Counting 100 Days of School

By Amy

As I alluded in my last post, the kids and I are counting our school days. Savannah and I really enjoyed counting her 100 reading lessons, so I thought counting school days would be fun too. We're planning a "100 days of school party." (Thanks, Goodin -- I think I got that idea from you!)

We are counting days of school two ways: 1. We put a straw in a ziploc bag hanging from a bulletin board, and display the appropriate number (ie-if there are 6 straws in the bag, we make sure the number 6 is showing through the bag.) When we get 10 straws, we'll bundle them all together, and move them to the left one slot, display a 1 in that bag and a 0 in the bag to the right (1 next to 0- 10)....it's to teach place value. We'll see if it works!

2. We're also putting together a 300 piece jigsaw puzzle! Each day, each kid gets to find their puzzle piece with today's number on it and put it up on the board. The catch to that is that Brad and I spent several hours putting the puzzle together so I could number the pieces systematically. You read correctly...My wonderful husband sat at the kitchen table with me for over 2 hours working on this puzzle! What a man! (Puzzles are not his favorite thing!) It took quite a while, but the kids really seem to like it and are having fun trying to guess what they are seeing.

Here's a picture of our other bulletin board. It's over the school table in Savannah's room. The big, red rectangle is where the kids stick their puzzle pieces each day. They started in the top left hand corner and will work their way around clockwise.

FYI- I got most of the ideas from a website my friend Rachel told me about. If you're interested, here's the link: http://www.jmeacham.com/calendar/calendar.htm

School has Started!

By Amy

Monday, July 21, school started in the Morello home! Such an odd date to start, I know, but at least it was a Monday! I decided that since Savannah and I were super excited about starting school, we'd go ahead and begin. I also really enjoy having a schedule. And, since we tend to travel quite a bit, I figured if we started school early -- in July, I wouldn't feel too bad taking off a week here or there to travel.

Getting ready for school to start was pretty time-consuming -- hence my absence from blogging for several weeks! I had tons of things to cut out, charts to make, and bullitin boards to put together, etc. But, when I finally finished, after 10pm the Sunday night before we started, I was excited!

Here's what a typical day looks like:


8-8:45 Savannah and I do math and histoy, while the boys play together or with Brad. (sometimes he works with them to learn the local language.)


8:45-9:05ish is "Morning Chores" time -- the kids get dressed, straighten, make beds, etc.


9:00-9:45 I have all three kids at the school table. This time is super fun! We check off our chores and memory verses, move the appropriate symbol to the "Today's weather is:" spot, fill in a weather graph, say today's date together and look at a calendar. We also sing a "days of the week" song and talk about what day yesterday was and what tomorrow will be. We do our 100 days of school countdown, read a Bible story, sing our worship song of the week and pray. It's gone really well, so far.


9:45-10:15 Savannah does independent work or plays in her room while I work with one of the boys. (The other one does leap pad, or plays in his room. We alternate days.) I'll use this time to help them learn letter sounds, beginning sounds, rhyming, writing letters and numbers, etc.


10:15-11:00 Savananh and I do her phonics-language arts curriculum while the boys play or color. On Tuesday and Thrusday, she has a hands-on-activity or experiment to do, so the boys are usually included in that.


11:00-11:30 Savannah reads to me. When Brad goes back to school, Savannah will read to me and the boys together. (Right now the boys are usually playing with Brad during that time.)


11:45 we eat lunch while I read aloud to the kids. They have loved our first read-a-loud, The Box Car Children.


Then, by about 12:30, all boys go down for naps (including Brad!) and Savannah heads to her room for some down time. At 2:00, we wake Alex. (Peter rarely sleeps) and head out the door for all three kids to spend 2 hours at a local "Kindergarten." It's actually more like a daycare program. It's the same school Savannah attended before the hand, foot, and mouth outbreak a few months ago. They are at school from about 2:45 to 4:45 every afternoon.


Savannah was/is really excited to be heading back to school and has really enjoyed getting to play with the kids again. Alex and Peter seem to be pretty positive towards going to school, but of course, they have each other. I'm not sure how effective this will be in helping them make friends and and practice the local language when they can talk to each other all the time. We'll see. Here are a couple of pics of the boys in their classroom.

Belated Birthday

By Amy

Well, actually it wasn't a belated birthday -- just a belated post.... But, here are the pictures and details you've all been waiting for...

