I knew it'd influence her!

I have a set of Little House on the Prairie books that I've had since I was younger than my dd is now. I had tried a couple of years back to start reading the series to her, but she was not at all interested. Tried to encourage her to read them; nope.

Then I saw the DVDs of the series at the library. I LOVED the series as a kid and was 99% sure she'd like it, too, given how much she enjoys places like Ft. Edmonton. Managed to find the pilot movie and we watched it this morning. That's all it took. She's going to finish up the book she's reading now, Rufus the Sea-Faring Rat, and start reading the series. :)

Does more room make for crazier kids??

Yesterday, dd's furniture got moved from the room she shared with her brother to her own room. A lot of stuff got cleaned up--or stored temporarily in the closet. ;) There's no longer anything on the floor of either room that shouldn't be there. They look absolutely wonderful. And my son is going crazy! So much energy. Wow. I guess it's just the excitement of having a wonderful room to be in now--especially since there is nothing under his bed now and he can fit under it. ;)

Already almost the middle of July!

(Excuse the following--it's a random jumble of thoughts!)

It's July 11. In a few more days, we'll be halfway through July. Where does the time go??? I'm sooo glad I've got August off this year!

We had a great trip out to the lake. The weather was great one day then so-so the others, but we still had a great time. Ds spent lots and lots of time outside playing soccer and other games, as did dd, but not quite as much. Ds learned to play SkipBo and we played a few games together. I'll have to see if we have a deck so that we can play here.

Other than that, we've been working on dd's room. The paint was finished yesterday--she chose yellow--and if the smell is calmed down today, we will move in her basic furniture and she can sleep in it tonight. :) She's VERY excited. Ds wants her out and his room cleaned up so that we can start stamping some fish and shells onto his walls. lol. He's sooooo eager to decorate the walls since we refuse to repaint them (we did it just 2 years ago) but I told him that his sister's stuff has to be out first AND things have to be clean--we can't be messing around with paint when there's stuff all over. That will be our big project today.

Let's see, what else? Ds is making progress with his reading and writing. I'm just pointing out little things or asking him little things here and there like, "So, where's the a sound in that word? How do you know that word is such-and-such? How do you think that word would be spelled?" He's getting better and better at analzying things and coming up with the correct letters and sounds. And he enjoys it, which is great. I've got plans to prepare different games so that we can play more with letters, sounds and words. Bingo is the first I'd like to play. We have a set of letter bingo cards that came from a Sing, Spell, Read and Write kit a former student left us, but it doesn't have all the basic French sounds, like è or é. I'd like to make something that is better suited to French.

Oh, and ds got his cast off yesterday. We were going to keep it, but it stank so badly and the nurse just tossed it into the garbage without even asking us if we wanted to keep it. It's kind of sad--he had all kinds of signatures and stuff on it. But he's not sad about it at all, so I guess I'm just being a sentimental mom. lol.

Dd is almost done reading The Fellowship of the Ring. It's taken her quite a while--in part because she's read other books since first starting the novel--but she quite enjoys it. I don't know if she plans on reading the second book or not just yet. Haven't dared to ask.

Hm... It's 7:35 as I type this and my kids are still asleep. I guess that's good--they didn't get to sleep until close to 10 last night. I don't know if ds will manage to get his 10 hours in and sleep until 8, but it would be good if he did!!


I have a little project I'm going to get started on: comparing predicted temperatures/weather to actual temperatures and weather. I check the forecast often and it's CONSTANTLY changing. I'd like to see just how accurate their predictions are and how far in advance. Yetserday, they had no rain predicted for the coming week. Now they're predicting rain for Monday and Tuesday. Will it change again? Undoubtedly. I'm not sure how long I'll check the predictions, but if they're as unreliable as I believe they are, I'm not even going to bother looking at the week-to-come predictions again. What's the point? And why do the weather people bother? I can understand THEM working on predictions and trying to fine tune things and learn how to predict better, but why share it with the world? lol

Enjoying summer

The last 2 months of school, it was work, work, work for me and I'm finding it hard to stop filling my time with all kinds of work stuff!!! However, I am slowly learning to enjoy summer and time off and instead of my original thought to have a sit-down school time each day, just bringing things into our daily life.

