How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World

This week we are reading How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World. This is such a cute book and is a lot of fun to read. Here is our plan for the week:

Monday- Geography - Finding the many locations on the map

Tuesday - Science/Math - Evaporation - Saltwater (this is more fun since we now know what real sea water tastes like!)

Wednesday - Art:Street Scenes

Thursday - Vocabulary

Friday - Make an Apple Pie!

St. Andrew Kim Taegon & Companions

On Sunday the 20th we celebrated the Feast Day of St. Andrew Kim Taegon & Companions. Korea has more recognized martyrs/saints than any other country. We celebrated by having Korean for dinner!

Messy Friday

The girls have been doing their lessons at the kitchen table. Sarah can be in her wheel chair and Leah is in her booster. I can't believe I haven't thought before to strap Leah in her seat!! She has been working through her "knowledge" boxes better than ever. Friday I mixed cornstarch and water together, dumped it on trays and let the girls dig in. They had fun playing with the mixture. It was messy, but very easy to clean up.

Preschool

Leah started preschool on September 16th at Building Bridges in Plymouth. She has been taking speech and music therapy there since this spring. Her speech therapist is also her preschool teacher, so that helped her to feel comfortable from the beginning. School technically started on Sept 9th, but due to Sarah's surgery we started her the following week. The boys and I are taking our school things to the Plymouth Library while Leah is at school. The original plan was for Sarah to join us too, but obviously she can't do that right now. Poppa is going to be staying with Sarah while we are gone. Hopefully in a couple of weeks she will be able to join us too.

Leah's teacher, Ms Kathleen, said she did a great job. She is the only girl along with 6 boys. Good thing she is used to being around boys! Hopefully we see lots of progress this year.

Settling In

Home

Sarah is home and it didn't take long for her to settle in. My mom suggested the red chair as her spot and it is working out well. She has even been using the arm rests to start adjusting herself when she gets a bit uncomfortable. The kids were really glad to see her and were anxious to help her get settled. She really didn't complain of any pain and even slept through the night. We woke her at 2:00 am and gave her another does of Valium and the pain medication. She has been asleep again since then. What a difference it makes to be out of the hospital! For the most part the staff at Mott was great, but nothing compares to being home.

Jacob has a check up this morning at Dumont's office. Hopefully he is on the mend as well. We have Marney today, she is going to be at our house on Fridays this semester. We are all glad to have her!

Sarah

Sarah had her hip surgery on September 8th. She did great and the surgery went well. She comes home today. We will be glad to have her back home, the kids have missed having her around. We are praying that her recovery goes smoothly!

Preschool in a Bag

Over the summer I participated in a preschool activity bag swap. I made 20 activity bags and received 20 different ones in return. Most of them turned out really good and are fun activities. Leah tried out a few today and she really enjoyed them. This one is simple to create and teaches many skills. There are different colored laminated squares with corresponding colored paper clips. The object is to put the correct colored paper clip on the colored square. Not only is it great for learning colors, but it is a great fine motor skill. Leah did pretty well but needed a lot of help from me. I look forward to seeing how she progresses through the year!

Leah

This is how Leah decided to do school yesterday!

First Day Photos

Sarah, age 5- Kindergarten - she made her Kindergarten plate yesterday and here she is working on her handwriting.
Jonah, age 6 - 1st grade - here he is beginning his cursive writing workbook.
Jacob, age 8 - 3rd grade - he is finishing up his cursive book from last year while waiting for his new one to arrive.

We are slowly easing into the school year. We will get a few things done this week and then we will be off for most of the week next week due to Sarah's surgery. Leah starts preschool on the 16th of September. Anna is starting school too. Her first day will be the 9th.

New School Year 2009-2010

Divine Mercy Academy 2009-2010 Welcome Students

Jacob Dunlap

Jonah Dunlap

Sarah Dunlap

The kids woke up to this on Monday morning. They ran through it to kick off the new school year!