Observations | For my children

Writing/Work Samples

I’ve enjoyed tracking their ever changing writing styles. Sometimes I have been so excited to capture their growth in sharpening proper letter formation. Other times I have had to witness their lazy and rushed attitude for just completing the assignment. Either way, I am happy that technology allows me to capture these moments.

After completing our lesson on letter writing, Jackson had to address and send a thank you letter in the mail.

Our topic was to write about “Girls”

Topic, “write about a time when someone helped you”

By Jackson, simple yet priceless with the conversation between “Jackson and Elijah”

This was what Jackson made for Debbie’s birthday.
He used the lesson of Dogs in our “Draw Write Now” Art activities.

Morning writing assignments for Abigail was to make thank you notes for her birthday gifts.

We also sent letters to Aunt Brooke, Uncle Mikey, Jaydie and Elijah, and Nana and Papaw.
Hopefully hand written thank you’s will be a skill they use forever!

Abigail’s angel

By Abigail, this is her with Jackson and Isabela pretending to be angels

Abigail’s three treasures…her puppy, her bunny, and her blankie

For the past month Jackson has started reading “The Magic Tree House” books by Mary Pope Osborne. He has completed books 1-4. These four books are about the mystery of the tree house where the characters travel to the time of dinosaurs, medieval times with a knight, ancient Egypt with a mummy, and with pirates searching for a buried treasure.

At the end of each book he takes a written test.
We look forward to reading all 28 books in “The Magic Tree House” series.

A sample of Social Studies assessment chapter 4

A recent Spelling test of Jackson’s

Abigail is very proud of herself…me too!

Isabela “plays” school with her circles, letter I and X, and a triangle.

School time is a blessed time! The moments are full of sweat, tears, frustrations, and zapped energies…however we are a little more educated, a little more prepared, and a whole lot stronger for it. I love being the teacher of my three!

December 15, 2013
Categories: Abigail's Art, Abigail's Work, Isabela's Work, Jackson's Art, Jackson's Work, Observations, School Related . . Author: Julie M Hall . Comments: Leave a comment

A Little More March…Waiting on Spring

These COLD spring days are keeping us inside and on most days out of the vineyard. Plenty of time for dress up and pretend play.
A few nights ago while playing in the tub, Abigail asked if she could be a mermaid when she grew up. I naturally said “you can be whatever you want” without giving it much thought. Jackson quickly jumped in the conversation saying “no way Abigail, if you are a mermaid, we will never see you because you will be living far away in the ocean without us!”

Topic: Trains, By Jackson Sawyer

Taking a ride in Jackson’s Tonka dump truck he received on his first birthday, all three have LOVED this toy!
I am so excited about Isabela’s blooming conversation. She is putting words together and speaking in phrases. Jackson and Abigail are noticing it also and cheer her on always with excitement. She came to me with a pouty whine showing me a scratch on her hand and said, “ow, kiss boo boo.” Once I kissed it and put some cream on it she flashed a sweet big smile at me and said, “tink you mom-my!” Those are the new, melt my heart, favorite three words!

In Science we have been studying the concept that dirt is made up of bits of rock, dead plants, and dead animals. For a fun activity we observed the wiggly creatures who live beneath our feet. We filled a jar with thin layers of soil, sand, dead leaves, and then added worms. It was exciting to see our neat layers of soil and sand quickly change from the busy worms.

Abigail sitting under completed pruned vines, with a puppy of course.

Isabela insist on doing EVERYTHING Jackson and Abigail do. I enjoy watching her chase their frisbee, run with it, and then toss it away!

St. Patrick’s Day Pruning

Love this photo, so simple. I have one of all three, this age, standing alone under the long rows facing the empty lake. Photos like these make me wonder what their little minds think as they look at such big open spaces.

Getting a head start on spring seeds…indoors. Isabela enjoying the planting with a mouthful of Goldfish!

This year we are trying a Burpee Self Watering Seed Starting System. The individual cells for holding the tiny seeds are very close together. Very busy hands of my three probably combined many of the seeds. Water, soil, and seeds were everywhere! Should be interesting to see how it grows!

