Thursday, December 21, 2006

A Few Days to Go

You've heard the saying, one step forward, two steps back. The past month has felt like a backwards glide. Chance has built this obstinate wall and I've been trying to break through it. He's had a negative attitude toward just about every subject we've tried to tackle. If he doesn't already know something he's not willing to learn it. Have you heard 10 is the new 15 according to MSN.
What happened to the nice, sweet child I've known the past 9 years? He's been home for 7 months and it's been quite an adjustment. Most days the kids act as if they absolutely hate one another. I still say it was the best decision of the year. I just wish I had pulled him out of public school years ago.
This month has been the hardest so far. With so much "other" stuff to get done school has been very stressful. Each Sunday afternoon I scheduled our school work for the coming week. I'm glad I stuck with this plan or I'm certain we would have ventured off task. When I get to the end of our day I don't see all that we have accomplished but looking back on the previous week's combined I'm amazed how far we've come. Chance has 5 lessons left in his "new" math text he started November 1st. This is fantastic when I consider this child spent the entire previous year struggling with multiplication facts. Finn has completed half of his math text which is fabulous too. He's had a really tough time with number and letter reversals. He's read over 40 books and stories which blows my mind. I've added lots of listening to recorded books over the past couple of months. You'd be amazed how much one can listen to in the car while running errands. A few weeks ago we really enjoyed The Best Christmas Pagent Ever. It was geared more toward the 10 year old than the 5 year old though. This week we listened to Little House in the Big Woods and began Little House on the Prairie. We're about halfway through Charlotte's Web which I remember reading when I was their age.

They put their gingerbread train together last week.


They were both very proud to have put it together without any help from me. We finally found a use for all the left over Halloween candy.

Another really good new thing we did this season was to gather 24 of our Christmas/Winter books at the end of November. I wrapped them up and each day of December they've opened a book a day. We've really enjoyed re-reading books we haven't seen in a while.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Squirrel Watching

Chance has gotten a kick out of watching the squirrels out the window. He strings fruit loops on fishing line and hangs it in a place to watch them. Here is a picture of one of the furry critters earlier this week.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Sledding Fun

The kids and I made it to the "big" sledding hill today.



Chance wrote up a poem to include.

Season of winter
Lost in the woods
Enduring the cold
Daring
Defying heights
Inspiration
Never scared
Going downhill


Watch their ride...