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Katherine

School Out

School Out

We recently had mid-winter break which meant no school for an entire week! Then the following week (last Thursday), it snowed one to two inches in Redmond. Since Eton follows the Bellevue School District weather schedule, and Bellevue decided to cancel school, the girls had no school. With Patty’s help, they managed to squeak out a snowman from very little snow in our yard.

Rainbow Fairies

Through trips to the library, Katherine has discovered the Rainbow Fairies. The premise is pretty simple. Two girls become fairies in various situations to help other fairies defeat Jack Frost’s nefarious plans…or something like that. We’ve read three books so far. To help encourage independent reading, we’ll alternate pages. Allison, of course, has decided that she can read the fairy books too. She will sit for minutes at a time, thumbing through the book muttering to herself.

In the picture, Steve is reading a book from the Bushes about a boy and a dragon. Katherine was a bit apprehensive, which is why she’s trying not to listen – but she really is!

Fourth Place in PuzzleHunt

Burt’s Bees

Every year Steve and I play in Puzzlehunt with a team called the Killer Bees. This year we placed a respectable fourth place, with a team of core and new players. I explained to Katherine that we were very pleased to place fourth, thinking this was a good way to reinforce the whole “have fun, its not about winning” message.

Here are Katherine’s remarks about PuzzleHunt:

“Maybe you should consider calling your team the I Want to Win Bees”

“I accidentally called your team Burt’s Bees…not the Killer Bees..” (to gales of laughter)

“Mama, staying up all night is crazy.”  (Yes, I know she’s right)

Katherine also proclaimed today that she had a dream come true today. She learned about the pbs.org web site, which has little games based on PBS show characters for young children. Katherine spent her 10 minutes of computer time tonight clicking around the site and playing the Clifford game. She was very focused, checking out the site by herself. Allison told us, “Katherine, it’s not fair. You dont let me use the computer at all!”

Changes

Changes

It’s been a very eventful week for Katherine.

  • She can see her first adult tooth emerging.
  • She is in a new classroom at school. Today she took two books to school. Apparently, her new classroom has a “museum” in which kids can put one item from home. The museum is an aquarium! I expect that Katherine will be bringing all sorts of things to school this week. She chose to display “Tinkerbell’s Tea Party” today.
  • She and Allison are finally in an extracurricular class together. They both attend rhythmic gymnastics after school one day a week, which they love!

Allison and I are getting closer to “Twinkle Twinkle.” She can now play all the Suzuki bow rhythms with decent form with open strings. She’s even put her left fingers on the fingerboard–although this is going to take a lot more practice. As part of the Suzuki method, Allison is supposed to go to monthly group lessons. We attended two weekends ago, and Allison was SO determined to play with the other kids (no matter what.) One of the exercises is called CopyCat, where a student plays a rhythm and the other kids follow suit. Well, when it was her turn to lead, I “helped” Allison played a rhythm. One of the little boys could tell that Allison wanted to do this herself, so he suggested that she try it…and she did. She even sat thru 45 minutes of advanced playing by older children. She is a very determined child.

 

 

Pictures

Pictures

I finally downloaded hundreds of pictures from a couple cameras.

Yes – Katherine lost that loose tooth. It had been getting very wobbly for a couple weeks. Finally, Patty looked at Katherine and said, “your tooth is sitting sideways…” and plucked the tooth right out. Katherine was delighted to have the Tooth Fairy give her $5 for her first tooth. (Going rate is less for following teeth!)

Our kids are more aware of money and how to save it for special purchases. Allison saved her money and bought a $20 Hello Kitty stuffed animal at Build-A-Bear last month. Katherine couldn’t afford that, so she settled for a post-holiday moose with light-up antlers on sale for $10. ๐Ÿ™‚ We also took them to our bank last weekend and opened their savings accounts. They were very thrilled to use the change machine, and the prospects of depositing money is very exciting.

You’ll see that both girls are riding bikes that are just a little too big for them. Allison likes to ride the 16″ Novarra bike; since she can’t fully extend her legs all the way around, she’s actually slower on this bike than her 12″ bike. Katherine flies on her new 20″ bike. It’s got six gears and handbrakes. It was very amusing the other day watching Katherine riding down the road with Steve running full-tilt next to her.

Spelling Interesting Words

Spelling Interesting Words

Allison is very proud that she can now sound out words. I attended Parent Observation Day in which she sounded out little pink cards with words like Rug, Pup, Cup, Mug and then put the cards next to little objects. Accordingly, I’ve dug out an early reading work at home. Basically the work consists of little Scrabble-like tiles and mats with 3 letter words. Object is to put the tiles on the appropriate words and sound them out. To scale the work for Katherine, Steve started rearranging tiles to create more challenging words. Allison decided to participate – putting together different tiles “COSO.” She then declared, “Look Dad….Costco!!”

We’ve also started “math minutes” for the Katherine. She now does as many simple addition, subtraction problems in a minute as she can. Allison has decided she needs to participate too. Tonight she did four little addition problems (ex. 1+1, 2+1, 2+2, 3+1), and wrote the answers….backwards! Katherine was highly amused that Allison’s 2s, 3s and 4s are pretty much all backwards, but resisted the temptation to say anything. ๐Ÿ™‚

Happy Valentine’s Day

The girls both had Valentine’s Day parties the last couple days. Allison’s party was Thursday afternoon, and Katherine’s was this morning. For Allison’s party, we had little activities like beaded bracelets, bookmarks, cards and tattoos. I really enjoyed this party, and it was a great opportunity to meet Allison’s little classmates. She was so proud to have her mom at the party. Her little face beamed as I walked in with materials – and all her friends sat at circle waiting for the party.

Katherine loved her party. She came home with her bag bulging with party favors and cards. She also helped the parent volunteers put party bags in lockers while her classmates were on the playground.

The Sno-Park

The Sno-Park

Steve and I took the girls to the Hyak Sno-Park this past weekend, pre-Super Bowl to burn off some energy.

We took our new red sled – which is supposed to seat two kids – and snacks, refreshments.

Perhaps the most memorable moment was when Allison trudged to the van and muttered, “This isn’t exciting. This is dangerous.”

Thankfully, we made the kids wear their helmets as they whizzed down the hill. The first big tumble happened with their first dual run down the hill. Allison flew off the sled, as Katherine hit one hand brake. Poor Allison ended up with a couple scrapes which required some TLC.

Then, the kids took turns in the minivan eating lunch. I apparently missed Allison’s big solo wipeout, which convinced her that this was just a bad idea.

We lasted about 90 minutes at the park. Maybe we’ll try this again in a couple years!

I’ll post pictures later this week.