March Update (in April)

We had an interesting March!

We did a random act of kindness for our neighbors and collected their recycling containers for them.

We hunted for Easter eggs in the library.

We colored eggs.

We even played in the snow.

Alex is rocking his school work. This is almost at the end of the first grade math book, and clearly it was easy enough for him to be able to make bubble numbers.

He was also able to read these questions and find the answers in his atlas with very little help. Sometimes I forget he's 5.

Thomas has learned all of his capital letters and is working on his numbers now. He is good up to 10, but is getting 11 and 12 confused. He's getting pretty good at board games and loves pretend play.

Other photos from March can be found here.

That's it from Boomerang Drive!

-- Holly

Quiet Time

We have always been a scheduled family. A friend gave me the advice, back when Alex was a baby, to keep a consistent nap schedule for him. And while it's not right for every family, it has been amazing in ours. Alex took 2 daily naps for 19 months, and still slept in the afternoons until age 4. Thomas followed a similar pattern and, at almost 3 1/2, is still napping every day.

When Alex outgrew his afternoon nap, we transitioned him to "quiet time". Each day, he spends 1 1/2 hours in his room doing his own thing while Thomas naps. NOTE: It's hardly ever QUIET. We are very fortunate that, with white noise and a bathroom between the boys' rooms, Alex can pretty much be as loud as he wants to be in his room with his door shut, and he doesn't wake Thomas up. (That's why I totally GET IT that this quiet time thing wouldn't work in all households).

So, what does Alex DO in quiet time?

Well, when we first started, we had a special box of activities he could pull out that were reserved for that time. For quite a while, that's what he did. And we've changed the activities out here and there. We've taken up Legos and other new toys once in a while.

But most of the time, he just does his own thing.

He puts on music.

He jumps on his bed.

He sings.

He reads.

He makes cards for people.

He finds objects in his room to give away and wraps them with wrapping paper and tape.

I think this time is SO valuable to not only me, but to HIM. I think that kids NEED time and space on their own. He needs his "me" time. He needs to be away from Mommy and Thomas and just BE.

And honestly, some of the stuff he does up there blows me away. I have 3 recent examples to share.

About 2 weeks ago, he made and cut out of paper a sun and hung it high up on his wall. Then he cut up smaller strips of paper and made them into blades of grass and hung them down at the baseboard. He told me, "I decided I'm starting spring in here."

A few days later, he came down and told me, "Mommy, I'm learning to count by sixes. I learned 6, 12, 18. AND I jumped on my bed for 3 minutes, which is 180 seconds." Me: SPEECHLESS. I taught him exactly none of that. I'm pretty sure he could homeschool HIMSELF. And his brother. And ME, for that matter.

And yesterday, he decided to organize his dice collection -- he has random dice with different shapes and numbers of sides. He then made this GRAPH showing how many dice he had with 6 sides, 12 sides, etc.

I kid you not.

I wish I could take credit, but it's all him. My kids are who they are. And they are both AWESOME.

Loving life on Boomerang Drive!

-- Holly

October Homeschool Update

Things are going well in our homeschool! As you can tell, our "classroom" is getting full of all kinds of creations.

Alex loves math, and is pretty good at counting by 5's and 10's. He's getting the hang of counting by 2's as well. We have been working on counting money, and he's doing really well with looking at a group of coins and telling me how much money it is. He can tell time to the half hour, and he just started working on adding double digit numbers.

He is also reading, reading, reading! Each day, we do some type of phonics based skill worksheet, and I pick at least one thing for him to read to me. But I often catch him reading something on his own or to his brother. YES! That's the goal!

He will also read signs everywhere we go. Case in point: there is a sign in our church, right over the door when you go to leave, that says, "You are now entering your mission field." This past week, he read it to me and asked me what it meant! Hmm, now I have to start figuring out how to explain lots of things!

We have done a little bit of work with maps and reading map keys in social studies, and we learned about the 5 senses in science. Alex likes to tell me about the different senses we are using throughout the day.

And of course, we have a flexible schedule that allows us to get outside and have all kinds of crazy fun!

