Hanson Crew

Ashlyn had a fun optional assignment this week called Letterboxing . We go to this website and find a set of clues that lead us to a "box" kinda like a treasure hunt. The idea is to follow the directions given by the box placer to help the students with their compass homework, following step instructions, and right/left directions. We were so pumped to find there was a "box" in Kearney. So we made a letterboxing journal to keep track of all our new adventures. This one said it had a stamp in the box so once we found it we could stamp our journal and then put the stamp back in the box. John was working late on Thursday so we all climbed in our van and were so excited to give it a try... So, we found the state park, found the parking lot, walked the trail, crossed two bridges, found the two evergreen trees, and looked under the second tree to the right 6 steps (yep, the one with the low branches that the placer said would contain the "box") ... BUT we wer...

Ashlyn's is memorizing this poem for school this week. Thought it might be fun for our readers to give it a shot too -- John always knew this one growing up! There is another version that I believe is a little easier and dates back to the 16th century...we love classical education! 30 days hath September, April, June and November, All the rest have 31, Excepting February alone. Which only has but 28 days clear And 29 in each leap year

We got the result today from Caleb's speech pathologist appointment. She tested him using a preschool language scale (PLS-4) and tested both his auditory comprehension and expressive communication ability. We knew he was doing great at the auditory comprehension - the part where he can hear and follow commands, etc. He needed to have an average score for these two parts with a 50% delay to qualify for this program. He did not have that bad of a delay and did not qualify for their program, which is good and bad. Great that the delay is not severe, bad because most others programs do not begin until 36 months. He is 28 months old now, and understands/hears like a 27 month old. He speaks/communicates like a 20 month old. The next step is to seek further speech-articulation intervention/therapy. We are going to try the Clay County Speech therapy program next, hopefully next week. Then, when he is closer to 3, the school districts program. We'll keep you posted on his progress.

Well, we all survived the first day of school this year. Ashlyn had a great time and enjoys her new teacher, Mrs. Denny. The boys I and got to visit John at work in the morning, ate breakfast at McDs , and got in a two hour nap just in time for her arrival back home. That is going to become our new tradition without her - naptime - we all forgot what that was like for awhile and everyone, even mom, quickly remembered the joy in that time. We'll keep you posted on that too. Ashlyn's favorite thing about yesterday was having 3 recess time. Our favorite time, probably the nap :0) More to come, we are going to teach Joshua to read this year during our home school time. A friend from CO teaches her children to read between 2 and 3 and we are excited to try it out too. We'll keep you posted on his progress and Caleb's speech concerns as we work on them.

Ashlyn is getting to be quite the helper in the Hanson household and tomorrow will be her first day of school as a 1st grader! Going to first grade is a huge deal because she will be going for a full day now from 8:00 until 3:30 (on Mon, Wed, and Fri). What will we do without her!! I am sure we will turn to trains and cars for most of our excitement, but we will sure miss her a bunch. We are going to become early risers now (at least those 3 days) in order to get to North KC by 8:00...we'll let ya know how that all goes in a few weeks. We're also moving our weekly Walmart trip to Tuesday now. Ashlyn is most excited about her full day because she will go to PE, Music, and Art classes now, as well as lunch. We'll add a post soon about her new class. Here's a big hooray for our big girl Ashlyn!