Last day of school of First Term 2009

We had a wonderful last day of term last week: Tammy and her family came to our farm for an outing. First we had a lovely picnic on the stoep and then we climbed up the koppie (hill) behind the house. It is not very high or far, but it is quite steep.

Tammy and her brother climbing up the rocks. Since doing water aerobics, Tammy's general muscle tone has improved much and so has her balance and stamina. She climbed up with far greater ease than December last year when they first came to visit.

Tammy's grandmother and her mom.


On top of the world. Tammy still had a fever blister: she had tonsillitis last week. The spare tyre around her waist is slowly but surely getting thinner and thinner.

Ouma Vossie posing with the horse, with brother Shaen and cousin Lee standing by. Tammy has always been fond of horses, so riding had to be included of course. Hendrik was at home, so that worked out well. I wouldn't want to saddle and handle the horses myself.

Tammy on horseback. She has several toy horses. Last year we read "My secret Unicorn". Getting onto the real thing was a little intimidating, but Tammy seemed to really enjoy it.

Big smile before the dismount!

Shaen's turn.

While waiting their turns, the cousins had fun playing with the dogs.

Mommy's turn!

This has been a great term. There has been noteworthy progress in especially the following areas:

• Spelling and ability to "make out" words. Big improvement.
• Pronunciation generally and especially of "long" words like "electricity".
  
• Ability to use multiplication purposefully e.g. every day she has to calculate how many problems or sums she had by adding the amount in a column with the number of columns. (She usually did about 60 sums per day.) After counting and deducting the mistakes, she has to work out the percentage on the calculator. She also converted Rand to Dollars. We will do much more of this as their trip draws close.
• Ability to determine "highest" or "lowest" number.
• Ability to read the thermometer.
• Knowledge of sport (cricket and rugby) and awareness of political parties in South Africa (We have an election coming up.)
• Understanding of the meaning of Easter.
• General fitness and improved muscle tone, coordination and balance

Most noticeable challenges:

• Creative language (Speech and written language).
  
• Adding - this is a bigger problem than multiplication!
  
• To improve her posture
  

Have a Happy Easter. We will be back on 20 April 2009

We're back!

Tamerin did get to see whales and visited a wine farm during their holiday. Yesterday we spent a long time discussing their holiday and she wrote her diary with my help. After writing it, I suggested she copy it and get the modem started while I quickly went to the bathroom. When I came back, she had already connected to the internet, opened her blog, copied her diary inscription and published it with her own heading (albeit without a capital letter). The "big thing" is that she did all the actual blogging totally on her own! I am so proud of her.

Her reading is getting more fluent by the day. Comprehension is also improving steadily. I have not started the 1 minute reading programme again, but remembered about it today and will do so again. (Thanks for the tip Jen!)

After all the theme projects in preparation of the September holidays (Whales, Hermanus, Wine Making, Jan van Riebeeck etc.) we are back to her My Secret Unicorn. The book has helped to expand her vocabulary. Before she knew about 3 emotions: happy, sad and proud. Now she often uses "disappointed" and today "dejected"! I still let her often look up words in the dictionary e.g. today she looked up "suffering" and "wise" during Bible lesson.

Some planned projects for this term: Revision of the route to Durban as the family plan to go there again this weekend, some more history, sewing of bags for gifts, lots of physical exercise, a speech about meerkats (a type of mongoose). (The family has just got a baby Meerkat for pet.) A very special project should be to plan for a prize giving / concert evening towards the end of the school year. All I can do, is take these plans to Jesus and get guidance from Him as to what to do and when to do it. He has proved to be so faithful this year and I believe He will continue to do more miracles in Tamerin's life.