Zakari's first birthday

May 5th, last Sunday was Zakari’s 1st birthday. Honestly I can’t believe its been a year already. He’s growing up so fast, yet is still so small. I took him to Youville 2 days ago to weigh him in, he is 18lbs, 27inches tall and his head is 19.25 inches. I called the nurse to look at his growth chart. According to my calculations, he's fallen off the map for weight and his head is officially over the top.
He is full force crawling in a cross patterned motion. He's not the kind of kid that likes to walk holding someones hand. But thats ok for brain development. Like Glenn Doman says, getting them back on the floor.

We had 2 parties for Zakari's birthday. Ideally I would have liked to have one big party outside at my MILs house. But this year spring decided to come super late so we had to split the party up and have family over at my MILs on the Saturday and friends over at our house on the Sunday.

My little man was spoiled rotten! More toys then he could possibly need. Actually I was extremely shocked how generous everyone was . I will not be purchasing him anymore toys till atleast Christmas. 

Zakari's lessons are still going great. Him and his daycare buddies sit around every morning during morning snack and learn! Typically we try to do:

- Little Reader

- Little Math

-Little Musician

Little Chinese

- Tweedlewinks

-Wink to Learn Speak and Read English

-Teaching My Toddlers Music playlist on Youtube

- Meet the Letters Flashcards

-1990's World Book lessons(flashcards, books, etc)

-Shichida 65 Day Math program

- Several sets of random flashcards

-Right Brain Education shop

I'm also trying to include something from the Sparkabilities workbooks. More to come about this soon! 

11 month old update

Well my youngest baby is officially 11 months old. How is time flying by so fast??
What is going on with Baby Z?

• He started eating more food chopped into little cubes instead of puree. He is refusing pablum half the time. I think we are getting close to packing up the Baby Bullet for any future children. Its amazing how different each child really is. My oldest was on baby food till almost 2 and loved pablum for breakfast until almost 3.

• We are crawling. Well... Almost. Baby Z can push his way forward in kind of a military style on his tummy if something truly intrigues him. Like Daddy's iPhone or PS3 controller. Since he has Physio tomorrow, I'm going to bring Daddy's PS3 controller to show the therapist what he can do. He is awesome at crawling backwards on his hands and knees. And this month he mastered being able to sit up from a crawling position. 

•  Using his shape sorter, Baby Z is able to put things in and out of the container without a lid. He also understands that when the lid is on your suppose to put the square in the square and the circle in the circle hole, and so on. He's not able to do this on his own yet, but hand over hand he loves doing it.

• Little Reader, Little Math, Little Musician, Flashcards, this boy loves to learn. During the game section of Little Reader, I'm noticing his eyes shooting to the right answer about 80% of the time. Besides that I'm still enjoying the fact that I can't quiz him, and everything is 100% input. No pressure :)

•  Right now Leap Frog Letter Factory and Phonic Farm are his favorite shows. He can be full force screaming his head off in the backseat of the car and then someone starts singing "Every Letter has a Sound" he stops crying and listens. The ABCs are almost as powerful. We decided to do his 1st birthday in an ABC/Leapfrog theme.

Tiny Tot School

Baby Z 10.5 months old

Well Baby Z is so darn close to crawling. A few weeks ago his physiotherapist said his legs just needed to get a touch stronger and he would get going. But don't let the fact that he's not crawling forward fool you. He is still getting around. He rolls, bum scoots and squirms his way all around the floor.

I've been trying to add some purposeful play into his day.

 

I purchased these wooden stacking blocks at a thrift store in another town over. Only problem was it was missing #1. I was going to leave them, but I decided for 50cents I could find a substitute number 1. Well later that week I went to a local thrift store and what did I find? Another half set of the SAME wooden nesting/stacking blocks for 50cents. Best part was this incomplete set DID have the number 1! I would have kicked myself if I had left behind the first set.

So my 2 year old daycare kiddo and I built the towers and Baby Z knocked them over. Then I let him explore these block. His physiotherapist wanted him to work on taking objects out of later containers, and then once he got that, putting objects into a larger container. I'm proud to say my little guy is doing both skills!

 

We mixed it up a bit with some color stacking cups and a fisher-price shape sorter.

We attempted coloring...

BUT apparently it is more fun to eat crayons then to color with them. Oh well! Try again in a month or two.

We are making a conscience effort to read every day. Right now we have read 220 books since January 1st. Our goal is still to read 2013 books by December 31. We may not get there, but we are having a lot of fun trying!

