Dream home

In class, they are working on building a city. This week's assignment was to draw their dream home

Chrys: "What are those things on top?"
R: "It's a castle."

He processes that those are the decorative turrets at the top. Understandable.

C: Points at the bottom. "What's that?"
R: "Well, it's not a basement. It's not really a dungeon. But there are prisoners. And here is a FUN slide down. The prisoners cannot get out once they have slided (sic) down."

At that point, he stopped asking questions.



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Routines

She has really latched on to the routine at the new house.  She has some specific times that things need to happen and I give her countdowns to those times.  It works really well most days.  Today we were running a couple of minutes late, or the bus was a minute or two early, and we had to separate at the middle of the driveway instead of the end (because I couldn't keep up).

She gives me three kisses and hugs every day when the bus gets here.  One for me, one for Corin and one (with the kiss on my belly) for Thing 3.  Every morning.  It's really sweet.

She has developed more patience and maturity lately.  One day, she asked for a pencil for her backpack so she could start doing her homework on the bus.  She finishes it every afternoon during the 45 minute bus ride.  She was mad at me on Wednesday for picking her up because her homework would have to be done at home.  We compromised and did it in the car in the driveway and she still finished 15 minutes before she would have been home on the bus.

Discussing the experiment to see which was faster was enough to calm her down.  She didn't need to keep fighting because she knew she could prove she was right or be wrong and still come out ahead.

We forgot to do her book report this weekend.  I suggested she take it on the bus this morning and she loved that idea so it's in her backpack.

The level of maturity and responsibility that comes with aging is remarkable to watch unfold.  Now, if I could just get her to clean her room...

Big sister skills

Ryanne was outside playing with Corin and their friend Marshall today.  Corin was swinging a stick at her.  It was 5 or 6 feet long.  One of the times the end hit the ground, she stood on it.  Corin couldn't make her budge.  He was dragging the stick along with her standing on one end.  Eventually, he got frustrated and dropped it.

At that point, Marshall threw a ball in her direction.  She picked it up and threw it off the deck over the railing, away from both boys.  They ran to get it back.

She bought herself 5-10 minutes to stand in the sun and write notes on her pad without starting a single fight.  I think her big sister skills are coming along just fine.

On the other hand...

Math apparently sucks.  She is having such a hard time with the degree of addition and subtraction they are requiring at school.  It has not clicked for her.  She's not seeing the short cuts.  She's not seeing the self-checks.  Tonight there were tears over finishing a worksheet that she didn't get through at school.

I tried to explain that reading wasn't always easy for her, either.  She worked at it and one day it clicked.  I told her math would do that eventually, but she has to keep working on it.

I don't think she believes me.

Reading awe

To top off the school's difficulty in finding her 'perfect book,' she finished the last book of the Harry Potter series a few days ago.  She has now moved on to some of Gail Carson Levine's books.

I am in awe of her desire and ability to read.