Month: November 2011

Home School 11/11

Sometimes we don’t do much, just sit on the floor and play with blocks. Or maybe there is more to it… no really we do patterns. But it still is fun. Here I made a rather complicated one and Leilani is trying to figure it out.

Once she got it she made a similar pattern.

Logic is her favorite subject. It’s written for bigger kids so I read the instructions for her.

Because we missed so many schooldays this week we had school on Saturday. So we did fun stuff. The numbers were knocked over. Leilani figured them all out.

Which elements can you remove without the whole thing falling down (not the top 3)

More mundane stuff. The Rechenigel is not exactly her favorite book. She prefers to do the American books, that have about 1/10 of the actual math on a page, and make it look like a whole lot of progress…


But she loves “Mimi die Lesemaus” the German learn-to-read book

For English reading we use a 2nd grade book, and loots of individual books.

Lost Tooth!

Leilani had a wiggly tooth. Last Saturday (11/19) it got really wiggly:

I told her we should take it out because otherwise she might swallow it in her sleep but that thought made her cry. Bad Mommy!
First thing the morning it came out though.



I told Leilani the toothfairy would not come if her room was messy. She asked how I knew and I told her because she never came to me and my room was always messy. Leilani cleaned up her room in record time and then wrote a nice letter to the tooth fairy.

Leilani worried about the tooth fairy being little and the letter being heavy and that she might leave it if it was too heavy, so she used extra thin paper and wrote in smaller than usual letters… The little green box she made weeks ago, long before she had a wiggly tooth, specifically for the tooth fairy.

And Leilani was really happy when the tooth fairy took box, letter and tooth and left her a whole Dollar. But we still don’t know what she does with the teeth…

At Home in November

We make fun food

Christmas cards from one of our crafts events

Playdate with Eden and Devon

Leilani’s art from crafts event leftovers

Leilani really wanted fuzzy cat slippers. Not bunnies. Not dogs. Cats. I googled them and found these on Amazon, shipping to HI was outrageous. But Leilani worked hard for these slippers. She can earn 75c ** a day, and they cost her $5 (I sponsored the rest, since she needed house shoes anyway…)

The sunrises are getting better again.

**I’m not sure if I ever explained our reward system on the Blog: Leilani earns 25c for good behavior during the day, 25c for sleeping in her own bed, and 25c for being good at (home) school. Sometimes she gets rewarded extra money for extra good behavior, chores or school tasks. Bad behavior gets fines 25c, extra bad behavior 50c, and once I took a whole dollar. In out kitchen is a bag with items ranging from 10c to 11$ (once, now I try to keep it under 5$) and she can buy these when she has enough money. Sometimes she is allowed to buy stuff directly with it at the store or farmers market, but very seldom, for example a frozen chocolate covered banana (wouldn’t stay too well in the reward bag…).

Asides from monetary fines being the most civilized form of punishment, the reward part of the system teaches her a lot of things. Saving, counting money, patience, and that 3$ buys one frozen banana, or enough bananas and chocolate to make 10 of them…

Leilani’s Art – Until the Camera Broke

We don’t really know why, but Leilani’s camera broke. It doesn’t focus most the time and is in permanent hipstamatic mode. You can see this on the later photos of the post already.

At the farmers market:



Before we knew basil flowers make great tea we put them in vases.

And this elephant has the color of basil flower tea. Just a bit more saturated…

Leilani sometimes gets up early….


and takes interesting…

…or strange photos

speaking of strange…


She brought her camera on a muddy hike (Kuilau ridge) but did not take these photos:



I trimmed back the jungle and Leilani first helped, then took photos and then picked flowers.



The 6 pointed starfruit fascinated Leilani (usually they have 5)


(paintbrush washing water)

Coconut Festival