Thank Heaven for Little Girls...AND Little Boys

I was one of the first of my friends to become a mother, and I was thrilled when I learned I was having a girl.  I'm not sure why...maybe because I am one, and I could more easily imagine a baby girl.  Ella was the sweetest, happiest baby imaginable.  Her only fault was not sleeping enough (thereby preventing her mother to sleep) during the first 7 months of her life.  Other than that, she was the most fun.  And when all my friends and family started having their first babies shortly after, they all found out they were having boys, and I always felt secretly sorry for them.  Poor souls...they were missing out on this.

She was a roly-poly, shining-eyed, bundle of joy, and in my mind, no baby boy could possibly be sweeter.  I heard other people talk about the mother-son bond, and I couldn't imagine it.  Would a son bring me my make-up bag when he heard me say, "I need to go to the store."?  Would a son wave at all the passers-by in Wal-Mart and enjoy trips to the library, like my girl did?  I doubted it.

But last night, on a rare trip to Wal-Mart alone with sweet "big boy" James, I remembered again how wrong I was.  He steals my heart with every cuddle, every request for a kiss and a hug; with every, "Mommy, I like you." or "Mommy, I love you," I thank God for adding him to our family.  It wouldn't be the same without him.

James, you're such a silly boy.

You're a silly gell, Mama.

I'm treasuring the moments of being his number 1 girl, "gell" as he likes to say.

    Just two Pughs with the flu

We went through a lot together.

A Small Slice of Summer

We're enjoying some long summer days around here.  James is usually up not long after the sun, and we make our weekly rounds to the free children's movies, the library, and the park.  Last week we even had friends over and made it to Chick-Fil-A and Barnes and Noble, too.  The mornings stay busy, but I try to keep the afternoons low-key with lots of napping, reading, swinging, and playing in the pool.  I'm trying to soak it up and enjoy every precious moment.  Summers like these don't last forever.

The Day he Became A Daddy

Every now and again I like to look back at our old family pictures, and it always makes me so thankful my dad took the time to scan them all for us.  Happy Father's Day to the man who made our lives a great adventure.  Your children love you so very much.  I'm happy to be the one who first called you Daddy.

Franco Fridays: Fort Mont-Valerien Memorial

At some point, it might be funny to put something together of all my Eiffel Tower pictures; no matter where we were in the city, I didn't really get tired of saying, "Look!  You can see the Eiffel Tower from here, too!"  #Tourist

We are nearing the end of our walk to the church.  Walking up the hill of this street brought us outside of Fort Mont-Valerien, which the Nazi occupiers used as a prison and a place of execution of Jews and members of the French Resistance.  There is now a memorial there to remember them and their fight.  There were so many opportunities to reflect on and learn about that period of history in France.

In looking up how to spell a name I found this interesting story about a German chaplain who risked his life to help those imprisoned here.  The square in front of the memorial is now called by his name, Square Abbe Franz Stock.

After Parker showed us around the church, we walked down the street to the market to buy some breakfast items for the week.  I enjoyed looking at the similarities and differences in how the food was packaged; there was also the fun challenge of attempting to decipher what all the French words on the packaging meant.  For me, I knew I wanted to find two things for my morning:  caffeine and yogurt.  Mission accomplished.

Aaannd...the mighty baguette, of course.  KJ looks so manly holding it under his arm.

 My French yogurt, which I think essentially cost the same but came in reusable glass containers instead of plastic.  I washed mine and brought them all home to be used for...something.

After getting our bed in order for the night, we retired to our 3rd floor quarters in a Sunday School room, living high on our air mattress.  I was still recovering from an allergy attack at that point and took a Benadryl, clearing up my sinuses and insuring a good night's sleep for the week ahead.  Win-win.

Just a Little Something Pretty

Sonlight: My Review

One of KJ's cousins is thinking about using Sonlight material with her son next year, and she asked about our experience with it, so as the French say, Voila!  I thought I'd attempt a little review.
 
I think Bethany (aforementioned cousin) is drawn to Sonlight's emphasis on books and literature, which is what I was drawn to as well.  One look at this collection in the catalog, and I was sold!

 [image via]

I am a sucker for good books.  The above pictured items are from Sonlight's Core A collection.  A "core" consists of the read-alouds, Language Arts, Bible, and History/Geography.  You can choose to purchase a Core and add on Science, Math, and other electives, or they also have an entire grade level package put together that I think may be a little cheaper, but I think it comes with a few less books.  It's also easier to pick and choose what you want/need using a Core.  The different Cores can be used and adapted for a 3-year range.  Core A, pictured above, and what we used for Ella's first grade year, can be adapted for grades K-2 or ages 5-7.  

We chose to use Core A last year because 1) A friend had most of the materials and books and was willing to lend them to me. 2) Ella was in the middle of the age range. 3) I like starting at the beginning of things.

Thoughts on Age Appropriateness of Read-Alouds

I would say that most of the books chosen for read-alouds in this core were on a level that Ella could understand and enjoy.  There were two exceptions that I can think of:  After awhile, some of the stories in I Heard Good News Today just seemed to old for her.  It's a collection of Christian missionary stories, some of which were really good and encouraging, but some of them were beyond her comprehension, and some referenced the suffering and martyrdom of people in a way that I thought was a little much for her age.

