Gist Academy for Gifted Youngsters

DD is in 2nd grade now Guess I gotta make a new category for posts.

I decided to say with CVHS, though I am not pleased with the reading program, she is doing so well with the rest, I guess I just have to work around it. I got to pick up her books early, and the science book and the social studies book look so fun! Plus, as long as there is time to work on our personal projects (which there always is) then I guess I am okay with it all

I have to start putting together something more formal for the little ones. Though of course it’s hard when you have two preschoolers, one of whom is mostly non-verbal. But I think I can find enough to keep them happy and learning too!

We made Soda Bottle Greenhouses, to grow our sunflowers for The Great Sunflower Project

Here are our greenhouses, soaking up the sun

A day early I might add

We made I Love the Earth mobiles

Inspired by Let’s Explore and our trip to the art studio, we made portable art clipboards!

Danielle decorating the front of her clipboard

The back of Jack’s clipboard

Shraddha shows off her clipboard!

We used cut up Puffins Cereal box, I glued to pieces together to make it stiffer. We put stickers on the back and then colored the front. Then I cut blank paper into 1/4s to fit on each one, and secured with a binder clip.

Danielle is already drawing Margaret Hudson inspired flowers on hers

Margaret Hudson is a local treasure, an artist working in both paint and clay. I arraigned a trip to visit her home, garden and studios today for the local homeschoolers group!

Here we are in her front yard. Many of the trees were planted there by her father, and they are HUGE!!

We visited her studio, and saw where she works. She paints HUGE beautiful flowers. She spoke to the children about print making and painting.

The children worked on a collaborative drawing, here Danielle and Shraddha add their artistic touches.

The final product was beautiful, with all the color added by the children, and Margaret adding outline and shading to their work.

We then went on a tour of her “backyard” which is actually the backyards of several of the homes that the owners have chosen to have no fences. They have an organic garden, chickens, a sweatlodge and a swamp! The grounds are scattered with Margaret’s sculptures. I don’t have any good pics because it was SOOO bright, my iPhone was not taking good shots ;(

The kids then were given pieces of clay to make their own sculptures. They had a great time folding, smooshing, poking and playing with the clay.

Danielle is not much of a reader, she really doesn’t seem to have clicked with it yet. She can read, don’t get me wrong, she just chooses not to unless she has to. I have let her pick her own books, I have appropriate reading materials scattered throughout her living spaces, but she really just isn’t one to pick up a book and start reading. She has done that, but it’s not often. So, I am constantly looking for little ways to slip some reading practice in our everyday lives.

Danielle and I have been playing a game called Animal Crossing: City Folk on the Wii for the past few weeks. She loves it and begs for time to play. I went out and bought the guide book for it, because let’s face it, I am NOT a video gamer and with out some guidance my city would be burned to the ground by now, LOL!

Now when I am playing, she is the official price looker upper for all things. She is learning to use an index, practicing sounding out words, and reading descriptions, prices and everything! YAY!!

Best of all? She LOVES it She doesn’t whine and complain, she happily looks things up and reads them aloud to me.

Danielle reading a Junie B. Jones books

Painting some shamrocks for tomorrow

Trying to make splatter fairies I think we need thinner paint or bigger lungs, LOL!

Danielle had a bit of an easier time then the little ones

But here is a short update on where everybody is…

Jack-Jack is rocking his speech therapy! His therapist has found his button, cutting and pasting!! He will do what she wants in exchange for getting to cut things and paste things. So now she has him cutting little pictures or just squares of construction paper and gluing them on to sheets, which mommy dutifully hangs up on our wall of projects ;)  He can now say all of his (M)(vowel) sounds like MA, MO, MI and his (B)(vowel) sounds! We also printed some sorting games from File Folder Fun to practice memory matching and sorting biggest to littlest. Shraddha has been having fun with that too! The lacing cards have been a hit lately too, I am making shamrock lacing cards for them to play with next week

Danielle is chugging along. She is almost finished with her math book, and she took to fractions like a duck to water! I can’t believe how fast she got that concept! Reading is still going slowly, I think I am going to have her eyes checked when I go in next month. I am concerned with how frustrated she gets. Her spelling is going well, though she gets upset when she has to read to finish the pages

The butterflies we sent out to migrate to Mexico will be winging their way home soon. Our frogs are growing so fast, I think we are going to have to get a bigger tank! We are growing grass seeds, and soon will be growing sunflowers again!

Danielle wants to take piano lessons, not sure I can afford them at the moment, but I will look into it. She really seems like she is destined to play some instrument, she loves to play with her guitar, and she pretends to write music rather often.

I guess that’s about it

I was lucky enough to pick up some Conversation Hearts on clearance yesterday, so I decided to put them to good use!

I used the printable graph at http://www.fastq.com/~jbpratt/education/theme/valentines.html

And they want us to as well :)  I happily signed up to receive a book about honey bees from Haagen Dazs (and to be honest, 2 coupons for free ice cream for spreading the word). I expect something goofy and one huge ad for ice cream, but was pleasantly surprised to find it was actually a nice little book, with no advertising at all, save for the Haagen Dazs name and logo.

The booklet was in PDF format for me to print, and I went ahead and printed the pages two to a page. Danielle and I spent part of our day reading through it, and there was lots of great information about how life at the hive goes. The different kinds of bees and their jobs. Even about how bees dance to give directions to other bees for the best flowers!

We saved the list of bee friendly flowers for our spring planting plans. And we made a string of paper bees and hung them up on our project wall. All in all it was a fun and education little booklet, and Danielle enjoyed going through it with me.

If you want your own copy of the booklet, please email to nancy.martira@ketchum.com and tell ‘em Beckie sent ya!