One thing that will really help is that we will be at my in-laws' lake property until Tues. :) Leaving in a couple of hours--I hope. Dh still isn't up, I need to shower and pack yet, the kids need to shower... It's do-able. In any case, I'm going to bring a novel--completely unrelated to school ;)--to read and my cross-stitch and I'm not sure what else. I want to take a little vacation. I will bring a little notebook to write in because I always need paper and pen to write thoughts, brainstorm or to write out little ideas for stories/book chapters. Haven't done the latter in quite a while. I'd like to get a better routine going and so far, this summer vacation, I've just been keeping myself constantly busy, little relaxation time. That's not how I want summer to be!

Oh! I hear dh is up! Time to get ready!!

Music, music

I went out quickly this morning to get a few groceries we need for this weekend. My kids weren't even dressed yet, so they stayed home and I went just by myself. I got back and dd is sitting on the couch playing the recorder--something she hasn't done in ages. Ds, still in his pj's, is sitting in the stairs playing his little Power Tour guitar, something he hasn't seriously done in some time. He goes up to get dressed, dd shares with me a little song she's composed on the recorder then proceeds to play more songs from a beginning recorder book we have. Ds decides he wants to play my flute. Uh, okay. Right off the bat, gets his lips just right and gets a sound out of the mouthpiece. But then he can't maintain it and thinks there's something wrong with the flute. lol.

The other day, it was my guitar that got pulled out. I think the piano top needs to be cleared off so that some inspiration can move that way, too.

I feel like I'm deschooling

You know the whole thing with kids who are pulled out of school, left to deschool, and they don't know what to do with themselves because they're lives, up until that point, had been so dictated by everything outside them and they'd never had to actually choose what to do with their time? That's how I feel. Yesterday was my first official day of summer vacation. I gravitated to the computer horribly--don't even want to know how many hours I ended up spending in all--and just kind of roamed aimlessly. Oh, sure, I accomplished some things, but man... I feel lost. lol. Things had been so busy for so long and now it's kind of, "Hm, what should I do?" lol

Wow, it's been a while!!!

It's been a while since I last wrote. Life has been very busy, what with finishing the 17yo's coursework and helping her prepare for exams and my kids' soccer games (usually at least 4 evenings a week--and I was team manager for one team and helped out during the game in planning subs), plus planning a trip to Drumheller and another field trip to Fort Edmonton and park days and my 7yo fractured his wrist this past Monday... It's been busy.

The end of year went well, I think. Dd and "Bob" pretty much stopped working the last week in May. Now, for all my readers in the US, that might not seem odd, but where I live in Canada, the last day of school was YESTERDAY for public schools. Sure, the junior high and high school kids have exams here and there the last two weeks of school, but... I want to organize things differently next year so that work is going on during the oldest's exam time and not play. As for the 17yo's exams, she was much calmer this year and a bit better prepared. We've talked more about having something a little more structured in terms of assignments and quizzes next year so that she really focuses on knowing the stuff as she goes along rather than just going through the work, without really knowing it, and having to cram it in at the end.

