Monday, October 06, 2008

Pumpkin Cookies

It is that time of year again! We made yummyy pumpkin cookies.



1st grade is going great. We have started learning about the human body. And of course talking alot about autumn.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Painting






We did some finger paiting and had alot of fun. After we were done Dorian sat there for about 20 mins just picking paint off his hands. He said he loved picking it off.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Dirt baby and flowers

The sunflower that grew from the seeds we feed to the birds!
Our butterfly garden also attracts these lil' guys.


Dorian's dirt baby has grown alot of hair!

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Back to school

No back to school for us since we do year round school with Dorian.
Public school here in the US is starting back which will be nice for going to the Zoo, Omsi and the Children's Museum as they will be less crowded. Still quite a bit of kids from public schools go there on field trips and also homeschoolers. Autumn is around the corner so nature walks will be lovely.

We decided against a boxed curriculum for 1st grade. Now that we know his learning style it is much easier and fun to pick out things that suit him.
As most of you know Dorian has sensory processing disorder and we also think high functioning Asperger's. We are so lucky we can homeschool as Dorian does best in a small, consistent environment without a lot of change, distraction, noise and chaos.
We love to learn through daily life, but we also add in curriculum. We like to keep it fun. We want him to love learning. Right now we use:

K12 1st grade math

Headsprout Reading
Hand writing without tears
Rand McNally Geography
Kumon Telling time

We are also look at signing him up for some classes at a charter school for science as we thought it would be fun. The library is a huge resource of ours and of course field trips and just learning through daily life.
Right now math is his favorite subject, so that means he must be taking after Ash!

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Fly Little Butterfly, Fly away ...






They hatched and we had 4 beautiful butterflies! It was so eat to watch them fly away.
One went right on a flower and sat there and let Dorian at it! Then he flew off into the sky.
After we watched them all leave "home" we found this beautiful butterfly, he must have got hurt by a bird or something. His little wing was injured on one side. We put him in a bush to hopefully get better.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

We have buuterflies!





I just posted this morning that we were waiting, well we have 3 new butterflies!

Butterflies


We are watching the butterfly cycle in our home! We got this kit to study the butterfly cycle.
It is really neat! Right now they are in the chrysalis stage. This week they should be turning into butterflies! This was a photo from last week when only one was a chrysalis and the rest were getting ready to turn into them.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

In the mind of Dorian, part 2.




Here is part #1 from March 19, 2007.

Dorian right now loves Star Wars and Lego!
He spends his days being a Jedi, playing the Wii, building things with his Lego's and counting his money.
He is counting down the days until he is 6, which today is only 4 days left! (Uh, my baby is growing up!).
His favorite animal are baby horses (he just told me that.). Although I think birds come in as a close 2nd.
He loves math right now, that is his favorite subject. He takes after his dad in this department. He also LOVES money!
He still only wants to wear his pajama tops that are long sleeve and tight. He needs his sensory input. He still only likes to wear jeans, although a few days ago he put on his track suit pants again to work out with Ash and I. His favorite shoes right now are his crocs and his Lego shoes.
He has a loose tooth, shhh, we have not told him! We want him to find out on his own.

Now he is almost 6, I just can not believe he was born almost 6 years ago now.
He brings so much joy, love and happiness to our life. He has taught us so much in just 6 years.

Time flies when your in love.






Thursday, July 24, 2008

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Graduate


He has completed Kindergarten!
He did not find his diploma exciting, but boy when we gave him the chockie bar he was stoked!
We are starting 1st grade curriculum now and it is all going wonderfully.
I still can not believe he is starting 1st grade and that he is almost 6.


Monday, June 30, 2008

Painting



Here is Dorian's last painting. It is a tree, grass, sky and the sun.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Dorian is learning to spell and read!

He can spell and read "See" and wrote "No" all on his own the other night in his room.
Plus, I am sure he knows more as he is wonderful at hiding how much he really knows. :)
We started a reading program called Headsprout which he really seems to like.

Fir Point Farm

We got to head back to Fir Point Farm for the first time this year. It just opened in April.
We had alot of fun, its so nice to be able to go there and visit the animals.


The slide is REALLY steep and small!



Dorian feeding the goat.




Mr and Miss?

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Earth Day

We went to the local farm store and Dorian got to pick out a tree to plant to celebrate Earth Day.
He picked out a dwarf apple tree. We ran out between the rain and planted it.


See the rain clouds!

Measuring the tree.. for years to come.

Children's Museum

We went out to the Children's Museum on the 20th and had some fun.
They have "The Garage" there which is a room with a ton of recycled stuff, and then they have a theme each day. We went on a day when they were making bugs. Dorian made the one below all on his own.


We did some clay time....

Dorian made pizza..
And Ash made a computer monitor and keyboard with a mouse! Can you say GEEK!?
Just after this photo he made the tower to go next to it!

Friday, April 18, 2008