Savannah's birthday fell on a Saturday this year. And, since we already have plans every Saturday for lunch and all afternoon, we decided to celebrate Savannah's day on the Friday before. Needless to say, Savannah thought that was a great idea, but she wanted to open half her presents on Friday and save half for Saturday. No problem!

About a week before her birthday, she reached one of the reading goals we had set. So, instead of going out for ice cream, she opted for an early birthday present. So, while Savannah I did school at the kitchen table, Brad went into her room and set up her gift...

A pink tent!!

It actually turned out to be a little bigger than I expected, but that's OK. All three kids love it! For several nights we let them all sleep in it together -- which is what they did on the Thursday night before we celebrated Savannah's birthday.

On Friday morning she got to eat coffee cake for breakfast, then, got to look at the birthday cake I had made for her.... Now, you know the saying, "Like Mother-Like Daughter"? Well, Savannah is like her Mama! When she gets something in her head, she knows exactly what she wants, and it's hard to convince her anything else will do.... Usually in our family, the kids get to tell me what kind/shape birthday cake they want, but they don't get to see it until the morning of their birthday. But, I asked Savannah if she'd help me ice her cake. She politely declined, saying she wanted it to be a surprise -- "but I want the cross to be pink, with blue outline and a yellow heart in the middle with blue flowers next to it....." YIKES! I wasn't sure I could make it the way she wanted. (And if I did, would it be a surprise?)

She said it turned out a little different than she expected (like the purple sides and yellow at the bottom) but that made it better, not worse! Whew! I was afraid she was going to be disappointed!
Here are all three kids...notice the lovely homemade birthday hats!

After eating coffee cake and checking out the birthday cake, we threw on bathing suits and went downtown. Savannah wanted to run through the fountains at the big square. The fountains turn on three times a day -- typically. They are choreographed to music --it's pretty fun! Even though it wasn't super sunny, it was warm enough to enjoy getting wet! And, needless to say, we attracted quite a crowd! Brad got the "Parent of the Year" award for joining in the fun!

My kids really do eat here, it just doesn't stick to their bones like it does to their Mama's!

After playing in the fountains, we planned on returning home to eat lunch. Savannah requested that Leigh make her favorite -- Sweet 'n sour chicken, to be complemented by mac'n cheese (interesting combo!) But, just before we got in a taxi, Leigh called to say that our home had no electricity or water, so she couldn't cook lunch. No one was too sad when we redirected to the McD's at the Square.

After lunch we decided to return home to survey the situation, get out of bathing suits, and bring Leigh a burger. As we got out of the taxi, I realized that having no electricity means we couldn't take the elevator up 13 stories to reach our home! It was a long hike, but we made it! And, 10 minutes after we got home everything was back on.

That afternoon, we opened gifts, played a new game -- Sorry - Thanks Grandma! Then, we ate Volcanoes for dinner, a family favorite (also requested on the boys' birthday), and ate birthday cake. Did I mention that Savannah's cake wasn't a special shape because she wanted a round, double-layer lethal peppermint chocolate cake? Like I said, Like Mother - Like Daughter! It was quite yummy, if I do say so myself!

So, overall, it was a great day! Savannah is a precious gift from our Father above, and we rejoice in the 6 years of life He's given her! She's growing into a godly, mature young girl, and we're so proud of her!

Cultural Funnies

From Brad.

It's scary what you can learn from T.V. Although many of you agree with this statement, it is especially true when it comes to learning a new language. I have a friend who has been working on his English. He can communicate with me pretty well, but it is certainly broken English at best. However, it was great the other day when he came in and dropped a 'that's dope' on me. No, he wasn't referring to the powdered sugar on the table, he was using an expression that some in the US use when they want to say 'that's really cool'. You see, he watched the entire season of Prison Break and subsequently bought the book with his local language and the English. Now he's been combing through the English to try to learn some new phrases. That one was definately new (not sure I have ever even heard it live). Then he noticed that one black guy on the show kept calling the main star (a white man) 'snowflake'. He asked, 'do you often call people that?' 'Should I use that?'

Secondly, the kids and I took a local friend to dinner the other night. We ordered some shrimp dumpings (among other things) and thought they were quite nice. After dinner, the kids wanted to see the aquariums. Many restaurants here have lots of aquariums inside so you can see (sometimes choose) the 'fresh' seafood they have available. Well as we made our way over there to say hi to the turtles, clams, and large-instestine-looking seafood something?!?, I noticed a shrimp tank. As I looked closer I noticed 90% of the shrimp were on the floor of the aquarium not moving a muscle. Sometimes its better just not to know.