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Our trip to Drumheller was FANTASTIC! We (my 2 kids, plus Bob and his sister (the 17yo)) went with 2 other families--we've all known each other for a number of years. We went hiking in a canyon nearby and other than an unfortunate mishap with one girl scraping her leg badly, it was very interesting. The following day, most of the kids and I went with a local to an area to find dinosaur fossils--and we did!! The kids all went home with stuff. It was great. We also went to the museum while there and to the outdoor spray deck. The older kids had quite the water fight while I was at the ice cream shop with my two.
Sunday wasn't quite as nice, but we were leaving anyhow, so I guess it was good timing. We still managed to make it to the hoodoos and see this old saloon. The wind was something awful at the hoodoos and it hurt at times because the sand and little rocks would whip your arms and face. I think we all came away from that with dirt in our ears, eyes and nose! The kids managed to climb to the top, which must have given them an incredible view.
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We went to Ft. Edmonton this past Tuesday. It was a wonderful visit--the interpreters this year have been super well trained and it was just fantastic. Even though I've gone every year for the past... hm...6 years?...I learned new stuff. I think my favourite part was the kids managing to attend class in the old school house on 1885 Street (yes, the street set up to look like 1885 and I believe the school house is the original thing). The guy they had to play the school teacher did his role so well. He had the boys and girls line up in separate lines and let the ladies go first to sit down, naturally. The boys all had to have their hats off. They were not to speak unless he had called on them, they stood up, said, "Sir," and then said what they were to say. I think his first question was if anybody knew who our "current" Queen was--Bob raised his hand and said, "Queen Victoria." (I thought it was pretty good that he knew to answer according to 1885 standards!) He got a reminder from the teacher that he had to wait until called upon, stand up and say, "Sir." Bob tried very hard not to laugh as he went through the motions. At one point, he and his friend started laughing and the teacher stopped and just stared at them. It was too funny.
Of course, then there was the part when dd's friend (Bob's friend's sister, incidentally--one of the families we went to Drumheller with) was called upon to write the word "queen" on the board. She went up, wrote "queen" and sat back down. He looked at it for a few seconds then said, "Well, at least you spelled it correctly." ROFL. He then went on to explain how it was rather ugly and straight and all that and that it was the type of print we'd see off a printing press. Handwriting should be fluid and curved and he demonstrated how to write "queen" in cursive. Fun stuff.
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Yes, the day before that, my ds jumped off a swing at a park day, lost his footing on the landing and came down too hard on his hand/arm, causing a fracture in a wrist bone. Ironically, this is the same playground where he fractured the other wrist two years ago...
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I've been thinking more about my homeschooling and what to do about it. I'm going to read as many Montessori books this summer as I can and help myself feel more centred in that respect. I also want to put together some things for ds to work on reading and writing this summer--we both want him to be able to do the class for First Communion next school year, but if he can't read and write well enough... This is only our first official day off from school/dayhome, so it's just been having fun and relaxing. We'll get started on it next week.
For dd, she's just feeling so insecure in math, it's one thing I want to work on with her this summer. Get her times tables mastered once and for all (I know I've said that in the past, but knowing she's entering gr. 6 has this panicky feeling in me about her not knowing them--and she feels awful about not knowing them) and also tackle some other things, like large multiplication and long division.
There's probably lots of other stuff I could share, but I can't think of anything else!

Misc.

The kids quite enjoyed our homeschool morning at the library. I can't say they accomplished a whole lot--there were just too many distractions. Things like a man sitting in a chair near our table and he kept looking over at us; the crazy lady in the bathroom who kept talking to herself and then when the 17yo coughed in her stall, the lady said, "Well, *cough * *cough* to you!"; and the biggest "excitement" and conversation starter were the two young men we could see from our window. The first came to this one area that had actually been designed for small bands to play outside. Young man who looked rather unkept and he's just kind of mozying around and sits down. Looks around. Pulls something out and lights up. Bob was at a perfect angle to notice this guy and saw that the guy had to light up a few times within a few seconds.

"Oh my God, that guy's doing drugs!" he blurts out. Well, THAT got everybody's attention. His sister didn't want to believe him at first because it's something he says fairly often about just random people he sees for only a second while we're in the van. But this time, he was completely right. That led to us observing him for a while. He kept spitting all over the place and was just generally disgusting. He puts something near this one post and keeps mozying around.

"What's he doing?" Bob asks.

"I think he's listening to music." Sure enough, he then adjusts his one headphone. But people are passing at this point, so he's just kind of slowly bopping around to his music. When the coast is clear, he pulls out the item he'd hid behind the post and lights it up again. Eventually, he unplugged something from one of the plugins--looks like an iTouch or something similar, he was recharging it. This guy didn't look like he could pay for a night in a motel much less for a phone like that.

In any case, it led to some discussions and some clarifications about how the security guards at the library were NOT cops and would not do anything about a guy behind the library smoking dope.

The second guy was rather funny to watch. Much better dressed--looked like a student. Very nervous as he walks around the area, seeing who's coming, just very uptight. Sits down on a bench and keeps looking around nervously. Finally pulls out a joint and has some trouble lighting it. Keeps trying to hide it every time somebody comes near. Eventually, he puts it out against the bench, pulls out a baggie of joints from his sleeve, puts the joint in the baggie, then hides it back up his sleeve. We almost burst out laughing. I think it was the irony of the situation--he's trying to be very secretive and not have anybody see yet here we were, watching him closely. (The way the library windows are, you can't really see well from outside into the inside. I don't think he would have been able to see that we were there.) THEN he's all relaxed and "cool", sitting back in the bench with his arms stretched out on the back of it, finally pulls out a bottle of pop and lights up a cigarette. Wow--what can I say about the health of our youth??


