Octy octopus

Octy the octopus
available to order at the shop

This was the first try from a pattern I sketched earlier this year and never did anything with... some hangups trying to get the tentacle undersides to match up in the middle.. but, pretty good for a 'shoot for the moon' sort of try.  I almost gave up twice - but I'm glad I didn't.l. because he is cute.

Esme wants to bring him with to the Japanese restaurant today.  We're going to do some math on Khan Academy - and then head out after that.  She bought a little toy bird with some of her Christmas money and she is eating some fruit salad.  We talked about how kiwis and strawberries are different but same.. and she had this odd question this morning if chopped onion and rice were the same thing - and why is one raw and one is cooked...sometimes what she springs on me sounds like an alien traversing our culture... it would never have occurred to me to think chopped onion and rice were similar, they look similar - but they are entirely different.. and she wants to see how.

On to math.. update later.

9.15a    - drawing animals

 I liked her rhino - thought we might make a toy like it later.  She said she scribbled and it 

looked like a rhino, so she drew the rest of it in.

9.30a    - break

10a    - store and bank, handling money
10.30a    - break

11.50a    - kahn academey math - did the bar graphs and finished the word problems, did some review
12.50p    - break

1.30    - sushi place
2.30    - library - building Atlantis and towers with two other children, reading some of her book, playing a music program with different instruments and patterns.
4    - break

5p    - Reading aloud ("Some Pig", EB White)
5.15p    - spelling - writing - homonyms etc...
5.35p    - break

6p    - Monopoly (we introduced the idea of being shortchanged, and traded properties so she could build houses)
7.30p    - done

Now she's making a villainry flag - because she will only help a little, so they don't know she is a superhero.  It is a pirate flag with a razor saw and a shark on it.

Adventure Day, writing, reading log

Adventure Day today, with Daddy - in the forest.  Then she had to write about what she saw.  Mark said she was very reluctant at first to write - she has been that for a LONG time, but he got her past the initial huff and some remark about it being too hard and she just kept going after that.

Last night she read four chapters of Franny K. Stein 'The Fran with Four Brains', and we should finish some more of that tonight.  She read Happy Halloween Stinky Face by Lisa McCourt with me at the lake - switching pages here and there for her to read and then I read one.  We've started keeping a reading log on paper and also one here on the blog.

Mark did math with her, addition and place value, a list sorting activity,spelling families from her 1st grade list,  and let her do a find-a-word puzzle. 

Mark said she did have some small complaint today about how hard this is going to be compared to what she thought - and maybe she should go back to her school... but that was short-lived and by the time I came home she was saying 'And we do this all at our home, and it is what we choose, when we choose it!'  After that she told me about playing tigers in the woods, asked me to play Frisbee and ran around the lake area quite a bit.

Ready for First Grade first day of school pictures

 Nice and neat and ready for first grade!

She picked the butterfly dress I had made for her, and the fish pants - because she head dreamt of fishing in a boat with the whole family last night, and catching fish.

 

But, I knew that was not the 'real' Esme - and I asked her to show me how excited she was, because I knew it was there This is how we see her daily, animated, eyebrows up - ready and excited for everything! It's in the eyes - I just had to compare and contrast because to me this is the 'real' Esme. 

The hair also gave me some trouble - I settled for this, as it was not wanting to twist the way it should and I had to braid the little tails a bit before I put them together into the other one.  I had some experience last year trying - not always succeeding - to contain her hair for the school day so she didn't have it on her neck and elbows... she said that made it hard to read and write when it was moving on her skin while she did her work... but it is also so pretty it is hard to just bind it up every day and not let it hang down some.

first grade meet and greet

We got back from the meet and greet - very quick, Esme had a desk with her name on it, right next to the boy from her K class last year.  She has a sheet of 'about me' to fill out before the end of the week... and the teacher has had us sign for a six book reading package... hmm... I tried not to say very much to the teacher because I really wanted to grill her about the math and reading - and that will become evident over the next few weeks anyway... so better to control myself (heh)...  Mark says I'm excited, too... he's right - I am very interested in Esme's education, but know I have a tendency to go overboard.

We went to the flea market afterwards, and found several good books and a few little toys.  Esme asked for a plant science book.. and I made her take a fishing one, too - as it had better pictures and the plant science was worth twenty-five cents, but definitely high-level even for me.  One of the little toys was a plastic flip-top oyster with a pearl in it. Mark says it is a shell-phone.  Ha. 

When we got home we went through the 'legal' paperwork that was in her folder, and made signatures.  She had to sign for the internet services herself - and she asked 'What are we signing for, again?' which I wanted to remember :)  It was quite thoughtful of her to ask before she signed ;)

We get ready for the bus tomorrow... been practicing getting up early for the last two days.   To be there this morning I had to switch shifts, so  I have to work late tonight.  The bath and hairwashing and getting to bed on time is on Daddy, but I have the next two days off.

Will have a first day of first grade picture tomorrow I hope - if everything doesn't take too long in the morning!

bits to remember

Mark said yesterday Esme received her first grade letter in the mail, telling her who her new teacher is and all the times for the first day etc..  Esme ripped it open in the middle of the street and read every word to him out loud.  She read it for me again, when I got home.  Too bad it didn't come by owl, we said to each other, out of her earshot ;)  But, it is amazing to hear her read that well.... and as I watched her build her Minecraft tonight when a two story house, haybarn, cow, pig and sheep fences and a chicken 'coop' complete with wool square nesting boxes... I wondered just how first grade is going to measure up to her expectations, or ours.. or if it will be just another repeat of 'sit in your desk and do as you are told.'  We will see....

On the bright side, she loves going to the library, and reading books.  We read a Magic Tree house book together last week - which was long and I did most of the reading while she tried hard to keep paying attention and begging me not to stop...  and her other five books she read very well partly with me, partly by herself.  She truly enjoyed several of them.

We have rewatched through all of the HP movies in order... so I told her the other day, in her Minecraft, I was giving her 'first level OWLs - or tests, to see how much she knew.'  I  put up signs with questions all over her castle room and she had to answer them for me.  She has been reading and rereading her Kindergarten readiness brain games books Grandma gave her, so these were in a similar line.  They were questions like 'What color is a ruby?', and 'What is 3 times 3', and 'fish', 'dog', 'cat', 'umbrella', Which one doesn't belong?  She had to read the question herself, and try to answer.  She did really well, and enjoyed that - and built several hidden rooms with signs spelled out for me to find.  I am glad to see her taking more of a stab at writing things out, and trying to spell words.  She spelled DAV and GEF for names of her (Minecraft) animals on nametags... which she can't remember seeing the real names - but she sounded them out well.

Tonight she built a rainbow garden before she went to bed - to add on to the rest mentioned above.
 

 House with porch swing, tire swing outside, gardens, animal corrals and 'egg nesting boxes' the green squares in the fence in the back.

"Rainbow gardens":

Tomorrow we go to the library and hopefully sometime later in the day I can start to think about and work more on the last dress and matching pants I want to make her before school starts.