I haven't read this book yet, but we also decided to skip Twenty and Ten, which is probably a good story, but from the description, I also thought that Nazi soldiers hunting down Jewish children at a French school during WWII was a little heavy for Ella.  

As I already mentioned, choosing a Core is flexible because you can pick and choose which books you want.  Since I had several books being loaned to me by a friend, I checked our local library's catalog to see which books they had available, and then only purchased the books that remained on the list.  I also chose not to purchase the Bible storybook, because we have several of those already.

The Core Teacher's Guide

You can choose whether or not you purchase the teacher's guide, which is your lesson plan for the Core.  It contains the plans for Bible, History/Geography, and your Read-Aloud.  Could you skip this?  Yes, you probably could.  We did not use the Bible portion because we have a family devotion time at night, and Ella was already memorizing Scripture through our church's Awana program, so we skipped that part.  The read-aloud section, of course, gives you a schedule for reading the books and a few discussion questions, as well as lists of vocabulary your child may be unfamiliar with.  Sometimes there is some helpful background information about the book or story.  If you feel okay with just reading the books in the Core at your own pace, it's probably not absolutely necessary you have the guide.  The main work for you would be if you chose to do History and Geography without the guide, though most of these lessons were just reading in the various Usborne Encyclopedias purchased, so you could do it if you were so inclined.

Language Arts

The Language Arts portion of Sonlight's program is what I had the most mixed feelings about.  I enjoyed their natural approach to language learning sometimes, but I also felt like there wasn't enough emphasis on the actual teaching of parts of speech.  We chose not to buy the Readers last year because the first grade readers looked way too easy for Ella's reading abilities, and I'm so glad we did!  We also had access to Hooked on Phonics first and second grade materials, so I didn't think the other readers were necessary.  Sonlight does offer you some choices on the reading level of the Language Arts material, so I would definitely look at the samples provided and assess where you think your child is.  Ella just had a really good Kindergarten teacher and was beyond the suggested grade levels.

What I loved Most about Sonlight

I love having their lesson plans.  Of course you are free to change things around, and do as much research and extra planning as you want or have time for, but with Sonlight, you don't have to spend hours of extra lesson prep time.  It's all laid out for you.  Once we got into the swing of things, I rarely looked ahead for the week, I had all the materials I needed at home, and all I had to do is look at what we were supposed to do that day.  The only things I needed to look ahead at for the week would be science experiment supplies (to make sure we had things on hand) and if were going to read a book I planned to check out from the library.

I loved Sonlight's Science program, as did Ella.  She will tell you that Science and Math are her favorite subjects.  Science is the weak point in my knowledge bank, and Sonlight made it so easy, having the experiments all laid out for you.  They were fun, and I learned new things every week!  Or, maybe old things that I never cared about before.  They also sent a box of most of the things you need for experiments, so there were only a few odds and ends I might have to gather every now and again, and they have those written down in the lesson plans for you at the start of each week. 

Learning from History and Literature

The Sonlight approach of learning from history and literature apart from "boring textbooks" as they say, is a really good one, I think.  I think we learn the most about life and history from reading good books, and it's fun and exciting, and easier to remember than memorizing facts.  Each core has an over-arching theme or goal.  For Core A, it is World Cultures, exposing your child to the truth that there is a whole world out there of people who are different and live differently than you in the present and in the past.  I think the goal was met; we read books that took place in China, pioneer America, Appalachia, England, missionary stories from India and other far-off places.  We studied about the way people lived in the Alps, in the deserts, in the rain forests.  It really was a fun and good overview of many different cultures, and I think Ella was learning without it feeling like "learning."  

I think Sonlight may be expensive in comparison with other programs, but it's distinct advantages are the lesson plans, and the quality of the books you buy and read.  The books included are some of the best in children's literature, and they are the kind of books I would want to buy for my children anyway; now I just have a reason to buy them!  They are the kind of books you're happy to keep for your future grandchildren, share with family and friends, or even sell to other homeschooling families. 

We had a good first experience with Sonlight, and I plan to use it again next year, with the exception of Language Arts.  I think I'm going to put together some of my own things for that.  I also think, that with some adaptations, I might be able to use Core A for James for Kindergarten if we continue with homeschooling.  We shall see!

Moving Up

Remember Ella's first day of gymnastics last June?  I do.

I'm proud to say she was promoted to Level 2 , and she had her first 2-hour lesson on Thursday.  She has grown in skill, bravery, and confidence since her first lesson last year. 

 

I was especially proud of her for this next set of pictures.  There were days where she refused to jump from this stand, feet first and front-facing.  I was impressed that she overcame her hesitancy and went off backwards and upside-down.

She may end up braver than her mother.

Her class only had three little girls in it last week, so in two hours that gave them a lot of time to practice each exercise.  

  Backward Rolls

They came and stood right under me to practice jumps, and I had my long lens on the camera, so it made for some fun close-ups, though not perfect in focus since the lighting is dim, and my longest lens is manually focused.  Here's her 360 jump, though I'm sure there must be a more technical name for it.

What a cutie.  She learned a new backwards roll, but I think she wants to share about it on her blog.  In her words, "This isn't a promise, but I may write a blog post about gymnastics."