--

Yesterday morning, we changed things a bit, too. The 17yo had a 3.5-hour schedule (lately, it's beena 2-hour schedule, forcing her to work until 3:30 and sometimes past in the afternoon) and I pretty much let the others do their own thing. Then we spent the afternoon at a play ground for our homeschool group park day (okay, our OTHER homeschool group park day). It was nice and warm out--about 25C/78F. Just beautiful. Only drawback was the wind, which was gusting on and off at about 25 km/h. By evening, it was gusting up to 55 km/h! With our afternoon at the park then dd's soccer practice in the evening, I've had just about enough wind to last me a good long time.

Unfortunately, it looks windy again today, but it does look nice out--totally clear blue sky from where I'm sitting. I don't have the two oldest today but I do have my niece and my friend's 3yo. We'll go out to on a field trip today to a nature centre; that should be good.

Gotta go eat breakfast!

Going to the library!

We are headed to the downtown library this morning for our homeschooling. We've said before we should do it sometime and never have. Today's the day! Wednesday seems like a good day to have a change in routine because they're usually rather sluggish for "Hump Day". It's also a beautiful day today, so being somewhere else will make it less tempting to want to go out and play on the trampoline, skateboard, bikes, etc. They'll still get to do that, but after lunch when we come back. (Except for the oldest--she'll have more work to do!)

I have a bad unMontessori tendency to take care of all the details for things. Not today! They'll work out what they are going to work on (except for some things that I've decided), what they need to bring, etc. I AM bringing some Dewey Decimal Worksheets that I found here http://www.homeschoollearning.com/hsc/unit_09-11-01.html that dd and "Bob" can do if they wish (even ds could participate). I'm also bringing my laptop because ds just will find 2.5 hours of typical sit-down stuff very long, so he'll be able to do Paint or we can type up a story together or something. Oh, and my kids need to prepare their lunches and snacks.

It should be a great adventure! :D

Struggles, struggles

I've got things kind of laid out for Bob for next year. Although I felt like I was getting sidetracked, it really did clarify for me what has to be done for the rest of the school year so that next year doesn't come as a huge shock.

But I'm struggling internally. One part of me says that working WITH kids is so much better than just making all the decisions for them. Yet I have tried and tried over the past few months to work with him and it rarely goes anywhere. He might, MIGHT, have ONE day after our "working together" and then it's all trashed--it's like pulling teeth to get him to do anything. I don't think he wants to decide things right now. I think he wants the security of having someone else make the decisions. Which is how I'm planning it out--things like certain work has to be done daily and will be added onto the next day's (or days') work if not done, and "Privileges come AFTER required work is done." I'm feeling a bit like an ogre with him, yet at the same time, he's no different than a druggie who's so high he needs to have someone outside set some limits to get him back on track. He's not interested in working, he's not interested in setting real goals, nothing. Well, no, that's not true: he's interested in playing, having fun, do first and think later, twirl his hair, get people's attention... The bulk of what he does is really a form of avoidance. *sigh* But, I guess it's like giving a diabetic child his daily insulin--you don't really like it, but it must be done!

Hahaha

I always do this. Here I am, have lots of things to do, but I've got Bob's school program for next year on my mind--in part because it'll affect what I do with him for the next month and a half. So, what am I doing? Working out an ed. plan instead of getting all this study stuff done for his sister and getting next week planned out!

Just a thinking babble

My house is a disaster. My taxes aren't done. We're behind in school work. AAAAHHH.

Okay, but I'm not going to focus on that. Instead, I'll babble a bit about thoughts and solutions:

"Bob" has really hit the early teen "I don't want to work" mode. I'm not like Marva Collins and still haven't managed to be enthusiastic and organized and everything 24/7 (;)), but I see so badly the need to have him believe in himself, to take chances so that he can believe in himself more... He's hit a funk--twirling his hair again, just not interested in doing any type of work, quick to judge others (ESPECIALLY over stuff he does far more than the other person) and so much more. I think I need to read up on parenting/teaching techniques for male adolescents!!!! I'm not his parent, but I'm the next closest thing, which is why I brought up parenting.

