You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July 2008.
We decided to hire a moving man to help us move to our new house – he was short but he worked hard!
Our new baby neighbour.
For some reason our family seems to love playing games with big maps. We like to dream that one day we’ll get to travel to all places we visit on the boards.
Catan Histories: Struggle for Rome
This is our new favourite game inspired of course by Cassius’ interest in Rome. This is one of those games that you could leave out (if you didn’t have a Paris) and play for days.
Paris was a little disappointed in our choice for his birthday present. He would have preferred something more like this:
The University of California Berkeley has put entire course lectures
on YouTube. You can watch all of the lectures from several different
courses for free. They are also planning on expanding the available
courses.
Cassius and I have really been enjoying listening to these audio books from the University of Florida. They have stories for ages kindergarten to grade twelve. Cassius transfers the stories onto his little mp3 player and listens to them has he builds Lego and before he falls asleep. He really enjoyed the Invisible Man by H.G.Wells and is looking forward to Dracula and Frankenstien (a little light summer listening).
go to http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/
or if you have iTunes:
- Open iTunes program
- Click to go to the iTunes Store
- Click on iTunes U on the left sidebar
- On the lower left sidebar is a list entitled, “Universities”.
- Find and click University of South Florida
- Click on the icon of the little boy, “College of Education”.
- In the center bar, find Lit2Go:Audio Files for k12
- It automatically opens the Spanish language resources. Click the
grade above.
Robert Louis Stevenson, Longfellow, Bronte, Austin, Dickens, Twain,
Frances Hodges Burnett, Bram Stoker, Aesop–it’s quite an extensive
collection. Plus lectures on mathematics and logic for high school
students. There are 24 universities listed, so if it’s a lecture on
Science, Technology and Society from MIT you’re wanting, this is the
place to go.
Mandala Area & Position in Learning Cycle (Spiral): Seed > Root > Plant > Flower >
LANGUAGING (LANGUAGE ARTS) Flower / Accomplished
Learning Successes:
Cassius joyfully and successfully surpassed all of the Learning Plan goals and completed many of the recommended Languaging skills and concepts for his age and beyond. He possesses strong communication skills. When speaking to Cassius over the phone and in person, it was a pleasure, he is very communicative and quite funny and friendly, he presented himself confidently, comfortably, and articulately. Cassius’ reading abilities have blossomed this year and have become integrated into his daily life. In September he was nervous reading out loud and now he reads books and passages out loud regularly with confidence. Cassius has blossomed this year with regards to his speaking and listening, reading and viewing, he has enjoyed a wide range of fiction and non-fiction books, games and presentations at levels that exceed all expectations. He has been growing his roots for many more age-advanced skills. Cassius has a great capacity to understand complex stories as well as to create his own characters and plots that are elaborate and imaginative yet incorporate a strongly defined structure and storyline. Although writing was much less of a focus this year, Cassius did express himself through poetry and comics. He also created stories to express personal responses and opinions about some frustrating experiences. Cassius worked on handwriting and calligraphy as well as typing. He enjoyed reading books about grammar and helped write and edit his weekly O4Ls (observation for learning). Most recently Cassius has recorded some ideas for a film. Read the rest of this entry »
Paris’ Train Party at the Burnaby Central Railway was a big deal to him. He woke up every day for about two months saying “Train party today?” When I asked him what he wanted for a present he would say “Cake!” Then when he was opening his present from Cassius (a little train engine Cassius has picked out and paid for all on his own) he asked, “Cake inside?” Not surprisingly most of his attention at the party was split between watching the trains and looking at his beautiful train cake from Aunty Lana. He sat on the bench most of the time, just watching – but I could tell he was thrilled!
