Natural Disasters and other things

We've had our own hurricane of events lately, so I haven't been able to
post. I promised Logan I'd get a couple things posted "soon" so hope to
find the time to do that (see a few pics below). If you hadn't heard, Logan
wound up in the hospital for two days/nights about two weeks ago with
breathing issues August 7th-9th. Again he was vomiting all day and his
breathing suddenly took off at rapid rates. We went to the medical
clinic who sent us STRAIGHT to the emergency room (NO, I was told, DON'T drop the girls off at a friend's house first; have them meet you there.) The doctors have determined that he has asthma. His seem to be illness induced. So now we have a plan of action for addressing these issues as this is the third time he's wound up in hospital.

Delenn and Elora got sick last Friday. Elora's temperature shot up to
over 104 degrees. Delenn didn't have such a high fever but was sick all
night. Mom came down with a bit of the tummy bug Sunday-Tuesday. I'm
finally better, but now Dad has a tender tummy. Elora still isn't
better as she started vomiting again last night (we *thought* she was
better so she/we was/were at a restaurant with friends of ours when she
got sick). Now she has diarrhea as well and is in bed napping.

With the workboxes in place, we've still managed to continue forward
with homeschool activities. Delenn enjoys doing school and is really
getting confident on her three letter words. She's just started the Bob
Books (I held off and was just having her do word family groups for the
past couple months). She loves the workboxes and is always checking
out her boxes to see what new things are in there. Her activities consist of things like puzzles, making homemade moon sand, hammering wooden pieces, sorting and counting wonderful little erasers from Oriental Trading (icecreams, stars, balls, flowers, bugs and more!), file folder games, painting, play dough -- you know the general preschool fare!

Before I go on to Logan, let me add that Elora enjoys being in the midst of all our activities. She'll happily sit down and do her own sorting and definitely wants to be in the middle of everything we do. She is still not talking, but her signing is becoming much more sophisticated. She uses 50-70 words (easily) signing and when she "has something to say" she will turn my head to be sure I'm looking at her. She'll tell us "Daddy's at work" when we're eating breakfast. She "jabbers" (ie. signs) about all she sees around her (birds, babies, dogs, and so forth). And she makes her needs and wants known (I have poos, I want to eat, milk please, read me a book, brush teeth, medicine, cream (for her bottom), and on and on). And going right along with that, she loves "Signing Time" the wonderful set of ASL signing videos for kids.

I think I mentioned that Logan's learning the piano now, right? He seems to be enjoying that is learning a song every three-four days or so (now alternating right and left hands). We're also learning German together as a family (I taught German many years ago and am semi-fluent). We don't use a "set" curriculum for German as the kids are so young we need to make it heaps of fun... but I do REALLY like this little reader I came across (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage).
The kids like it too. There are also a whole set of easy German readers at http://www.carlscorner.us.com/GermanRdrs.htm which we've been reading through. She has about 45 little books (10 pages each) that are perfect for those starting out German. Anyway, the kids are doing well with it. Logan know his numbers 1-20, basic colors, a few greetings and simple sentences like "Where is the cat?" "I don't know."

Our latest unit is on natural disasters. I got some wonderful little
picture cards for $1.60 at
http://www.currclick.com/product_info.php?products_id=30487&it=1 Logan has read through 4 cards each day and has written out the word for handwriting practice.

We've watched a number of short little video clips, a few of which I'll add in below. And finally we've been doing a number of natural disaster projects. Since pictures will tell a better story I won't say more til I have a chance to post pictures! (They are now posted, scroll on down below.) Anyway, below are the video clips which are just a few minutes long each.

TORNADO:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEUXr6FMtWk&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNL7ASvl4k4

HURRICANE:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9VpwmtnOZc

TSUNAMI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9JDzBTwiig&feature=channel

That's it from the DingoDen for now.