We are still loving our BrillKids baby software. Baby Z is now starting to look at the right option during the Little Reader games. I also realized how to edit the Little Math lessons to make them in more bite size presentations. Oh and course his eyes still light up during Little Musician, especially during Chord Recognition.

We are going through all the physical flash cards I have sitting in a bucket. This week we managed to retire 30 cards.

All and all this week was a great one! Praying for another great week!

Linked up via Tot School Gathering Place

10 Months old and growing!

Guess who's 10 months old now! Yes you guessed it my little man is 2 months shy of turning the big 1!! 

I have to say I'm really enjoying this age. While Baby Z is not yet full force crawling yet. He is bum scooting and rolling up a storm. He now has 4 teeth. The fourth just cut through a few days ago. He also seems to be drooling a lot again, so I think we might have a few more ready to make their appearance.

Last week we took him to the doctor for his 9 month check up... I know I know we are late. And he was 16lbs 15oz, 27 inches tall and his head circumference of 47cm. So yet again his length and weight are below the 5th percentile, his head is in the 97th. When he was born his head was in the 10th along with the rest of his body. A while back I read on DomanMom's blog about head circumference growth in infancy being an indication of later intelligence. This peaked my interested and I looked it up. If you want to read more about it, you can head over HERE.  

Now that Baby Z is getting bigger and loves to explore I have been organizing like crazy! I've been going from thrift shop to thrift shop, watching online on kijiji and Auction Wars for good deals on educational baby toys(and I mean really educational, not what Fisherprice calls educational), or items I can turn into something for him.

I have been searching high and low for more letters for our Leap Frog Fridge Phonics and Word Whammer. I also go a second set of the Fridge Farm. Right now its mostly exploring, banging blocks together and taking the pieces out that one of us puts in for him, but he's really enjoying it. And I think taking things apart teaches kids just as much as putting them together.

We also have been playing with stacking cups. Right now he's not stacking them up of course, but he's enjoying nesting the smaller ones in larger cups, banging them together and knocking down the towers Daddy builds for him.

Baby Z is really noticing words around him. Last weekend at the grocery store my hubby said to me

" I think his favorite color is blue." I asked him why. He pointed out that he kept staring at the HUGE blue rectangles over each department. I told him, its not the color he's looking at, the HUGE white letters on the rectangle he's looking at! Read him the words! My hubby told him, "That says, MEAT." and Baby Z got super excited and started "Mmmmmahhh, Mmmmmahh." Like he was trying to copy my hubby.

Well fast forward to Tuesday night, I felt like window shopping and Wes was with his dad, so Baby Z and I went out. We arrived at Walmart and I threw Baby Z in my Ergo back carrier and started shopping. I went to pick up some greek yogurt for him when suddenly he starts going crazy. "Dahhh Dahhh eeee". Then I looked up to see what he noticed. Sure enough up over the coolers what a larger sign...

DAIRY.

My heart jumped with joy! Maybe it was a coincidence. But hey, maybe not. For now we will continue all our usual reading programs.

Monkisee- At The Farm Review

Well a few months ago I was asked to review the NEW MonkiSee Educational video. We used it daily for the first month, and now we are using it a few times a week. Baby Z and my daycare kiddos got excited as soon as I grabbed the DVD case.

Those who are regulars to my blog know we have reviewed several of the MonkiSee DVD series. They were very very popular with Wesley when he was younger, now I'm using them with his younger brother and my daycare kids. Unlike other DVD series that teach your baby to read, Monkisee always seems to be expanding their collection. This is important to me, because my kids seem to get attached to the characters of shows and I know they can grow with Howie and Skip, and not have to watch the same old videos. It seems like there is always a new one about to be released. Its amazing to watch this family company group. Its truly a family affair, and its fun to watch Krista(the creator's) children grow up on screen.

MonkiSee- Animals At the Farm is my personal favorite so far. Not only are my children learning how to read the names of the animals. They are also learning tons of great facts about each one. Also at the end I can show my kiddies a more Doman style flashcard session. The main song is very catchy, so be warned you might not be able to get it out of your head.

The only minor issue I had with the video was Howie the Monkey, comes of as a bit of a know it all. correcting Olivia in what I felt was a condescending tone. That being said, I may just be hypersensitive to that.

Its honestly really neat to watch each MonkiSee video improving with each new video released. I'm excited to see how they will top this video, because its going to be a hard act to follow. But I'm sure the people at MonkiSee are up for the challenge.

Be sure to visit monkisee.com and check out their collection of DVDs, Flashcards and books.

