Preparing for Valentine's day

This week's been short due to my swimming the Midmar Mile and taking a day's leave. We spent much time talking about the weekend and Tammy even left a comment on my other blog - she read most of it and wrote the comment all on her own.

For the rest, we practised the High School Musical Dialogue and started to make Valentines. Tamerin talked of own accord about what she wanted to write in the cards: Daddy I miss you (He's gone to Angola for business) God loves you and I love you too. You are special, Much love Tamerin. For her Mom, she wants to say Enjoy your meetings. She is still thinking about what she wants to write in her brother's card.

The Halleluja thing here is, that she is able to string a coherent sentence together. Communication is slowly, but steadily improving!

Tammy's first attempt at sewing a valentine - as you can see there was a lot of undoing!

Pinning "slippery" pieces of material together and getting the edges even! Not so easy, but Tammy has shown great improvement here, since last year. (Her very first sewing attempt was for Valentine's day last year - she was terrified of the machine!)

Taking out her valentine.

Her second attempt - the 2nd curve did not come out to neatly, but the first one's not bad he? (There was black thread in the bobbin and we did not bother to replace it with red - which turned out to be a good thing as it was easier to see the thread when she had to unpick!)

She stuffed the valentines with lavendar and attached them to her cards. She typed her own text in tables and copied and pasted some pictures we found on the web. She is sooo excited about the cards!

Sewing a T-shirt Sewing and Speech Progress

Tamerin is busy pinnng the sleeve to her T-sleeve. Today she has sewn so neatly, I am very happy. Yesterday, she had to unpick quite a bit. Pinning T-shirt material is not easy: she struggles to get the edges of the material to meet and yet, she succeeds surprisingly well! After the sleeves, she has to do the neck line. Please pray that this will come out neatly! It will be a big dissapointment if the shirt is an embarrasment to wear! So far it looks OK - not as neat as the skirt, but not too bad.

She is not keen on sewing, but was nonetheless very proud to show her work to her Grandmother when she visited on Tuesday. The idea is that the T-shirt will be finished in time for their holidays at the coast, so I am putting on a little pressure here. (Besides I need my sewing machine at home!) We had better choose an easier project for the last term, but the way she is working now, we might consider another "easy" garment.

Her speech on the Southern Right Whale is coming along very promisingly! She really tries hard.

What a joy to see her progress! Praise God for such an obedient, eager child.

Progress in typing and general activities

Although it is nearly spirng, today is bitterly cold. It is cloudy and rather miserable. I was hoping to go for a walk, but don't feel like it in this weather. Tamerin also opted for "exercises". It is break right now, so I quickly want to update.
Tamerin's typing is improving much: she types her diary on her own in "Diary originals" (usually for homework). Then she copies it onto her "Diary" file where I help her to correct it and to add news that she has shared with me verbally, but not in writing. I always let her read what she has typed and more and more she finds her mistakes herself: e.g. where she has left out a word or a letter or where her word order is all wrong. When the diary of the day has been completed, she copies it to her blog. (See bloglist). She has really come a long way from the beginning of the year: she can type simple sentences on her own, but I cannot yet say that she can write her diary on her own. She also enjoys copying Bible verses. Ability to copy and to understand what she has typed has also improved much. Slowly but surely she masters spelling without formal spelling sessions. Ordering words or "license plate" letters in alphabetical order is also a favourite activity.
Her speech remains a problem. She likes to "practice" pattern sentences though and it seems to help. We have also started to dramatize a monologue - adapted from her reader "My Secret Unicorn." She loves this.
With the Olympic Games and Tri Nations Rugby going on, we are practising the National Anthem. She sings it with me, but not on her own yet. (Whispers when I try to get her to sing it on her own - with the words in front of her.)
Last week she cut out a top for the skirt she had sewed last term. The pattern stated stretch fabrics only, so we got T-shirting, but it was far more difficult to cut out than the skirt. Hopefully we will start to sew today. Tamerin is not too keen on sewing, but I believe such life skills are very important for her, so we try. Pray that the top will be a success and completed before the family leaves on holiday at the end of September!
Next week we will try to organise private horse riding lessons. When we tried last time, the roster was full!

Success with sewing!

Amy is busy making her skirt and so far she is doing fine! She threads the machine with a little help and she can thread a needle: both the sewing machine needle and an ordinary needle. I am pleasantly surprised. At the beginning of the year, she could barely hold a pin or a needle and now she can thread it and baste with it! She can stitch fairly straight with the machine, but I have to stand close by and watch, otherwise her mind wanders and she does not always look what she is doing, so we have had a session with the "Quick unpick" as well. She has had to measure the width of the casing and fold it over herself. She needed a little help here, but I think she has the basic idea. At the moment she is busy threading the elastic through the top of her skirt and the great moment of fitting it on is nearly on us! However, then she still has to put in the hem!!

Learning to stitch a seam and to put in a hem are some of the life skills I planned to teach her. Our homeschooling aim is to teach her the basic life skills she will need to live on her own one day. Mending or altering clothes seemed more important to me than being able to embroider or knit - skills that are often taught to special needs children but for what? Embroidery is often expensive and if not well done, no one wants it. However, I admit that such activities could be relaxing and we will hopefully get to them, once Amy can really sew. I am convinced she will be able to sew clothes on her own one day and not only be able to put in a hem or sew on a button!

I am so proud on what she has achieved so far.... will blog about the finished skirt.

Fractions and dress patterns

Going to the shops, reading prices and counting money have been regular school activities. Amy knows that there are 100c in R1, that 1/2 Rand is R0.50, a 1/4 Rand is R0.25 etc. She also knows that if you have to divide 7 in half the answer is 7 1/2 or 7.5.

Part of her life skill plan is to learn to sew with a sewing machine. She has sewn a little: she practiced stitching without thread on lines on paper. She has also made a couple of bags - usually to put in Mother's Day cards etc. She is not fond of sewing because she dislikes the noise of the machine, but once we get started she actually enjoys it.

Amy and I went to the shop recently to search for a simple skirt pattern that she could make herself. She was not very enthusiastic, but agreed to a long A-line skirt with an elasticized waist. Her mother had long before bought material for a skirt, but they never got round to making it. I planned to let Amy use that material for making her skirt.

Today I let her read the back of the pattern to determine how much material was needed for the long skirt. (First I had to explain the difference between inches and cm and yards and meters and why we had to read the French side of the pattern. Fortunately my measuring tape has inches and centimeters) Anyway she could read that she needed 2 m for the long skirt. We then measured the piece of the material: 130 cm. It was not difficult for her to "translate" 130 cm into 1.3 m, since she is used to converting cents to Rands. She then had to see how much extra material she would need to make the long skirt: a subtraction sum and a visual measuring of 70 cm on the measuring tape. Once she realized that the material was not enough for the long skirt, she seemed quite happy to make the short one, and even showed her brother which pattern on the packet she was going to make.

Then we measured the width of the folded material: 72 cm. As the material was folded she had to add 72 + 72 to get the total width. The material is not the required the 150 cm, but what the heck, we cut out the paper pattern and tomorrow we'll lay it out on the material to see whether
the short skirt pattern will fit.

Once again I was amazed to see how much math's and reading go into a life skill like sewing a skirt. She had to measure and read the tape, she had to understand fractions, she had to subtract, she had to measure again, she had to add (double) and then she had to cut! There are so many opportunities to apply class room math's to every day life and each time it is fun. I can see how Amy blossoms each time when she succeeds with a new life skill!

I pray that the skirt will be a success and that she will be motivated to keep on sewing!