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Archives for October 2008

Reading Board

Reading Board

We finally took a picture of Katherine and her tattered reading board. We still owe her a visit to Chuck E. Cheese.

Violin Lessons

Katherine got to learn a new bowing/rhythm last week – “Ice Cream <rest> Cone” (ready change). Basically, it’s two quarters, one quarter rest, one more quarter than change string. Katherine and I have also worked on her holding her violin for 5 minutes at a time with her sand timer. She was soo excited to expand her repertoire. ๐Ÿ™‚

36.5 mpg

I’ve been mulling over the concept of improving our average mpg. So, I went over to Bellevue Honda and bought a Civic Hybrid last week. The car has steadily increased its average mpg during this week.

We are now at 36.5 mpg. What helps?

  • Highway driving
  • Driving on flats
  • Not driving it like a sports car ๐Ÿ™‚
  • Coasting

The kids seem to like the little blue car. Katherine explains that there are two engines – one regular engine and one special engine. Allison asked if the car needed special gas. I love zipping into parking spots.

Mondays at the Playground

Where are your manners?

Allison and I had a very amusing conversation several days ago:

Mom: Allison, where are your manners?
Allison: Someone took them.

The next day:

Mom: Allison, I hope someone didn’t take your manners.
Allison: I lost my manners.

Katherine just chuckled throughout.

Mondays at the Playground

Because Katherine and Allison are in different classrooms, they don’t often see each other at school. Monday mornings are the exception, when their recesses overlap on the playground. According to all teachers, both girls are SO happy to see each other and play together until Katherine’s classroom lines up. That’s when Allison has started to tear up, “I miss Katherine…”

Katherine still walks her little sister to the classroom. It’s very sweet.

Developmental Milestones

Katherine finally got to 100 on her reading board. She was so proud of her accomplishment. Her reading these days includes Henry and Mudge, a couple short chapters at a time, and Sammy the Seal. Allison, by comparison, is trying so hard to read. One of her favorite activities is pulling out Katherine’s old beginner flash cards and sounding out letters. Surprisingly, she eked out some simple words last week by herself- JET, HAT and a few others. Katherine and I cheered her on.

Katherine is working hard on her math these days. To help her along, we took out her old bead board. She thinks its a hoot for me to hold up a flash card and see how many she can do in a certain amount of time. She also flips over a 5-minute sand timer. Between holding up flash cards and holding Allison back from our sand timer, it gets a little crazy during math time.

Katherine and Allison are progressing with their violin studies. Katherine is now working on a new rhythm – “ice cream <rest> cone” then changing strings. Allison is learning how to hold the bow like a baby bird and not squeeze the living daylights out of it. I told her tonight that IF she could relax her right hand, we would ask Katherine’s teacher to assess her for readiness. The imagery seemed to help quite a bit; she held it delicately with no pressure for a bit – until she started squeezing again. It really is amazing how little kids can learn correct bow technique at such a young age.