That's it from Boomerang Drive!

-- Holly

Say (Chuck E.) Cheese!

A few months ago, Erik came across a deal for the Funnix reading program -- a phonics based reading program on the computer -- completely free.  We decided we might as well try it for Alex.  

The program consisted of 120 lessons, which take about 15-20 minutes a day.  We tried to remember to have Alex work on it most days of the week.  We put a chart on the wall where he could put up a sticker each day after completing the day's lesson.  We asked him to choose something special he would like to do when he completed all 120 lessons, and he wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese.

Today was the day he finished his last lesson!

Here is the story he was able to read on the final day:

We are certainly quite proud of him, and he is obviously proud of himself!

We had a great time playing games at Chuck E. Cheese . . .

 and eating some pizza . . .

and, of course, ice cream.

Alex will be moving on to his kindergarten reading program soon.  We also hope to work a lot with Thomas this year on letters and their sounds, so hopefully he will be ready to start this reading program next year.

That's it from Boomerang Drive!

-- Holly

My Good Reader

Alex read this unassisted today!

Proud of my little Boomerang Drive reader!


-- Holly

March Update

I somehow got behind on my posting . . . it must have been the combination of stomach viruses and a visit from my mom and brother this month.  Here's a quick update . . .


Thomas has been getting better at trying new foods!  Most of you know we've been struggling to get him to eat (or even take a bite of) his dinner each night.  But in the past 2 weeks he has SHOCKED us by taking some bites of new things!  He tried corn, green beans, scrambled eggs, spaghetti, tomato, carrots, peas, and cashews!  I think we have a long way to go still, but I'm thrilled with the progress!


He's still doing great with potty training.  He has accidents once in a while, but is probably successful 95% of the time!


Alex is continuing to work on reading, learning words with letter combinations like "rain" and words with a silent "e" at the end like "take".  He loves numbers and can add pretty well in his head.  He is back in soccer after being off for a few months, and is very focused on beating new levels of Angry Birds.

 Thomas is a true monkey, he has learned to write with his toes!

New Crocs for Alex!

We have some great Easter surprises for the boys and are excited for the big day!


That's it from Boomerang Drive!


-- Holly

Scrabble Words

Seriously, I underestimate my kids on a daily basis.

This morning, Thomas isn't feeling well, so he slept late.  That left me with lots of one on one time with Alex.  I asked him if he wanted to play a game, and he said he wanted to make words on the Scrabble board.  He started by spelling "Alex," and then I helped him work on learning to spell his whole first name.






Then I decided to make some words and ask him to read them.  We started on some easy words, and then he said, "I need hard words.  I will just zoom right through them."  I decided to challenge him to see what he could do.



He read all those words without help.  I'm in shock.


Loving my boys on Boomerang Drive!


-- Holly

Preschool Update

I thought I would check in and show you some of the things Alex has been working on lately.  For the most part, we're enjoying letting the boys just play and be kids.  We read lots of books, play tons of board games (of course), play outside when it's warm enough, and make lots of projects.

Today he made this lovely pasta picture.  He said, "It's just like Angry Birds."  Not sure what that means.

Alex's routine lately is to wake up, play a little computer (great because it gives Mommy a chance to wake up), eat breakfast, and then he does his "schoolwork".  I have a packet of work ready for him each morning.  I pull pages from different Kindergarten workbooks.  Most of it, once I read him the directions, is pretty easy for him to complete independently.

Here's a sample of what he worked on today:

Letter writing 

Determining which picture words start with the same sound 

 Matching the pictures that start with the same sound

(this took him all of 4 seconds)

 Answering questions using a graph.  You can see it's not finished -- after writing out the words "pizza" and "hot dog" (copying the letters from the previous page), the kid was exhausted.  Mommy is nice and doesn't push him when he needs a break.  :)

We continue to work on reading skills with him.  He is able to sound out just about any 3 letter word with a short vowel in the middle (like big, net, bus, etc.).  We just started a computer reading program and will see how that goes as well.

That's our preschool update from Boomerang Drive!

-- Holly

Happy New Year!

