Poles!

Mustang’s ski instructor told her last Saturday that she’s ready to start skiing with poles!!! They start the kids off with no poles, to ensure proper balance and control, and add poles once they’ve demonstrated good technique. Mustang was quite excited about this; she’s been wanting to use poles since her first day skiing.

Our friend DC came skiing with us last Saturday; she took the kids down the big hill once before their class and again after lunch for about two and a half hours. She said “they’re little speed demons!” – yes, they both like going fast, especially Button. I climbed partway up one of the slopes to watch them come down; close to where I stood was a little section of bumps. The kids aimed for the bumps to get some lift under their skis; Button fell both times I saw him try to go over (but that didn’t deter him the slightest!), whereas Mustang fell once but the second time she made it over upright.

Kids are looking forward to a long weekend – PD Day on Friday and provincial holiday on Monday. Nothing much scheduled, just fun time at home and of course skiing on Saturday. Button was coughing a lot this morning; hope he doesn’t come down with bronchitis like Mustang had week before last.

I think I’ve found a series of exercises to work on spelling that will work better than the routine stuff her teacher was sending home as spelling practice. One evening we spell the words using clay letters; one evening practice typing them; one evening use a special mat with alphabet letter cards to spell them; and one evening do some pencil & paper practice. More varied, more hands-on, and gets the typing involved too. She’s got almost the whole alphabet down with the typing; just a few letters on the bottom row left to learn. We’ve only been using this routine for a few weeks so I’m not 100% sure how well it will work, but it seems a better “fit” to me at least.

Now I’m turning my attention to trying to figure out how to work with her on math. Again, looking for some more hands-on activities as well as potentially software or games that can both teach and reinforce the math concepts and provide more practice. Any ideas?