Whoo Hoo!!

It's Friday, it's Friday. We love Fridays. Friday is the day we can be with our friends and laugh and play and have lunch. Friday Rules!

It has been a long week. The issue this week has been the lack of motivation on the part of the kids. I've been motivated to get it done. Granted we had a busy week, but still. There were some nights that the kids were working at 6pm. That was their own fault by the way. We had over two hours to work in the mornings before we had to get ready to go, but they chose to play instead. I absolutely guarantee that no work got done for the twenty minutes that I was showered and dressed. Our errands were to places that we weren't going to be very long, certainly not long enough for them to get any work done. And they chose not to bring their work in the van.

One night, hubby was working outside and the baby was jumping on the trampoline. It was killing the kids to watch her outside while they were working inside. The big girl got done first. It took her all of ten seconds to get outside. The boy just couldn't help watching his sisters outside, and that killed him. I went outside to help hubby move some stuff out of our shed, and the boy was beside himself. I had to stand in the kitchen and make him work. He only got to go outside for about twenty minutes. And before you start feeling sorry for him, you should know that one of the places we went was church. And the boy ran and ran for the whole time we were there. He also got to run at one of our other stops as well. So I don't want to hear it.

The big girl got that way by the end of the week. She was great at the beginning, but it was so busy, I think she just couldn't get into the groove. She fought the good fight, but alas, she couldn't hold on. She and I had a couple of discussions and she seemed to perk up, but pretty soon, she was back at slacking. Even with that, she is such a great child. I am such a lucky mama to have my children. She got finished before the boy a couple of days this week and that's rare. She was happy, happy, happy the day she got done first and got to go outside. You could see the flush of freedom on her face.

The baby is doing so good with her lessons. I save all the work she does as well as her siblings. By Florida law you have to keep a portfolio or a sampling of their work. I keep it all because I love having it. I've been showing hubby her work, but he hadn't heard her read yet. So I dragged her book out and had her read for Papa. She did so good. She sounded out her words and read for him. He couldn't believe the progress she has made. He told her how fantastic she was, and she just beamed. She almost glowed she was so happy.That was such a great moment for them to have and I'm really glad I was there to see it.

Here was our big lesson for the week. We had a science quiz this week. We reviewed on Wednesday using the same questions on the quiz. When the kids took the quiz on Thursday they bombed it. I was so upset. I thought how in the world could they have answered the questions the day before and not answer them the next day? My feelings were that although the information and questions can be tailored to fit younger elementary grades, I try not to do that too much. It will help the boy in the long run, and I've already seen a difference in the way the big girl thinks and answers questions. But then I thought that maybe changing the format of the questions would help them. So I retyped the quiz using some matching questions and answers and the kids did much better. I had three Q&A type questions, and they did better on those, too. I think the next quiz review, I'll have them do the Q&A type questions for the review, but retype it in a different format for the actual quiz. We'll see how they do.

The two big kids wanted to take their scooters to the park today. I let them with the understanding that when we start our next week, we won't have another one like this one. I told them that they couldn't bring their scooters next week, or play Club Penguin, which is an online "club" from Disney. They have to earn scooter and computer time now. They seemed to be agreeable, but we have to actually get to next week.

We always have a good time at the park. And the weather was fantastic. It was about 85 today and was partly cloudy and gorgeous! Two of my friends stayed and we were the last families there. We decided at one point to take a walk around the park. We ended up doing four or five laps around. It was fantastic to be with friends and enjoying the splendor of a blue sky day. I needed the camraderie of these ladies. Without it, it would be impossible to keep my sanity somedays. Its comforting to have the support of people who share common ideals and goals.

Monday I had a dentist appointment, so hubby did the schooling. I didn't fuss about the way he did things, because he got it done. They got a little bit of a late start, but the kids seemed to be good with it. It threw me off of my week a little. It was slightly past 11 when I got home, and all was well.

I love the fact that hubby will step in when we need him to. I've been slowly going over where everything is and how to keep the records and all that stuff. He also is our experiment guy. He's worked really late the last few weeks, so we're a little behind, but we'll get caught up. It makes me love him even more that he supports and wants to be included in our schooling. He is a wonderful man and father and husband.

Enough for now. It was a great week. It was an opportunity to meet new people, learn new things, and go new places. We expanded our vocabularies, our horizons, and our minds.

Have a great day!