We had a wonderful, relaxing Christmas break.  We had SO much fun just hanging out as a family, playing board games, and just enjoying the time off.  We spent a really nice New Year's Eve at home, and Erik made me this fabulous dinner.

Of course, we are not at all ready to dive into the new year, we'd rather be on a perpetual Christmas break where no one has to be in the "real world".  Unfortunately, though, we sent Erik back to school yesterday and resumed life as normal.


Alex started a preschool soccer program yesterday at the Ephrata Rec.  He seemed to really like it, although he'll tell you, "It wasn't really soccer, because there wasn't a net."  (They didn't actually play a soccer game but did lots of kicking, passing, and throwing drills).

You can find more January photos here.


Happy New Year from Boomerang Drive!

-- Holly

"At" Words

This week Alex is working on words containing "at". I started showing him some words this morning and was planning on putting word cards on a key ring so Alex can practice whenever he wants to. He's not always in the mood for writing, but today he wanted to make his own version of the word cards.

Hopefully he can work on using the initial letter sounds to figure out which word is which. We will also be doing some projects with the words -- which he loves to do. Today we will be making a cat puppet.

That's it from Boomerang Drive!

-- Holly

Preschool at Home

Now that Alex is 4, we are at the point where we are facing some major decisions about what we want to do with him as far as school goes.

Many parents in our area send their children to 3 year old preschool, and then 4 year old preschool. Last year, we didn't see a need for Alex to go. He seemed so young to me, and I wasn't ready for him to leave. More importantly, though, I couldn't come up with a good reason to send him. He knew his alphabet, many letter sounds, numbers, shapes, colors, etc. He was involved in church Sunday school, plus another Tuesday program at our church that runs just like a preschool classroom. Through MOMS club, he is always going on play dates and doing activities with other kids. We just didn't think, at the age of 3, that he needed to start school. So we waited.

The question came up again this year: do we send him to preschool 3 mornings a week? The answer we came up with was no. For some of the same reasons we listed above -- he is very social and has lots of interaction with other kids, and he knows a LOT of stuff already. I'm pretty sure that if he was given a kindergarten placement test now, he would pass it. He has always been one to read, do puzzles, workbooks, etc. and he has picked up a ton of information just on his own over the past year. He doesn't NEED preschool for the education benefits. So since I'm home with Thomas anyway, and there was so additional benefit to us to send him, we decided he would stay home.

Just to make sure he IS ready for kindergarten next year, though, I am ready to start some preschool work with him at home. I am trying to get some things organized this week (somehow that didn't happen over the summer!) and we are going to get started next week. Our big focus will be pre-reading skills: letter sounds, word building, sight words, and letter writing. We will do some math: counting, sequence, number writing, patterns, time, money, and more. I am excited to get started and see how much he can do. I am hoping that he will be doing a little bit of reading by the end of the year. I will give you all blog updates as often as possible and share his work with you.

We are still undecided at this point about our plans for next year. I'm hoping to do a lot of research and thinking and praying about it and make a decision by spring. We are leaning toward homeschooling at this point, but may consider sending Alex to a Christian school next year. We're going to play this year by ear and see how Alex is doing and also get a sense of what he wants to do and what will be best for him.

I'm enjoying having my boys be little and am in no rush to send them off. :)

That's it from Boomerang Drive!

-- Holly

Happy 4th Birthday Alex!

Happy birthday to my amazing 4 year old. He has actually felt like a 4 year old for quite some time now -- he acts way older than his age sometime!

We planned a birthday party at Ephrata Park and are thrilled that it is a gorgeous day. Alex is ready to play with his friends and eat some cake!


Pictures from Alex's party and other August photos will be at the following link:
https://picasaweb.google.com/otisandlucy/August2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCJmU6pLZy8zEzwE

It's a beautiful day on Boomerang Drive!
-- Holly

In the Bleak Midwinter

Blah, blah, blah. January.

It's cold. It's gray. The sidewalks are icy, so I am stuck on the treadmill. The boys want to go to the park, but it's covered in snow. Erik has to leave for work in the dark every morning, not to mention the cold (yesterday it was ZERO when he left).

