No baby. So instead, we did some early Valentine's Day celebrations. (just a note: the lamellar count came up 29 instead of 50 so the docs said it was best to wait until the 15th to "induce" the baby. At first I was so disappointed, but now I feel much better - just a little (huge) attitude change.) Because I probably have another full week plus, I feel like we can get in all our Valentine's Day fun - and we'll be sick of it by the end too.
To start with, there aren't very many words in the German dictionary that start with "C". Germans use the "K". This is what our reference (children's) books could come up with. Comic, Clown, Cowboy, Chameleon, Cafe, Cousin, Computer, and I think three others. Notice how none of them are actually German. On my own I came up with Chemie (Chemistry) and Chirurg (Surgeon) but I am pretty sure those come from French anyway. We haven't practiced writing "C" yet, but Joshua is already on the hunt and he can find C everywhere! One fun thing we came up with, since Joshua already knows "O" I explained to him that a C is like an O, but someone has come up to the O with a key, unlocked the door, and went inside. It sounded a lot more coherent/interesting/better in German. He took to it right away and we used our hands to make Os and Cs and with our other hands a little "person" came with the key to unlock the door and go inside. I thought it was kind of cute.
I decided that since we are doing Family this month, we will learn about all of our Cousins - because there are many (23) and more always on the way (just 1 right now).
To learn all of our cousins, especially the ones we have never seen, I finished making the Walker/Berwick memory game. But we call it "Match." Each time we pick somebody up I explain to Joshua and Abigail how they are related. Eventually even though none of us have ever met baby Lucy or little Grant, they will know that they exist, who their parents are, and what that has to do with us. To my relief and joy, Joshua and Abigail LOVE the "match" games and are always willing to play. This makes me happy because they were a ton of work to make! The only problem is that the kids have favorites and so we have to monitor a little who gets the Grandmas and Grandpa and Papas. Unfortunately, Mama is not on the favorite list. :(
Uh, my family is huge. This is just my side. Derek's side of the family is less than half this tall. I guess that's what happens when you start out with 10 kids :)
Instead of making a Valentine's Tree we made a Valentine's Can with color coded heart flowers. I shall now explain. On the can are 4 different strips of colored paper with 4 prompts (I know Heavenly Father loves me because... I show Heavenly Father I love Him when... I know my family loves me because... I show my family I love them when...) and in the can are 20 hearts taped onto straws with the "answers" Joshua and Abigail gave to the prompts. There are 5 hearts for each prompt - so the purple strip prompt has 5 purple heart flowers in the can to complete the sentence, and so on. I had hoped this would be a much more interested project to make - Joshua lost attention after the first 10 hearts so I should have broken in up into two sessions, but tonight for FHE we reviewed all our hearts and everyone had a really good time reading the prompts, finding the appropriately colored heart, reading and discussing. Success.
We made some Valentine's cookies. I made the dough on my own one evening. A few days later we baked the cookies together - and Abigail ate the dough. And the day after that we frosted and decorated the cookies - and Abigail ate the candies and frosting. Although Derek and I broke down and ate a plate tonight after FHE (oops) there are still 4 plates waiting to go out to friends tomorrow - another fun preschool activity. Joshua knows whenever we bake something we always give some away.
And of course, we made actual Valentines cards. They aren't finished of course. We still have a handful to do. And then this week we will be mailing them off. Hopefully Wednesday.
That's it for this week's installment. Next week should be a lot of the same. Or a little of the same. Or we might move quickly into the letter D in order to make some progress before our new arrival. Or not.
To start with, there aren't very many words in the German dictionary that start with "C". Germans use the "K". This is what our reference (children's) books could come up with. Comic, Clown, Cowboy, Chameleon, Cafe, Cousin, Computer, and I think three others. Notice how none of them are actually German. On my own I came up with Chemie (Chemistry) and Chirurg (Surgeon) but I am pretty sure those come from French anyway. We haven't practiced writing "C" yet, but Joshua is already on the hunt and he can find C everywhere! One fun thing we came up with, since Joshua already knows "O" I explained to him that a C is like an O, but someone has come up to the O with a key, unlocked the door, and went inside. It sounded a lot more coherent/interesting/better in German. He took to it right away and we used our hands to make Os and Cs and with our other hands a little "person" came with the key to unlock the door and go inside. I thought it was kind of cute.
I decided that since we are doing Family this month, we will learn about all of our Cousins - because there are many (23) and more always on the way (just 1 right now).
To learn all of our cousins, especially the ones we have never seen, I finished making the Walker/Berwick memory game. But we call it "Match." Each time we pick somebody up I explain to Joshua and Abigail how they are related. Eventually even though none of us have ever met baby Lucy or little Grant, they will know that they exist, who their parents are, and what that has to do with us. To my relief and joy, Joshua and Abigail LOVE the "match" games and are always willing to play. This makes me happy because they were a ton of work to make! The only problem is that the kids have favorites and so we have to monitor a little who gets the Grandmas and Grandpa and Papas. Unfortunately, Mama is not on the favorite list. :(
I love your games! I especially love the heart matching game! It is perfect! Thanks for getting my mind moving. :)
ReplyDeleteGood to know that Joshua and Abby will know who we are! That was an ambitious project.
ReplyDeleteI love the heart can. I think I might have to do something like that.
ReplyDeleteWe made a calendar like yours and we've been using it, too :) It's helping me learn Portuguese, too, because I did the calendar in Portuguese. We do weather words on our calendar, because Vince is always observing that it is "windy" or "cold" or "cloudy" or "snowy" outside, so I figured since he kind of already knew it anyway, we'd put them on the calendar. It's been fun.
I want to make a game out of the family things, too. My original idea (last summer before tradgedy struck) was to make a book and on one page do stick figures with pictures for the heads, and have them on velcro so Vince can put the heads on the "people" they belong, and maybe set it up like a family tree or a pedigree chart, just to kind of start getting him familiar with that.
We decorated our front window with hearts yesterday - it had snowflakes on it since December, but I thought it was time for an update.