I turn back to Montessori thinking at this point and know that she would have had him "out in the real world", doing almost an apprenticeship. That would be perfect. But it's not a possibility, so what's the next best thing? If we had a Montessori Erdkinder here, I'd really, really recommend to his parents that they send him. There's something about him and the influence of the group that would work so well, I know. However, the lacking skills would still have to be addressed at some point, and what stops him from doing them is "I can't do it," "This is dumb/stupid," "Why do I have to do this?" and "This is too hard." I wish Marva or Maria could come coach me! lol.

What other solutions have I come up with? A few possibilities:

• things broken down into subjects/activity-types and timed
• a set routine, with set work and he just moves onto the next thing when he's done the first thing
• a set schedule with large blocks, wherein he has some set work and then fills the rest of the time from some related activities
• daily meetings (more than once, if need be) to discuss the problems (like giving up, leaving the table, going to play/handle something when he should be working, not getting all of his work done, only working about 20-30 minutes or so a day, talking about whatever comes to his mind in the middle of me reading or to somebody else while they are trying to work, getting mad at other people for things he has done just that week). Of course, one of the first solutions that comes to my mind for his lack of work is to have a weekly report that goes home. However, that feels so babyish--he's 13, almost 14. How does that empower him? Make him feel good and want to do more good? If EVERYBODY is doing up reports, then perhaps that'd work. Strange time of year to do something like that, but maybe it's not a bad idea. I'll propose it on Monday, I think. Track each day what's getting done, add some comments, then the reports go to the non-present parents. (So my dd and ds have someone to give the reports to!) This would also help me get back into using Homeschool Tracker! I purchased the program because I love it, got going with it then it just got put by the wayside. It was helpful in doing marks for the oldest for her 1st semester courses, but it'd all be so much better if I could just return to putting things in each day.

My ds is not getting a very Montessori education. He's not getting much of an education at all. He's just so uninterested compared to how dd was, but then again, for ages 4-8, she had a companion to work with. It changes things a bit. Dd's not quite so eager now--things have never been the same since "my" now almost 12yo moved away almost 2 years ago. The two of them fed off each other. I was also different, though, far more immersed in my attempt at Montessori. How I've changed has encouraged things to not quite be up to the level they were at before. I don't have to have it be exactly the same--I know there are many ways for education to take place--but my enthusiasm or something has changed. Maybe just my clear vision. Because I was constantly reading Montessori and similar, I knew where I was going. I don't know so much where I'm going. Oh, sure, I plan things, but are they really related to any larger vision or is it just because I have a focus of having to get things done now? Hm...

The oldest is slowly getting herself "rekindled". A few comments here and there have helped her relax a little about the future (relax in terms of not be focused on what she believes to be inevitable inability to enter medicine) and talking about how she was doing so well in math her first year with me (she didn't even remember that, but now that it's been brought up, I can tell that there's a glimmer of hope in her now that wasn't there before). My task with her now is to keep fanning that spark so that it will burn brighter and brighter!

Enough of my babbling for now. I'd like to get some school work done--start working on preparing a "study binder" for the oldest and work on a country project to show Bob and dd a couple of possibilities on how to do theirs.

Just a ramble

So, I've actually got a few minutes where I don't feel like I need to be working on physics problems or planning and thought I'd take this time to blog!

This week, we got some rain. That meant all the worms came out. Dd and ds were out yesterday morning "saving" worms--of course, they were saving them from the concrete while it was still raining, so I'm sure many just ended back up on the concrete. They did keep a few to look at. I quickly prepared a very simple worksheet that had them explore the worms a bit more--how long? can you find the different parts? how many segments? etc. And a space to draw the worm. Ds has never really done something like this except when he participated in a workshop earlier this year. He really enjoyed it--not too hard, simple answers he could tell me, I'd write on a separate piece of paper and he'd copy it onto his sheet. It was good.

The oldest is trying hard to stay on track and to not panic too much about her exams. She has been ill the past couple of days, so it's been hard to really get things going in terms of starting to study NOW for her exams. Her brother... It's been very hard to get him into work mode. He just doesn't want to. I know part of it is being 13 and a boy. But he's distracting everybody!!!! He is also nowhere near ready to start high school courses, which he's supposed to do start in Sept. 2009. He will have no choice but to do the easiest courses that count towards a diploma the first year and upgrade later on.