She Did it!!

By Amy


Back in April, when I started teaching Savannah how to read, we set a goal to complete all 100 lessons by her birthday (That gave me about 103 days, incuding weekends.) Back in April, the lessons were really simple and we could easily do 2 lessons a day. Therefore, I figured we'd have no problem finishing by her birthday. Well, the lessons soon became more difficult...then, we planned a family vacation (who wants to do school on vacation!?!?), so there were several times I wasn't sure we were going to make it. But we did! Savannah was really motivated, therefore so was I. We even finished with one day to spare!


The other day, as I was getting lunch on the table, I looked in the living room and this is what I saw....


Savannah was reading Alex and Peter one of their favorite "Choo-Choo train" books. Fun times! I'm really proud of her! Peter and Alex are pretty excited too!

Vacation Highlights

by Amy

Wow...where has the time gone? Thanks, Julia for encouragement to get back to the blog! :) I can hardly believe that our vacation was almost 6 weeks ago and I haven't posted pics yet! So much has happened over the last few weeks, that it will take several posts to catch you up! But, since school is starting on Monday, I hope to have more time to blog (more about school starting later) Now...back to our super-fab, really-fun family vacation!

We went down to a HUGE city in the southern part of our country. We had never been there before, so since we could get such cheap airline tickets, (under $600 for 5 round-trip tickets!) we decided to check it out! It was great!! This city had tons of fun things to do with kids! We were there for six full days and only returned to the hotel for naps twice. Needless to say, our kids were worn out by the end of the day!

We spent one whole day in a really big mall. How could a family of 5 (with three kids, 5 and under) spend an entire day in mall, you ask? Well, this mall was full of rare finds (rare in Asia that is.) It had a huge bookstore with a pretty good selection of English books; a large "Chuck-E-Cheese" type arcade for kids, a really nice movie theater, Burger King, Starbucks, Dairy Queen, and a Toys R Us! We spent at least two hours in Toys R Us playing. My parents gave the kids money for their birthdays, so they all got to pick out a favorite new toy -- within reason, of course!

Another day we went to a huge indoor play area called Fun Dazzle. It's like a McDonalds play area on steroids. It has big slides, tons of things to climb and rope bridges. My kids (along with the two other children there on a Wednesday morning) found it to be a great place to play hide 'n seek! They had a blast and were worn out afterwards. So, Brad took the kids back to the hotel for one of their two naps of the week while I headed off to scope out IKEA....

I was never a big fan of IKEA in America. I always felt like once you started waking, you could never get out! It's the same way in Asia-land, but now I love it! I love all the decorating ideas they have and their prices are not bad -- especially for those hard-to-find-in-Asia items -- like candles, measuring cups, bakeware, cute dishes, serving pieces, and organizational things. It was a treat to feel like I could take my time and browse.

Another day we spent at a super fun science museum! My kids loved it! All of the exhibits were in English and Asianese, so that was nice. Their favorite part was getting to "go to work," as Peter put it. They had a room full of hands-on kid activities -- similar to Kid Zone, for anyone from Louisville! My kids loved getting to be construction workers. They pushed wheel barrels, pulled levies, and built walls. It was great fun!

We also go to celebrate Brad's birthday the second day of our vacation. It was fun for him to be able to get super yummy food for his birthday and get to drink Starbucks coffee! Mmmm! After a fun, adventure-filled day, we returned to our hotel to find a birthday cake waiting for him. I guess, since they had to copy our passports, they made it a point to notice birthdays. :) Even though Asian cakes look way better than they taste (they are spongy and not very sweet), it the thought that counts!

Here's Brad the morning of his birthday, posing in the hall with the kiddos!

It rained all but one and a half days of our vacation. In our city, rain = no taxis, which means it's huge pain to go anywhere! But, in this Mega city, our hotel was literally four steps from the entrance of the subway. That was beautiful!! The rain didn't dampen our plans a bit! And, we even got to enjoy a boat ride one a "rain-free" day....

Well, I'm not sure that's all our vacation details, but it's all I can remember 6 weeks after it! To all of you faithful Morello Madness checkers, thanks for hangin' in there! I'll try not to wait another 6 weeks.... Savannah's birthday celebrations and more --- coming soon!

Were still here.

Hey all, sorry for the long, long delay. The last month has been a whirlwind with activities, studies, birthday celebrations, home school prep, and other exciting things. I'm sure Amy will have a fun, entertaining post soon, but this was to let you all know we're still alive and kicking! Brad