Awesome God!! Look what He gave us today

Every year for umpteen years we have had Kildeer nests in our back yard. It doesn't matter where we live, the birds are always there.

They are migratory birds. I'm not sure when they leave our area, but I know they return in January. Early in the morning until late at night these "party birds" are out there squaking and running around. If you haven't heard one, they have a high pitched almost whistle voice that is very annoying when you are trying to sleep. They are actually beautiful birds with some awesome markings.

God knew exactly what these birds needed when he gave them their color. They make nexts on the ground usually by moving in some small pebbles and stones to camoflague the next. Their eggs are light brown with dark brown flecks all over.

If you come anywhere near a Kildeer nest, these birds go into action. First, they start squaking and fan thier wings and tail feathers out so they appear to be hurt.

To an unsuspecting predator, the bird seems easy prey, so they will follow with mouth watering. When the predator is far enough away the bird is miraculously healed and flys away laughing. The predator is at a loss for the bird or the eggs. If you see such a bird and try to find it's nest, you will probably not be lucky. Those eggs blend in so well they are almost impossible to see. Even if you have been to the nest before and know exactly where it is, you may still have trouble relocating it.

Well, yesterday it was beautiful weather so the kids and I went outside to work in the garden. We have a mammoth playset area with dark brown rubber mulch in it. There are some patches of over grown Bermuda grass that is still dormant. My daughter was about to enter the play area when Mama bird let out a screech. Both bird and girl were frightened. (Probably more girl than bird) I knew where the nest was now. I had caught her before she could fly. I looked and couldn't find it. Later, I had forgotten all about Mama bird when I found her nest. She wasn't happy to see me at all. I backed off after I saw she had already laid 4 little eggs. How sweet. Now if the cat doesn't get them before they hatch. I'll keep you informed on the babies if/when they get here. They are the cutest little things. The come out looking like minature adults, but much cuter. See the long pointy beak and those glaring red eyes. I couldn't help wondering what kind of damage that beak could do to a skull. She was very gracious to let me get so close to her to get her pix. Maybe she thought she was going to be asstar, and, well, she is (at least on my blog).

Kim

I Did It

It finally happened!!! Tyler read his first book all by himself and he did it pretty fluently. OK, it didn't just happen. He worked hard to get to this point. Reading has yet to be his strong point. I owe this progress to our new curriculum, Spell to Write and Read. You may have heard about it if you read one of my previous blogs. Tyler had to first learn cursive in order to write in his log book. His printing was awful, but the cursive is pretty good. We started that in July and by somewhere near October he could write in his log book in cursive. It took a long time because he is only 6 and a boy and those 2 factors alone should say enough. While he was learning to write, he was also learning his phonograms. There are 77 in all to learn. They are like magic cards that unlock spelling first with almost no exceptions to the rules. That in turn unlocks the reading. So far he has learned 120 words and we are spending the last few weeks of school reviewing the few that he had trouble with. I have also been having him read from the log book lists and timing him. The words were marked with the spelling markings that SWR uses. That is so helpful to see the phonograms. For example we would underline /oy/ in the word boy because it is a multi letter phonogram and /sh/ in the word ship for the same reason. That way when he sees it he will know to say /sh/ instead of /s/h/ individually. He has also learned the 5 reasons words have silent final E. Do you know them? I sure didn't. When he sees one marked he knows how to read it. We did it that way for a while, but then I took the markings away and wrote sentences with the words. He did well seeing the phonograms and sounding them out. Each time he read them he got faster. Today I pulled out the book No! No! Word Bird. It had words in it with the same patterns that he has been working with. I was shocked when he read the entire 31 pages. He was so proud and so was I. Not only can he spell the words and knows why they are spelled the way they are, but he can read the words. We will continue to read our lists and sentences I make from them. In a few weeks I will have him attempt another more difficult book written by Wanda Sanseri, the writer of SWR. It uses all 120 words he has learned so far and a few more. I really think he will be able to do it. It won't be long until he can read anything he wants