Why are you working so hard?

People (often) ask me why I don't just fork over the bucks and buy a third-grade curruculum. I'll tell ya why. My kids are wackydoodles. Seriously, The Girl is autistic and way behind. The Boy is gifted but has trouble organizing his thoughts into words, meaning that his reading comprehension tests out at null. He can't tell time, but he understands "dimensionality". And neither of them can tie their shoes or ride a bike.

Starting to see why I pulled them out of the public schools? He was terrified of everything and hit people a lot. She had no aide in class and was learning nothing. Yeah. I'm a big believer in "No child of mine left behind," so I'm doing it myself. I'm SO happy with those education taxes I'm paying. NOT! Each of my kids could be getting a $10,500 scholarship to go to a private school, but there aren't any autism schools here.

One size does not fit all, particularly in this house. So, I quit my job to stay home and cut out little green squares and draw inchworms on them. "One inchworm, two inchworms, three inchworms -- three inches long. Write it down." I make increasingly long timelines, starting with units they understand (24 hours in a day -- breakfast, lunch, dinner) and ending with millennia (prehistoric, Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, etc.) Everything has to be physical, concrete, and manipulative. "The 3-bee flies in the 4-door, and Jeff takes her to the 7th street park. 3+4=7"

I try not to dwell on it -- all those nice normal kids out there, all those nice fun elementary classes, all those reading clubs, all those soccer teams -- it makes me a little crazy to think about it. Instead, I have fun with what I've got -- two really great kids! Sure, The Girl still tries to drink from puddles, and sure, The Boy still refuses to walk in front of the TV, but hey. Never a dull moment at our house... ;)

OMG! Clean up -- company's here!!

WOW! I feel famous now -- at least by my humble standards... Thanks Suburban Correspondent!

Well, school's been in for a week and a half. More correctly, the public schools were in on Monday of last week and then off for the four days of Tropical Storm Fay. I figured the school busses would make it from the bedroom to the dining room, and it'd be okay to have class. ;)

The kids' vapor-lock of the brain has let up a little. The Boy connected length/width/height with 1D, 2D, and 3D! He volunteered that the crack in the table is 1D (length), the table top is 2D (area), and the table itself is 3D (volume). He's fascinated that the cat can't see in 2D, only 3D. Woo-hoo-hoo!!!

We finished our timelines back past the Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians. I asked The Boy what happened to the left of the Egyptians, y'know, pre-history. His eyes lit up and he asked, "Like, 'prehistoric'"? Bing!!

You might wonder where The Girl fits in with all this. I work with her on a scaled-back version of what The Boy is doing. We measured length in "inchworms" and area in "square inchworms". She counted square centimeters, and measured centimeters of circumference. I'm not even trying volume with this one. We both feel smart, and I'm going with it. ;)

The Girl and I are still chipping away at timelines, and we've been reading about prehistory (GREAT BOOK: Stone Age Boy) and we'll connect it up with the far left of a timeline eventually. I'll probably have to block in all the VeggieTales stories before I'm finished. ;)

The Boy is past his review of addition, and The Girl is still working on adding her 3's. Slowly but surely, we WILL work through the Addition the Fun Way stories. Right now, we're on 3+8: The 3-bee fixes the 8-gate and gets an 11-popsicle as a reward.

I'm still trying to get organized. In a former life (three weeks ago!) I was a database analyst -- my job was to organize other people's data, give them a way to get their data into the database, and then give them reports to get the data back out. I have seven binders, and I'm still trying to find a way to keep the paper, HUGE PILES OF IT, in order. Is there no end to the paper...

Well, having finished up the coverage of the Democratic Convention, it's now time for me to go to bed before I start behaving like, well, y'know... ;) BTW, I saw a picture on The News Hour of four pants suits hung up on the stage of the convention -- Hillary's staff was color-testing her wardrobe against the set!! Of the four colors (light blue, royal blue, red and orange), I chose the same one she did!! Wa-hoo!

8 year olds and prehistory -- plus a tropical storm!

Fun thing today -- I'm headed into teaching prehistory, so I'm now doing timelines. Monday, we did a timeline for a day. (I had to use the TV guide from the newspaper for The Girl.) Today, we did a timeline for a year, with all the holidays and our vacations. I'm hammering on earlier/later and past/future. I started on making a century timeline with The Boy, and told him that if I want to put the time Jesus was born, I have to extend it to the front lawn, and he asked me how far to the cave men! Wow! I thought the curiousity was gone! (I estimated from here to the airport!) That was fun. Hey, I take my victories where I can get them.