I'm just feeling sluggish. Dragging myself out of bed in the morning, trudging through the day, wiped out at night. For no reason, really, other than it's winter. I need some good outside time.

Thomas has been a handful the past couple of days, but with good reason. I noticed that he has a new molar in the back of his mouth! His gums are very red and swollen, too, so it looks like another one is on its way. I hope they break through soon for both our sanity. I feel bad for him, because I know he's uncomfortable, but it can still be hard to be patient.

Thomas is starting to listen to books more, and is particularly in love with one called "Do You Know New?" He continues to say more and more words every day.

Alex is doing very well and is usually a delight to be around. He loves singing and dancing around to his favorite songs -- lately, it's "All Day and All of the Night" by the Kinks and "Heaven is a Place on Earth" by Belinda Carlisle. (I know, interesting choices). He is working on learning to count to 100. He uses a chart I have hanging on the refrigerator. He does well once I remind him of the first number in each row.

We are all healthy and doing well in general, just longing for refreshment and change. The bleakness of winter is dragging us down. Hoping our friend the groundhog sees an early spring!

And that's what's happening on Boomerang Drive!

-- Holly

Advent Days 21-24

Day 21: Make a present for Grandpa. Alex put his picture into this golfing coffee mug and insisted on making this face. When he handed this present (wrapped) to Grandpa the next day, he said, "This is for you. It's a coffee mug."


Day 22: Visit from Grandpa and Grandma. Thomas enjoys playing with his new Elmo toy.



Day 23: Give a present to a friend. This is a picture of Alex giving a gift (Dora the Explorer playing cards) to his friend Madi.


Day 24: Christmas Eve with family.



And that's the end of our advent activities on Boomerang Drive!

-- Holly

Advent Days 16-20

Day 16: Donate hats and mittens to the tree at the library. (Benefits local children through Ephrata Area Social Services).


Day 17: Make a gingerbread man.


Day 18: See the holiday lights display at Gring's Mill. (We took some pictures of the lights, but I'd rather show you these ones of the boys inhaling soft pretzels).


Day 19: Make garland for the Christmas tree. We used Apple Jacks. Alex was in his "hiding from the camera" mood. And he didn't get much garland done before getting tired of it.


Day 20: Watch "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" with friends and make ornaments. We went to a friend's house from moms club and made these super cute reindeer ornaments using the kids' thumb prints. You can imagine how hard it was to get Thomas to cooperate!


Wow, this month has gone fast! It's almost Christmas on Boomerang Drive!

-- Holly

Advent Days 11-15

Day 11: See the Christmas train display at the Lititz Library. Alex loved it!


Day 12: Decorate Christmas cookies. (Alex said, "Take a picture of me making this face.")


Day 13: See a Christmas movie at the library. (I decided not to make Erik take the camera and be the weird guy taking pictures of his kid watching a movie). But Alex had fun sitting with a bunch of kids and watching "Mickey's Magical Christmas."

Day 14: Go to a Christmas party. The MOMS club had a Christmas party with crafts, snacks, and even a visit from Santa. Neither of my kids were interested in a photo op with him, of course, but each child received a special book from Santa.


Day 15: Open a present. Today it was a "Sid the Science Kid" puzzle. Alex didn't want me to take a picture of it so I took a picture of him hiding the puzzle from the camera.

Oh, and here is a link to all the other December photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/otisandlucy/December2010?authkey=Gv1sRgCMa-x7jazq332gE#


And that's it from Boomerang Drive!

-- Holly

Advent Days 6-10

Advent continues. Every day, the first thing Alex tells me is what number door he's going to open on he house.

Day 6: Make peanut butter cookies.



Day 7: Make a snowman magnet.


Day 8: Open a present. (Just something little).


Day 9: Have friends over (um, TWELVE friends to be exact) to watch a Christmas movie and make a craft.


Day 10: Go with Grandmom and Pops to a special "Let it Snow" event at the Reading Museum. Alex LOVED his first trip to a planetarium.


That's it from Boomerang Drive. Thanks to Thomas for being so chill this morning so I could post. :)

-- Holly