On a non-homeschooling note, we had a kind of strange thing happen. Dd picked out a box of Vanilla Mini-Wheats, her favourite flavour of Mini-Wheats. She has the first bowl and says, "Maman, they messed it up. It tastes more like Maple Mini-Wheats." I come and look, and sure enough, some have the whitish vanilla frosting, but more have the maple-looking beige frosting. Some are even a mix of white and beige. I had a bowl and it really tasted like maple Mini-Wheats with a hint of vanilla, not even completely maple. I sent Kellogg's an email, just telling them that they might have a batch out there that's off. Well, they CALLED me today. Asked me a few questions, then sent over Purolator to get the box! I guess it's a big deal to have it mixed up this way because I was perfectly willing to just keep the box and eat it. But the lady said, "No, you purchased Vanilla and should have had Vanilla so we want to fix this all up." I'll be receiving *2* vouchers in the mail for free Kellogg's products. But back to Purolator... The guy shows up, apparently hadn't been told that a cereal box was being sent, because he comes out of the truck with an envelope. I opened the door and he asks, "You have a package to send to Kellogg's?" I said, "Yes, but I don't think it'll fit in the envelope." It was probably his first ever box of cereal being sent Purolator!

I've decided there must be something in general going on since today, I purchased a bag of Nibs and they just weren't like Nibs. Lighter colour, not quite the same flavour, much mushier (which is why I had bought them--they felt "fresh"). They were good, but not the same Nibs I've bought for years.

Puppy is doing great, getting big! We've got lots of pictures on our camera, but they haven't been uploaded to the computer yet, so nothing to share right now. She's a good puppy--easy to forget she's still a puppy and get mad at her for things that are just puppy behaviour! She's not quite 4 months, weighs 30 pounds, has wonderful lab paws and such goofy ears, and is just a really great dog. Even does this little gruff bark when she sees someone seem to approach the house or even when I come in from the garage and she didn't know I was there. It's not aggressive in any way, just a little, "Hey, there's someone there." Very cute.

What else? Before Christmas, the kids had stopped receiving their weekly allowance because ds had decided he was going to save up his money and wanted to wait until Christmas to get the build-up of his allowance, and dd decided to do the same. After Christmas, not being in the habit of giving them their allowance, weeks and weeks will accumulate before we remember. Today, dd got 15 weeks worth of allowance! lol

Got a phone call now--I'll go!

April 23rd

Original title, eh?

I just thought I'd stop in. Life has been crazy with school, puppy, family get-togethers, puppy, other life stuff, puppy, computer problems, puppy... Yes, puppy takes up a lot of my time. I no longer spend the time I used to in the morning on the computer, which was my primary time for doing things like blogging! I actually spend no time most mornings on the computer.

Can't say much right now. Just wanted to stop in!

I don't get it

I'm quite good at math. Quite good at physics. Or at least I was good at physics when I was in school. Haven't had any problems with the 17yo's math--pretty much ever, except for Challenge questions.

But this dang Physics 11 of hers... Thank God there are answers, although they don't show how to get the answers. I'm having to do most questions more than once to get to the right answer. I don't know how much more stuff a classroom teacher would be providing that this textbook isn't providing, but good grief!!!! Hours upon hours trying to get these problems done! I think I need to find a support resource. I did find one website which could be helpful, but geez... I don't know if my brain is just not approaching it correctly, if I'm skipping over things in the text or something. I don't get it. Some questions I've given up on for now. How are kids supposed to be able to do this work?? I suppose it doesn't help that I've NEVER done the work that she's currently doing. Quite sure of it. And the textbook is somewhat lacking in their examples. They'll give a super basic example, then have a "practice problem" which has to be approached in a completely different way.

Argh.

I know it's been a while!

Over a week. It's just very time-consuming with our puppy and just life. I get up at 6, get ready for the day, spend time watching the puppy and getting some school stuff done, then it's breakfast and get ready for the school day, then the school day, kids leave at 4, there's some cleaning up to do, supper to prepare, eat and clean up after, then maybe a small bit of computer time before school stuff and bedtime routines for the kids, then some more school stuff and maybe 30 minutes relaxtion, then sleep.