Other than that, I'm starting to get the urge to clean the house. I'm getting sick of seeing the mess. Hm. Bad sign. I've also been baking cookies. ;)

And the tropical storm is going to go off the coast, turn into a hurricane, and come back at us again. Or something like that. Can't wait...

first day of school! first day of school!

Or something like that. Is is possible that kids get vapor-lock in their brains over the summer? They seem so, umm, stupid today. I read the following to The Boy: "Elmer Elevator flew into the evening air on the back of his baby dragon." I asked him, "Who is in the story?" No answer. No idea. No way. What are they doing? Same response. Heh? Look at the word next to the boy's name: flew. Heh? And he has forgotten all of his addition. *sigh* The Girl is going to need a separate curriculum. And a separate school. And they're still demanding to go to "PE" at my dad's pool. Ech. Not feeling the love.

Good things: everyone woke, dressed and showed up without complaining. The Boy cheerfully measured the items I asked him to, although he played dumb a lot. "If a yard is the length from the king's nose to his fingers, and you're smaller than the king, will you get the same size if you measure it on your own body?" Over and over. I think he finally got it. Can't wait to do area...

Oh yeah, good. Um. The school shirts turned out nice, except that the logo kind of migrates under their armpits. ;) Mine looks ridiculous. And also, they made so little progress that I have very little preparation to get ready for tomorrow...

Parents' Night In (again) and Curruculum Envy

We're bailing on "parents' night out" tonight. I was sick of being there, sick of the gleam in the other parents' eyes, and sick of saying, "Girl, get back here. Stay with the kids." Sick!

My mom's going to babysit them Friday evening, so The Husband and I can go celebrate our new-found poverty. ;) Someone gave him $100 in Darden Restaurant cards for some presentation he did this summer, so we're off to -- what -- Olive Garden or something. I wonder how the daquiris are at Olive Garden...

Had my first fit of Curriculum Envy yesterday -- made the mistake of looking up a link my egg-head brother sent me -- http://www.greatbooks.org/programs-for-all-ages/junior/jgbseries/jgb2006.html Sheesh. Way make me feel like a total dufus. I was going to teach The Boy reading comprehension using Goosebumps books. *sigh* Turns out I should be using Nigerian folk tales instead...

math and other crazy ideas...

I started working in earnest on my math lesson plans, and am starting to realize that it takes a whole lot longer (in weeks) to teach measurement than I had thought. Not bad... As long as I can keep them busy, I'm good. (Quick -- what's the difference between volume and capacity? Why do we measure soda in ounces and not cubic inches?)

In other news, the kids have mini-vacation-bible-school this week. Basically, some crazy person is doing five days of "parents' night out" at church. Unfortunately, none of the people running it is as fast as The Girl, so there is no "out" for me, just "in". Meaning I get to go to vacation week at church with the kids. I asked my mom if she would go to vacation week with The Girl one day this week, and she said no, there wasn't enough money in the world. (To be fair, she did offer to sit her at home.) Maybe The Girl will settle down enough by Friday that The Husband and I can go out for a margerita on my LAST DAY OF WORK! We're working on our mantra with The Girl: "we stay with the kids". Wish me luck.

School Policies

My teacher friends are giving me advice -- on school lunches, fire drills, and not leaving students alone except between classes. I told them we'd be bringing our lunches from home, so the school lunch program wasn't much of an issue. We'll probably put off the fire drills until the weather's cool enough that it won't kill us. The only problem is that I'm not sure I WANT The Girl knowing how to open the windows. I'm sure The Boy would be only too glad to make the fire-drill noise for us...

I suppose I can skip filling out the emergency parental notification cards this year, along with the lunch numbers. What, The Boy is #1 and The Girl is #2. Lining up to go to PE could be interesting -- lining up to pee before putting on swim suits!

My mom is d-y-i-n-g to help, but can't figure out how to do it without getting in the way or, as she puts it, "actually getting her hands dirty". She doesn't want to come help us measure the backyard with yardsticks, but she would bring in lunch a few days a week. She's so cute!