit ups, etc) while reciting things to me. Then we have of course have our mellow dramatic days which are usually cured with a whole bunch of writing and worksheets. So as you can see it is like I have to have a lesson plan A, B and C everyday ready to go depending on how my daughter feels when she wakes up. I won't lie, I have sat here and near tears thinking what on earth have I done to myself but I with a little regrouping and prayer I get right back to work and we get through it. There is no better feeling either to watch your child just soak up all this knowledge and actually learn it...and enjoy learning it. She is amazed with just about anything I teach her.
Surprisingly she has moved up to 1st grade math and is doing very well. I have a feeling we will be taking this slowly, but the kindergarten math was extremely easy for her. A few things she is working on: She knows all numbers 1-100, she loves working on the sequencing chart; it is a number chart 1-100 with random missing numbers that she has to write in. She loves these and will do 3-4 worksheets a day. What a nerd!
She has taken a liking to geography. She loves using the globe, labeling the continents and oceans. We learned about mountains last week and even made a paper mache volcano, which was a lot of fun and a sensory kids dream come true. If she could have paper mached her own body like a mummy she probably would have.
Of course she loves reading, and she is always asking about how to spell words. HS confession, I don't care for teaching it. Teaching the English language is just plain hard...we have too many "rules" to follow and too many sounds. I have been very tempted to make Russian our first language ; Rosetta Stone here I come!
OK enough about school...
We are lingering on the fence right now about moving forward with becoming Foster Parents. We are signed up for the next orientation in January and if we decide to go for it, we would start the required 8 week class the following week. I won't lie, I never thought I would struggle so much with my decision about having more kids. I always wanted more kids, and lots of them...always! but right now I just feel overwhelmed. Schooling Olena, taking her to OT, working nearly full time, keeping up the house work, I couldn't imagine adding another body to the mixing pot right now. We still plan to move ahead with the classes regardless, and to get licensed. Once licensed, you are not forced to take and kids so if it not a good time - we will wait, but at least when we are ready, the legalities will not be a problem.
We are starting a Campfire USA group. I am so excited!!! I found a small group here in my school district and had planned to join, but I happened to mention the idea to my HS support group and had a huge response from interested parents. With all the families coming forward I decided to become a leader and start our own group for the HS families in the county. We are a co-ed troop ages K-2. I grew up as a Campfire kid (aka BlueBird) and my mom was a leader for many years. I have great memories from the those days and I can't wait to share that with Olena.
Well I am beat, so I am going to call it a night. I will try to upload a few more pics and talk about a few more things sooner than later.
Good night to all!
Comments
http://thegirlieblogger.blogspot.com/
I'm so glad to hear that things are going well. You're such a great mom and a wonderful teacher!!! BTW, I can teach O English if you like...I am an English major ;-)
Miss you!