Here I am! I've been busy. I tutored this morning, and then I spent the rest of the day till now getting Friday's lesson together. When the kids want to read about something specific, then I do research on the Internet and put something together. The other day, the girl had a vocabulary word, marsh, and she immediately thought of marshmallows! So I said that I knew there was a flower called marsh mallow, but it didn't look much like a marshmallow, so I couldn't tell her why they had the same name. She wanted to know about the plant, so I got some reading about it together, and it turns out that marshmallows used to be made from the sap of the plant. Nowadays, they use gelatin instead and mass-produce them rather than make them by hand. So I learned something, too, which I usually do when I put together this type of info. So today she read about the plant and its relation to the candy. The reading mentioned s'mores and the biggest one made. The girl wanted to know how big, so I looked that up, and Friday, she'll read about the one that got into the Guinness Book of World Records in 2014. Lots of pictures, though they only mentioned the weight, not the dimensions. Still, she can judge from the photos.
I think it's interesting how these young, curious minds lead to further learning.
Meanwhile, at the library the other day, I looked in the free box and got some really useful material for future lessons. There were 2 books written in 1968 but still basically useful (though they smell musty -- it'll be a good opportunity to teach them the word musty and let them smell it -- and a bunch of National Geographic kids' magazines with gorgeous, colorful photos and interesting articles that are easy for the boy to read, though he still comes across some words that get explained and added to the vocab list. So I took one of the mags the other day, let him choose which of the 3 articles he wanted to read, and he chose one about dragonflies. This time, I took all of the mags and let him choose, and he chose an article about raptors. It mentioned that the birds catch their prey by diving very fast, and he asked, "How fast?" The article didn't say, so of course, I looked that up today, too. Turns out the peregrine falcon can stoop (dive down quickly) at about 200 mph! So I put together a bit about those birds as well as their extreme speed -- they are considered the fastest animal. I thought a cheetah or jaguar or something was fastest. See? I learn, too.
So this summer, my big project is to get the kids writing better. We did the basic grammar and vocab, and they still have grammar problems. Not when they do a worksheet, but when they speak and write. So writing all sorts of stuff will be what they do. When they tell me it's hard, I say, "Practice makes perfect." Then I explain that doing something like that seems hard at first, but it gets easier the more you do it.
Finally, the little boy, who didn't speak a word of English when we started. The other day, he reported to me that his sister didn't do her homework! He can now name nearly all the letters of the alphabet, both upper and lowercase. He is writing them clumsily. We are starting to do worksheets that have a name, let's say "horse" spelled out, then those lines for kids to write in, then a picture of a horse. I name it, spell it, then have him write it. He's learning the parts of his body by me playing a game where I say, "Put your hands on your head" and then go through body parts. At first, I did it, too, so he could see what to do, but now he does it w/o me demonstrating. I do do it if I think it's a body part he just learned, like ankles, but he knows head, hair, face, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, etc. Today, he learned "toes" and I did the "This Little Piggy" thing with his toes. I have no idea what he thought of that. I think he couldn't figure out what it was all about.
We had some dissension a while ago about which field trip I'd take them on because they filled their jar with stones, so I gave them gifts, all wrapped up. I think they all wanted to go someplace more, but they couldn't agree. I think the boy really resents his sister, and if she wanted to go somewhere, he vetoed it on principle. Finally, I had a project for her where to practice writing a letter, she had to write to me, correctly address the envelope, draw a stamp in the correct corner, and give it to me. Here's what she wrote:
Dear Sandy,
I think we should go on a feld trip instead of the gift because it is nicer. I wish we can go on a feld trip.
Love, (her name)
How could I refuse? (BTW, the word "field" became a spelling word as I do with words they use but misspell. That's where I get the spelling words, not from a list.)
So I decided that they would all really like the Trumansburg Fair, which is in August. It has rides and sometimes shows like those horse pulls I showed you pictures of, or a demolition derby, or something like that. We would go on Saturday afternoon and stay for the fireworks at 9:30 pm, then go home. I have always viewed the fireworks from my backyard, partially screened by trees, but for the kids, we'll see them sitting in the grandstand. They loved the fireworks at the Memorial Day festival in Waterloo last year! So how can there be dissension over that? No one has complained.
Other than tutoring, the animal scene is pretty grim. My cat never returned, and I took up his food finally and will clean out his dishes and then the litter box. I think I'll give the cat stuff to the village police, who adopted a stray cat who lives in the police station. Isn't that cute? His name is Truman. The police station is very homey looking, not like the usual utilitarian structures. Anyone remember the photo of it I posted some time ago?
As for horses, I think I've been depressed and didn't even have the oomph to go see my friends' horses since Memorial Day, when I went to Karen's place and groomed her mare. But the other day, my friend Deb posted that she has some horses for lease, and I've been thinking of leasing one. I still have to talk to her.
And then I have the horse portrait. I've worked on it a little, but it's been daunting. I get really reluctant to work on something at certain stages because I get so scared of messing it up. I'd post a picture of the horse, but when I get to a point where I'll be grateful for feedback, then I'd like to post the photo and drawing side by side for your help.
So, in a nutshell, that's my life these days.
Rave, I loved the wedding photos, and I was completely impressed by the ferns and pine cones you made! I'm sure the cake tasted good, but visually, those were what impressed me most.
Speaking of cooking, I made 2 different recipes from one of my cans of creamed corn. One was muffins, which came out OK, but they tasted a bit metallic from the muffin pan, I think. So I looked online for the bet muffin pan, and I still haven't made up my mind on getting a replacement. I do not want to use cupcake papers! I really liked the other recipe, which I just made the other day, and I needed to get parchment paper for that. More online research turned up these pads that work maybe as well, but I decided on parchment paper. I went to the local restaurant supply place, since I couldn't find them in the grocery stores when I looked among the baking stuff, either where the flour and sugar are, or where the baking pans are. The woman was very helpful and told me you can reuse the paper, though I think I won't keep it around, since I'd use it so rarely. But she did say that where I should have looked in the grocery stores is in with the aluminum foil and sandwich bags. Who could have guessed?
Lizzie, you are lucky to have that shade cover to keep the rain out so you can open the doors and let the fresh, cool air in. I like watching lightning storms, too. They are so powerful! But we get a lot of them, so unless the storm is exceptional and at a time when I'm awake, I ignore it, though I do make sure my stuff is unplugged and the windows are closed. Our power goes out for short periods a lot here. Sometimes there's not even a storm, just wind or something. I don't know what makes it fail so often, but I bet it's old and rickety.
Uncle, I'm glad you got cooler weather up this way. I can't imagine Florida in summer. Not a place I'd ever want to go that time of year.
So that's all the news for now.
I spent days and days in advance helping with preparations. Then, I had to make the wedding cake which was actually a giant brownie with homemade mocha icing. It took 14 hours to make all of the ferns one day and 11 hours to make all of the pine cones and twigs the next day. All of the decorations were made out of chocolate! Then I put it all together the following day.
