Reconnecting: July 2013

Flying into Salt Lake City!

Home Sweet Home...in Preston!

Wow, Mom and Dad have a big, beautiful backyard!

Amy, Me and Shellie...reconnecting at Aunt Mae's funeral.

The Gregory side:  Uncle Jay, Aunt Elaine, Uncle Morris, Uncle Darvel

"Do it, Kevin...I'll stay dry and snap pictures."

Seeing Tami as a Mom, for the first time.  Nice to meet you baby Shane.

Kryshelle, Todd and Mark.  Todd's kids are almost all grown up!

Here's a shot with JoLynn and Brady as well.  No pics of Alec?  Well, we hung out with him as well.

Out and about with Amy's family.  Blake, Tyler, Colton, Ali

Hey, I remember when Thrive was merely an idea that might be lucrative. So impressive now!

Steve's Katie, Duncan, Miles and Ava arrived from Denver.  Nice to meet you little Duncan!

Enjoying the Sundance tour with Bryan and Kevin.

Me, Collin, Austin, Gavin and Kevin

And there's little Kylie.

Thanks for all the memories!  This was such a unique vacation for me because I traveled by myself while all my kids and Travis stayed in Florida.  Mom and Dad are living in Minnesota so this was also the first time I've been back without even seeing them.  Rachel's wedding is on the last day of my visit.  That's why I planned the trip. Wish I could have spent time with Janeal and her family before the wedding day...but that's the way it turned out. The wedding was lovely.  Those pictures will be in my next post...

Swim Team: 2013

Ballet/Contemporary/Acro Recital: 2013

music

Veni Veni Emmanuel

Dating back to the 12th century Veni, Veni Emmanuel is a perfect advent hymn because it looks forward to the arrival, or advent, of our Savior. This really is a beautiful version and good for my Latin students to hear and study.

   

To help with translation, here it is in English.

I also love, love this musical piece.  Such a powerful and humble expression.

10 reasons to teach cursive handwriting

1.Relative ease in introducing cursive penmanship to preschoolers.

Contrary to common beliefs, it is very easy to teach cursive handwriting. It only requires 3 movements: undercurve, overcurve and up and down. Print handwriting necessitates an even more complex stroke of straight lines and perfect circles.

2.Prevents reversals and confusion of letters

The letters "b and d", "f and t", "g, q and p" are confusing for young children. In cursive, writing the letter "b and d" require a huge difference in directionality.

3.Enhances spelling ability

In cursive, children learn to spell correctly since hand movements create some muscle memory that retains the spelling patterns.

4.Develops internal control systems that can be used as tool for learning

In a cursive writing, the incorporation of movement, pressure and visual processing is a bit multifaceted. This augments visual spacial and coordination skills. In writing lowercase letters in print, six strokes are required against three movements in cursive writing. Fluent movement is developed. With cursive writing practice, the neuron connections in the brain, responsible for organizing other kinds of information and skills, are greatly strengthened.

5.Potential for errors are diminished

Cursive handwriting reduces errors because of the continuous flow of writing. In print, the child picks up the pencil from the paper to start a new letter in a word, thus the potential for mistakes is higher.

6.Improved reading skills

The goal in reading is to read words instead of letters at a time. Cursive writing promotes reading words, instead of a distinct letter. After words, reading will move to sentences. Thus, remedial support for comprehension and reading of words are occurring less. The child reads what he or she writes as "whole words" rather than as individual letters.

7.Enforces the skills for patterns in reading and writing

Unlike print writing, lower case cursive writing starts from the same beginning point. In print, various letter start from the top, down, middle and many different positions . Letter inversions and reversals are eliminated.

8. Prevents erratic spaces between letters and words

In cursive, the flow of writing moves from left to right. It teaches spatial discipline. In print, the child's handwritings are difficult to discern. The spaces between words are so tight. It is hard to tell where the words begin and end.

9. Helps Left Handed Children

In print, the left-handed child proceeds to write printing from left to right but will cover what he has written with his arms. This is called the hook position. In cursive writing, the left-handed child learns to write from bottom up and turns the paper clockwise causing great comfort and legibility.

10.Use as a tool to put thoughts on paper quickly and easily

Mastery of cursive will be to the advantage of any student in the long-run. The child will be able to write faster. The student can get his or her ideas on paper quicker. It can also be advantageous in taking notes from lectures.

Conclusion:

The handwriting of our present generation is pathetic. The generation of our grandmothers are proud of their cursive handwriting because they labored to perfect the art of cursive handwriting. With print being taught first in schools and many home school curricula, bad habits are acquired that are difficult to break. The shocking proportions of learning disabilities including Dysgraphia and Dyslexia in our generation may be to a certain extent, be related to print handwriting.

Promotion

San Felix, Panama

Travis recently had the opportunity to travel down to Panama and help build an orphanage home.  His mission trip only took up ten days of his personal time but the blessings were abundant.  The Lord blessed the efforts of the missionary team with hard work, many prayers, discipleship and friendship within each other and with the local Panamanian people.  They made a lot of progress during this trip but there is still work to be done on the building.   Who knows, maybe he will find himself there again in September for the next phase.  Here's a little video I pulled together to share a glimpse of his mission trip.  To God be all the glory.

Knowing and Teaching Math

Later this month I'll be attending a homeschool practicum that will focus on the subject of Mathematics.  Doing math is not what I WANT to do this summer, but learning the why and the what to know, about math and how to teach it sounds like a good thing for me and my kids.   So here's a link for me to do a little reading on the subject before I attend my practicum.

Missionary update from Panama

Travis is in Panama this week.  We haven't heard from him since he left a message saying he arrived in Panama City and was loading up in the van.  He had a five hour road trip ahead of him before arriving San Feliz.  Finally, this email showed up today.  

I am soooo bummed that I can´t call you or contact you as much as I would like.  We are definately in a third world country here.  I borrowed a guy´s laptop here (the son of the woman who cooks for us) so I could e-mail you.  It´s hard to type.  The keyboard layout is different and I keep hitting the wrong keys.  

Most of the people here haven´t gotten an opportunity to speak to their families because there just isn´t internet or telephone service unless you want to activate your cell service from the U.S. and pay major $$$.  One guy here had to pay $300.00 last time.  Ehhhhh!

We´re having a great time and getting a lot of work done.  I´m taking a lot of pictures so you can see what we are doing.  We did go to the ocean and swim for a few minutes at the end of the day yesterday and swam in a river the day prior to that.  It´s hot here and we just sweat all day long.  

I´d like to tell you more, but there are a several others here who want to send a quick note to their families.

I love you all so much and miss you tons!

Ballet