For starters we planted some of our herbs-Cilantro, Sweet Basil, Dill, and Chamomile, as well as the Big Boy Hybrid Tomato. Next month we will start many of our flowering annuals to fill our flower beds.

Isabela happily holding “Ra-toon” up to the front door to watch the spring “sn-o.”

I don’t know who is more excited about this milestone, Jackson, Abigail, or myself! Abigail finally made it to 100 and before the Easter Bunny visits! I love to see her build her confidence by her own hard work! She blooms with pride and excitement, and it feels like magic seeing her learn and actually like it. I equally like her big brother being just as happy and cheering her on…although he quickly let her know he “was way far from 100, he had made it to 1000!”

Although the calendar said the season had changed, for the second day in a row we have snow! Another great opportunity in the study of Science and Weather to prove that we can have winter precipitation even in the spring!

March 25, 2013
Categories: Abigail's Work, Jackson's Art, Jackson's Work, Memories, Observations, Photos, Vineyard . . Author: Julie M Hall . Comments: Leave a comment

Butterfly! The Conclusion to our Science Experiment 9/29/12

We’ve been busy around here watching, observing, and of course waiting for our science experiment to reveal herself. We have answered LOTS of times, how many days might be left, as well as why it won’t be able to continue living here once it has transformed into a butterfly.

Saturday morning we noticed some color showing in the chrysalis so we knew it wouldn’t be long.

Abigail wanted to examine it closely to see if she could see her caterpillar friend.

Honestly, looking minutes later, this is what we found. A very fragile looking butterfly with small crumpled wings and big eyes.

Each of them couldn’t believe what a beautiful butterfly was in our jar.

Abigail can’t decide if she is happy or sad. Her caterpillar friend is gone and now we have to release the new butterfly!

Isabela couldn’t decide if she was happy or scared. Lots of sounds and emotions from this girl.

The tiny details of this creature were amazing!

After being silly on the back porch, we decided to take the butterfly to Nana and Papaw’s house to release.

Once out of the jar it immediately took hold of Jackson’s finger! He was amazed by this.

Jackson placed the butterfly on Isabela and it never offered to fly away. She wasn’t too sure about it but didn’t cry.

I love this picture! A happy boy proud to have learned and witnessed this amazing life cycle. Finally the butterfly lifted off of his finger and took flight. We watched it disappear into the trees and were thankful our cat or a bird didn’t capture this new fragile life.

By Abigail, she wrote her name, drew her picture, and copied my word BUTTERFLY.

By Jackson, he summarized his thoughts with some help on the spelling and then illustrated his butterfly.

September 30, 2012
Categories: Abigail's Art, Abigail's Work, Jackson's Art, Jackson's Work, Moments of Joy, Observations . . Author: Julie M Hall . Comments: Leave a comment

Our Science Observation 9/17/12

We found a caterpillar this past Monday. I was probably more excited than the other three because I had been scouring our fields here and at the vineyard for a caterpillar on milkweed. However, this caterpillar was not found on the milkweed, it was found from our herb garden on, as Jackson refers to it, (the pickle plant)dill.

We put it in the jar and from my experience in the classroom thought we had a Monarch. After a little research I decided we probably didn’t have the Monarch we had hoped we did, we hadn’t found it on milkweed! A Black Swallowtail caterpillar looks almost identical to a Monarch with the exception that it had a ‘scent horn’ that it raised from it’s head when disturbed, and we did disturb it!

We fed it lots of dill, parsley, and carrot tops and they couldn’t believe how big and long it grew! We had many teary eyed discussions over the caterpillar soon making a chrysalis with both Jackson and Abigail-her not wanting her caterpillar friend to disappear! Finally on Sunday morning six days later, the caterpillar had vanished!

It never made the “J” as the Monarch in years past had and the chrysalis was not the perfect green jewel hanging. Instead it attached part of itself to the stick and in a matter of hours this is what we saw! Now we wait to observe what beautiful butterfly will emerge! We’ll keep you posted.