Our first week back was okay. The 17yo has been working quite well, despite being tired. I realize as I type this we could work on CELEBRATING progress more! Her brother didn't get a whole lot done this week, but man, is he still progressing nonetheless. He will be 14 in June, and that means he will be eligible to get his learner's licence. He has been reading the past couple of days. He struggles with it, but is capable of reading sooo much! He wrote a couple of times this week and that's improving, too. It's been really great. I guess I have to take back my "okay"--it was really better than okay, looking back, it just didn't feel like it going through it since not a whole lot of work got done by the 13yo and dd.

Ds is able to ride his bike everywhere now--up and down sidewalks and our driveway and all around our loop... He's obsessed. lol.

Puppy is doing great! She's just such a wonderful pup. Has at least one crazy, out-of-control, hyper period each day, but she's great.

All I have to say for now!

It's been a while, hasn't it?

While life with puppy is not as crazy/chaotic as I was afraid it might be, having to spend more time watching her, plus just time being spent doing other things that have come up, have left me forgetting to blog!



At this moment, dd is out on her bike, proud to have finally figured out how to pump while standing up. Ds has decided to learn (finally) without training wheels. Keep in mind he's 7! We tried a bit last year, but he was just not psychologically ready to do without them. He's determined this year to learn, which is great.



School-wise... I don't know. It's been a while. We're on spring break now, so no official schooling going on. The 17yo (yes, she had her birthday since my last post) fractured her wrist when we were at the ski/snowboard hill last week, but didn't start thinking it was fractured until the day after when her wrist wasn't acting like a sprained wrist. They put her in a half-cast, but it's only gotten worse, so she's going in today for a full cast.



Her brother, "Bob"... Self-sabotage in all areas. School-wise before spring break--was doing well then right downhill. 75%+ on some ELA worksheets for a while, then he decided he wasn't going to try anymore and got 50%-. He had a chance at making a provincial team last week, a team that would be going to Australia to compete this summer, but he decided to walk off the board for his best dive during competition. He apparently is saying he did try, which maybe he did, maybe he didn't (his truthfulness lately has been severely lacking), but if he did actually believe he was trying, then it was still self-sabotage. Why? Perhaps rebellion against his coach and mom, perhaps a way to ensure that he doesn't go to Australia, thereby avoiding going on a plane. Unconsciously, he was not going to make that dive. Other self-sabotage: he had a dentist appointment last week and has a bunch of cavities, with one tooth really rotting away. Why does he have so many cavities? Because he doesn't really brush his teeth and he eats lots of sweet junk. What does he eat the following day? A bag of Skittles.


Back to school... I've been through the oldest's work and she should be able to do her Math 20 exam early to mid-May, be caught up in Bio by April 19, in Physics by early May. English is fine. French... Got to figure out still what she really needs to learn for her exam. I've decided that she has just hit into such a personal funk that I can't let her "suffer the consequences" for not keeping herself on top of things, so I'm going to insist she keep up with a scheduling I've worked out for her. She just ends up feeling more down about herself, so if I can take over the scheduling and we can focus on success in other areas, perhaps she'll find a bit more of her motivation. So many things going on in her teen life! Any little bit of feeling successful will be wonderful.

For "Bob", I'm working out a vision then mission statement. I'm also going to plan out what he will work on a little more in detail. By this, I don't necessarily mean he has to learn this and that for social studies; it could be more of a daily scheduled time for social studies project work--with me doing my own project while he does his, and maybe dd does her. When I do my own related work on the side, they are so much more motivated to do their own projects. I do already have some general things that I expect him to do--with less than 3 months of school left, it's time for him to get working on them!

Other than that... I don't know. I could really use a nap at the moment. lol

A day of 3's.

This post has nothing to do with homeschooling nor Montessori!

Dh has been looking through puppy ads for a few weeks, sending me things here and there. This week, he sent me some ads, with 2 he really was interested in. He never really made any noise about follow through on this one ad, and we never talked about which puppy picture we liked the best, but I decided to email the lady. With the other ad, we had no idea what the puppies looked like.

