This fall marked the beginning of Hayzel's preschool year in home school. Officially we don't have to report to the state until he is in 1st grade, but we've decided to begin with homeschooling as early as possible. Due to the move the
Rolon Clan made from NY state to the apartment right above us this year has proven to be much more exciting for us. We do many more extracurricular activities, and it's been a blast!
In September Hayzel joined the Salem Youth Soccer League as his Physical Education. He was a Leopard along with his best friend, Jayden. Following are a few pictures of our season, which I will admit started out kinda rough for Hayzel. By the end, however, he became a regular Beckham........almost.
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| First Day! |
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We also became more active with the science classes that took place at Imajine That. Teacher Becky is amazing at coming up with really neat things for the kids to do and they look forward to her lessons every week. So far we've made slime, lava lamps, volcanoes, dug for dinosaurs and became experts on rocks. Below are a few pictures of our science adventures at IT!
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| Making Dinosaur tracks after we dug them out! |
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| Making slime! |
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| After water comes the glue |
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| Add some Borax |
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| Mix it all together |
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| add some food coloring and you got slime! |
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| They were so excited to bring the slime home. |
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| Looking at rock and twigs through the magnifying glass. |
A few of Hayzel's favorite activities at IT are face painting and creating works of art.
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| A regular Picasso |
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| Messy! |
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| The "skelly" matched his skeleton shirt |
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| His puppy dog face |
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On the 17th of September our town held their annual SalemFest. It was a beautiful day and the kids enjoyed all the activities they participated in.
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| Cotton Candy! |
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| A real race car! |
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| We even made the local paper! |
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In October we went to a Halloween party at IT.
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| Can you guess who I am? |
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| It's ahmeee! Mario! His favorite character of all time. |
We got a light dusting of snow sometime before Halloween. The snow started around 7:30pm, and Hayzel was so excited we took 5 minutes before bedtime to go play in the snow.
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| First snow of the season! |
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| Look at that smile! |
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| Yum! |
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As the end of soccer season approached, we decided to start swimming classes at the Boys and Girls Club as their winter PE. I cannot swim because I am terrified of the water, but Hayzel has shown a real interest in swimming. Classes began last Thursday and below are a few pics of how that went.
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| So excited! |
He loves it! It also serves as a motivator for good behavior throughout the week.
Finally, don't think we've been slacking on our academics. As of today, Hayzel is doing basic addition in math. He can add up to the number 10 with the help of his fingers and his beloved abacus.
He can read words that end with -an, -at,-ad, -ig, and -it. He also can sight read sight words on signs such as exit, no smoking, stop, and all the names of his favorite shows on the dvr.
His penmanship is a work in progress, but we do daily practice to help it along. Right now he is having trouble with the number 5 and the letters y,z,e.
He loves to play video and computer games and shows the promise of living up to the NESS 33 name. He enjoys playing his Jumpstart software on my pc, and Nickelodeon games online. He shows initiative and sneakiness by looking up MarioKart videos on Youtube while my back is turned. He uses the Wii game case as a guide on writing the name of the games.
Finally, Hayzel has come to believe that all the answers to the world are on Google. Sometimes he'll catch me off guard with a question and I'll answer, "I don't know", to which he replies, "Then Google it, Mommy.' Very recently we looked up where "poop" goes after it's flushed down the toilet using Google. Very educational!
If he continues at the pace he is going, I anticipate that Hayzel will be at a 1st grade level in all areas of academics by the end on this school year (Memorial Day weekend). This fills my heart with pride and joy and only cements my belief that home school is the answer for us.
I hope you've all enjoyed this really long update!
Stayed tuned!
May
