Recent stuff

"I want to bake lots of stuff, Mommy." says Justin. Ok, kiddo. Here's the pretzels we made. YUM-MEEE. We've also gotten REALLY adept at making homemade pizza and working on the homemade bread ideas...
Poor little homeschooled girl... Allowed to dress herself any which way she likes and to play in buckets of water to see which animals float... Also, the Barbies are welcome to visit in the water but must be naked or else Mommy gets mad. Ever try to dry a Barbie wedding gown? It's not a pretty picture...
Every day can be pajama day, if you want it to. Which we do on Monday, Thursday and Friday as we have nothing pressing on any of those days. Also, it's much easier to do your physical fitness in comfy pj pants than jeans...
Corinne is liking her new math games from the library book I borrowed. Mostly just reminders about using dice, bundles of ten and matching different types of numbers together. I think I'll make another set of cards with Roman numerals on them, too...

We are soooo glad that February is almost over. With March comes the possibilities of outings and field trips. Spring break is right around the corner and I know that we all need a week off of the handwritten stuff. Evan has been working harder with his multiplication tables and spelling, thanks to some short books from the library that group certain types of words together. He is basically learning new words each week without having the stress of "Spelling Tests". Justin alternately has fabulous days and horrendous days. There doesn't seem to be much of an in-between for him. Though he DID do wonderfully on his science test today! After that, though, the day went downhill and FAST. I think he was just eager to move onto his Birthday stuff, though.

Tomorrow will find us at the library getting the second book in The Hunger Games and then at our homeschooling group meet-up. It's been a while since everyone's been healthy enough to get together and we really miss the other families! We're doing a study on China which is an interest of Justin's. I think we'll also bring Evan's National Geographic map of China that has been taped and re-taped...

Update

And so the cycle of ups and downs continues. Today's ups:

~ made bundles of ten popsicle sticks for Corinne and encouraged Evan to be the teacher. She did really well and figured out the whole "2 bundles = 20 sticks" idea and it helped to reinforce Evan's math skills without making him feel like he was doing "babyish" work.

~ Justin studied for his 3rd chapter test out of his Life Science book. He continues to do well with the break-downs and seems to be retaining the information from week to week. I continue to like the layout of this book and hope that I can figure out a way to get him to like the Algebra one better.

~ I made several math skills sheets for Corinne for hands-on activities. I think I will encourage Evan to continue to be her helper or "leader" so that he can feel more confident in some of our school activities. Most of the time he feels defeated, even though the work I give him is completely within his skill level and abilities. It's frustrating for us both...

Downs:

~ Ugh. PMS for Mommy means less than adequate patience for Evan's daily brick wall of resistance to all things school-related.

~ A cousin's husband unexpectedly passed away last night and this leaves me feeling reminded at just how short life is. I then begin to wonder at the purpose of education and all of the miniscule details that we think are necessary for life. That frame of mind is not conducive to a fabulous teacher.

~ I took my wedding ring off today for the first time in AGES. Nothing's wrong! I am just worried that the gold is way too worn around the diamonds (I already had one of its teeny ones in a baggie) and I cannot afford to replace the diamonds. So, it's in a hiding spot until we have money (HAHAHAHAHA) to fix it.

~ The pantries are empty and my pockets are, too. Waiting for Friday and payday...

Bizzzeeeee!

Very, very busy.

Trying to crush the darkness of February. Trying to create literary geniuses. Trying to cook food that is moderately healthy. Trying to defrost myself over the heating vent.

Succeeding and failing in all of the above. Will again post soon. Still teaching. Still alive. Still hanging in there...