The lady from the one ad emailed me back on Thursday--she was coming up to where I live for the weekend and could bring the puppy I was interested in with her. My first thought: amazing timing! After talking with her rescue partner on the phone, I just could not stop thinking about this puppy. Didn't get enough sleep Thurs. night partly due to it. Then Fri., I showed all the kids the puppy we were to see on the weekend and just could not stop thinking about her. I decided I had to push aside my obsession--we might prefer the other puppies we were going to see and then I'd feel guilty, or I'd be the only one who felt this way about this puppy. Protecting myself, I guess. :)

Yesterday, we went to see the other puppies first. Absolutely adorable and sweet. Husky/lab/shepherd crosses that looked like light tan labs (rather than the full yellow). If we didn't have this other puppy to see, we would have taken one then and there. We went back home, had lunch and went to see the other puppy. I momentarily misplaced the address and could only remember the street name. Both dd and dh were convinced the house number was 3. But that was the house number for the first puppy place we'd seen (that had 3 puppies for us to see). Sure enough, found the paper: both house numbers were 3. What were the odds?

Dh (who seemed pretty bent on taking one of the other puppies and like he was reluctantly going to see this one, yet now says that he knew inside she was the one) loved her right away. Ds initially was very sad we weren't getting one of the other puppies, but seeing this puppy more and more, he was quite happy about the idea of bringing her home. We spent 3 hours (maybe 3 hours 30 minutes) at this lady's son's place, talking, getting to know the dog, etc. And the price for a rescue puppy? $300.

We left there and went to my mother's house--the 3rd house we'd gone to that day--to get a dog crate from her. Puppy was fantastic at my mom's place and the dog she has took to the puppy right away, no problems. Which is great to see because we will be at my mom's for Easter.

In any case, lots of 3's yesterday! Let's continue the theme by sharing 3 pictures we have of our new puppy:

What a kid!

Ds (7) was reading times facts out loud from a chart we have (why was he doing this? don't know) and ended with 12 x 7, 12 x 8 and 12 x 9. I asked him, "What about 12 x 10?"

"Oh, okay. 12 x 10 is..." Pause. Then with pleasant surprise in his voice, "It's 2 minutes!" He can't remember consistently that 6+6 is 12, but he can tell you that 2 minutes is 120 seconds.

Progress, not perfection

"Progress, not perfection" is FlyLady's motto. It's become mine, as well.

I'm still having issues with Bob, but he did progress a small bit this week, so I guess I need to focus on that. Monday went fairly well--more work done than usual. Tuesday... He was resisting doing pre-algebra work, basically feeling like he was entitled to say he would never learn it because he didn't want to--he didn't like working with the x's. I told him his sister spends about 90% of her math time working with those x's and that it sounds like the real problem is he doesn't feel capable, but to be capable means doing the work. He just kind of sat there. I got fed up and said, "You know, if you don't learn this stuff, you won't get a diploma. And if this resistance, which you've been giving a lot of lately, is what you're going to do for high school, I can't keep you here." He begrudgingly gave in. But did well and even asked to do some on Wed., but it didn't end up happening because I was feeling off and not concentrated enough. Yesterday, he had a really bad headache, finally managed to fall asleep and woke up just before lunch!

Dd watched a multiplication section of a Math Tutor DVD that I took out from the library. She really liked his explanation of 2-digit by 2-digit multiplication and asked to do some yesterday. She got all hung up on one mistake and let it sour her mood. :( They all have a tendency to treat mistakes as though they are evils, or confusion as being the same as stupid. Not sure where they get this from! The two oldest came to me that way, the one girl I used to homeschool was sooooo bad about it, you could say she had eraser-phobia until enough of me saying, "They put erasers on just about every pencil because everybody makes mistakes." I need to maybe have 2 posters up:

Progress, not perfection.

and

Confusion does not mean stupidity.

Having a conversation about why we get confused might be a good thing!

The 16yo (she's almost 17! omg! I feel old! lol) has made some nice progress this week. She's struggling with some health stuff at the moment but still managed to get a fair amount done and has had a more positive attitude. It's great to see!

Ds has spent probably a couple of hours each day playing his guitar, enjoys the Geomags and has started playing "basketball" in the house with a bus-tent and just a regular ball (like the big beach balls, but small size). We've only read once this week. But he told me yesterday he wanted to read and do math with me this morning (we were talking about how work needed to get done before we go off to the rec. centre this afternoon). Sounds good to me!