As our first month in our new home, October was a time of unpacking and getting settled into a new routine. The kids love our new house, though they seem to like playing in the empty apartment more than anywhere else. That, or right in the same 2 sq feet that you are currently occupying! Clearly this house is not big enough … <rolls eyes> I am so excited to have a house large enough where there’s space for everything we’d like to do — including a school room! Keller has a great office with wonderful light, the kids can run around to their heart’s delight, and there’s ample storage for everything. We had a series of hard rain storms come through this month that showed us exactly where our drainage situation stands, or rather flows. So that’ll be dealt with eventually. The kids loved playing in the rain though!
In our old house Kamy slept on a queen size bed which turned into a guest bed as needed. However, both kids have their own rooms now! We bought a full size mattress and box spring set and have set Kamy up in her own bed. We pushed her toddler mattress under the bed, but Kamy still sometimes pulls out her pallet and sleeps on that instead. Whatever sweetie, as long as you’re sleeping. I have to admit, bedtime is a lot easier now that the kids are in their own rooms! Hugs, kisses, songs, and turn out the light. Good night!
We started doing more structured homeschooling this month. If we were doing public school, Kamy would have started in kindergarten this fall. Kamy has always messed around with workbooks, or what we call “learning books,” but we added dedicated school time each morning. Since our weekends aren’t really much different than the week days, at this point we are doing school every day. My goal is to work on both reading and math daily. Most of the time we spend 15-30 minutes on a couple of worksheets. I’ve been setting out the next day’s work before going to bed the night before, but if I don’t I will get called out. “Why is there no school work on my desk Momma?!” Kamy really likes her work books and is enthusiastic about “doing school” each morning.
For reading, we are working through “Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.” Knowing my daughter, we’ve set a goal to finish the book by Christmas so she can show everyone that she’s learning to read. Miss Kamy needs a goal and it really keeps her focused. We made it all the way from lesson 1-40 in October alone!
Math-wise, we have tried a couple different options. We started with the Horizons K level workbook, but Kamy is quite a bit beyond most of the content and the repetition was boring for her. We switched to printed worksheets from online generators which seem to be working okay. Kamy likes a lot of variety in her math and heaven forbid you have the same task two days in a row. <wink> We also supplemented with the Life of Fred math books. The jury is still out on that one — Kamy likes it but I’m not much of a fan. I don’t know how long that will stick around. In October we worked on addition, counting coins, connect the dots, subtraction, greater than and less than, skip counting, measuring by inches, greatest integers, tally marks and even double digit addition! Math has always made sense to Kamy, so I am stretching far beyond typical K level concepts to keep her engaged and interested.
As Kamy gleans more kernels of wisdom, she’s happy to share her wealth of knowledge with anyone who will listen. She’s taken to starting sentences with, “As you see …” What a goofy girl! She’s one smart cookie though and I know I’m going to have my hands full finding new and interesting ways to challenge her. In the mean time, Caden hangs on almost every word she says and will faithfully follow her anywhere, so she’s got her own little fan club to listen to her fount of wisdom.
Kamy got creative one morning and made a sign. It was cut from a cardboard box, stuck on a pencil as a holder, and held up to say, “PLEASE DONT BONK INTO US!” She wanted to bring the sign in the car with us to lunch, and other than blocking the driver’s view, it was very considerate of her. =) It was so sweet. We saved the sign after she lost interest in it and it’s safely stashed away in the Kamy-box.
Our little Miss is growing up! Kamy lost her first tooth September 25th! It was totally unexpected. She didn’t realized it had happened and I noticed when I went to brush her teeth and saw a certain something missing. =) No tooth fairy in our house, but she was pretty excited about losing her first baby tooth.
When we moved in, Keller was looking for a good way to consistently exercise. I heard about a 5k run, hosted by Brookshires, here in Tyler in March 2016. Keller and Kamy decided they were going to train for it and run in the 5k! They have been using an app to work up to running that far and have been doing awesome! They’re both registered and committed to doing it. It’s been really neat to watch them do it together and it is a special way for the two of them to spend one-on-one time. They’re running three days a week.
Near the end of October, we were lucky to have some of our Dutch family come by for a couple of days! I picked them up at the airport and brought them home for the night before heading out to Linden the next day. Regine met us out there and we had a lovely day. The weather was perfect and the kids loved showing them everything. It was such a treat to spend time with Janny, Barbara, and Jose!
Lastly, October ends with Halloween! Kamy decided she wanted to be a fairy this year, so I ordered a pair of purple sparkly wings. She wore them with her ballet leotard and was super cute. We went to a fall festival on Wednesday and then did old-fashioned trick or treating Saturday evening before dark. This was the kids’ first time trick or treating and they did great. We found a little neighborhood nearby and both kids had a lot of fun running between houses and saying “Trick or Treat!”
