Like the famous hare, we were ahead, we relaxed, and now we're behind.   Being 75% unschooler, I can't help but ask myself, "behind what?"  Unfortunately, the answer is, "behind what I told the school district I'd accomplish by Week 8."   In NY, we have to report every quarter with a written explanation in the event that 80% or less of the planned material is covered. 

We are moving out of a spectactularly lousy Explorers unit and into a so-far better Early Settlements unit.  I kind of wish the kids had a better grasp of the story of the Spanish conquering of the middle Americans, but it's not like math facts or how to punctuate a sentence or something.  I'll probably feed Verdi a really fascinating book on it later, and let Sterling rediscover it in high school.  So far, Sterling and Verdi both show an interest in Roanoke and Pocahontas, typically, I suppose.  Verdi was also fascinated by the architecture of Jamestown.  We made a 3-D Village today that Verdi loved cutting out and pasting together.  I did the coloring for him.  It was a good compromise; it allowed him to enjoy it and busied our hands while we discussed what we each knew about it.   Independent reading + joint project = excellent discussion.

Bear seems to have completely lost interest in schoolish materials.  He's silly all of the time, instead.  I feel bad about it only because I think it's because I neglected to spend any of my time or attention on him.  If that weren't the cause, I'd be thrilled that he had moved back into real life, hands-on learning.   He is still learning.  Today he was sitting at Verdi's desk and pointing out which letters on the handwriting chart are used to spell his name, my name, and our friend Ami's name.  He also wanted to know about when to use grown-up letters and when to use baby letters.

Verdi is zipping through Addit, his math facts drill game.  I told him to keep on doing it, doubtful that it would help if he was checking the answers-on-back for each one, but it worked anyway.  He now knows all of his twin cards (10+10, 9+9, 8+8, etc) by heart.  I think I'll move him into the next drill game at the end of this quarter. 

The baby is walking now.  A few days ago he took a crayon and made marks with it on paper (at Ruby Tuesdays, with Ami tutoring).  This morning he put a peg man into his hole seat on a rocking wooden boat.  Oh and he's repeating our words like crazy.  Poor Ami was trying to teach him to say "Ami" but making the "AY! AY!" sound.  But the baby pronounced it "AH! AH!"  He did pick up Ami's enthusiasm though. So now whenever the baby sees Ami, he yells, "AAAAAH! AAAAH!" and it sounds for all the world like he's terrified.