Disclaimer: This review is my opinion only. Opinions may very. I was not paid to write this review and was not compensated other then receiving a free copy of this dvd

TouchMath for Homeschooler!! A Review

Well I have wonderful news! For homeschooling and afterschooling parents out there that LOVE TouchMath, but could not afford the classroom size prices, guess what! TouchMath listened!! They have recently released a special AFFORDABLE homeschooling program!!

For those of you that are new to my blog, when Wesley was 4-6 years old I had a real hard time finding a math program that worked well for him. Honestly most of them left him in tears and had me wondering why I could not manage to teach my child math.

Well the answer to my prayers came when I found TouchMath. You can find my past reviews below:
TouchMath Kindergarten Software Review
Touch Math Review!
TouchMath Tutor First Grade Software Review

Also you can read my comparison between TouchMath and another math program we used
Jones Genuises Vs TouchMath

The only negative point to the TouchMath system was the price. The program was designed for the classroom, so there was more material then one family could possible use, and the price tag of just shy of $1000 one year of the program was untouchable to most families.

But the people at TouchMath heard this loud and clear and wanted to make this program available to homeschooling families and families like my own who send their children to public school but don't completely trust the subject of math to the luck of the draw and afterschool their children.

First they created the downloadable worksheets. Which can be found here:
Touchmath Downloadables

These were an awesome first step. Worksheets could be purchased for a reasonable price in bundles and parents could work with their children at home and not break the bank. The only issue with this method was there really was not any guidance for the parent. It was more as a supplement then a full program. For us as a afterschooling family, this worked well.

Then TouchMath blew it out of the park. They created the TouchMath Homeschool Program:

You asked, and we answered! And we think you'll agree that it was worth the wait. For the first time, we now have multisensory TouchMath Homeschool Programs available just for you. The complete pre-K through second grade activity sheets are downloadable by grade level in convenient, cost-effective packages. Each grade level contains hundreds of black and white student activity sheets specifically designed to meet the Common Core State Standards. We've also included complete instruction guides with lesson plans, real-world activities, and testing materials for every topic.

Wesley and I have had the chance to use the Grade Two version(Unit A-D) of the TouchMath Homeschool Program. So far we are on Unit 3A and he is doing very well! Actually the day the links came to me via email and I was opening them up to read what they were about Wesley came up to me. Right away when he saw it was a TouchMath program he was begging me to do a few pages.

What makes this different then the Downloadable worksheets I mentioned earlier is the set up. Each unit in the homeschool program includes a "teachers" guide. This is loaded with useful information on how to teach your child. Each activity builds on what your child has learned in the last activity.

What's included with each unit download?
	Implementation Guide 6 Module Guides with Instructional Strategies 90 Student Activity Sheets 6 Assessments (one per module)	Real World Connections Answer Keys Progress Monitoring Vocabulary

 Each Unit cost $59.95 or you can purchase all 4 Units for $199.95

In my option this product is worth every penny. It is a licence for one household. Meaning younger siblings can use this product after the first is done with it. It is all digital and just requires you to print out the worksheets. I read the parents guide on my computer and print out the worksheets I feel my son needs. So there are no consumable products you need to continue purchasing for each additional child.

Wesley comes home and completes 3-8 worksheets afterschool. Basically we are reviewing a lot of what he has learned at school since he is in the second have of the 2nd grade, but I have found a few holes I have helped him fill them in, like adding or subtracting from the 1's column then moving on to the 10's, then 100's. Plus he is memorizing facts by doing so much review, which in turn is making him a stronger math student. He also has always struggled with word problems and now with all this extra practice he is actually getting stronger at them!

Overall well done TouchMath! I am very excited to continue with this program with my 2nd grader. Also in a few years when Baby Z is older we plan on using the Preschool version of this program too!

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the second grade TouchMath Homeschool Program in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not paid or compensated other then that. Others may have a different experience, and I am not responsible for any loses if you have a different experience then we did.   

First Piano Lesson

Oh I wish I wasn't to busy watching in awe to have thought about taking a picture on my beautiful seven year old boy sitting at the keys of a beautiful grand piano.

It goes to show that he was able to remember a few basics from violin, a heck of a lot from Suzie Piano Primer and Little Musician.

He knew each keys name, played her Mary Had a Little Lamb, which he taught himself and answered a few more of he questions. She decided to skip him up to the second level of the beginners program :D

His teacher seems wonderful. She is a school music teacher by day.

He was just so well behaved I couldn't help but beam with pride. I hope this not only expands his musical knowledge but provides him some much needed discipline to follow through, sit still and pay attention.