Apr. 6, 2006 - Thursday ~ Sick Day ~ IEW

Sprite and I were both sick today.  No "school" although the youngers did watch some educational video, K & J haved played Monopoly almost all day... and prepared twice baked potatoes to go with the hamballs that K made yesterday.  We ought to have a real meal... done in time tonight!!

Paris and Abyni (with much help from Mommy) made a big dent in the disaster that used to be their room.  I'm beginning to have hope that there is indeed still carpet under all the clothes.  On that note, I posted a TON of little girls clothes on freecycle today!  There will be atleast a few bags of clothes that I will never be picking up again!  Do you suppose if they end up with only thre outfits to their names that they'll eventually learn to pick them UP????

So... IEW to completely change the subject)  Institue for Excellence in Writing...

I have heard nothing but RAVES on this program.  I have several friends that use it... and my own children seem to be thriving with it.  However, I myself really don't get to actually watch it myself.  I am usually in the kitchen the entire time doing art with the younger girls.

I must say though, that although my Dh and I both love writing ourselves, and consider it to be a valuable asset, I had yet to find any "curriculum" or method of teaching writing that was anything otehr than hit or miss or totally uninspiring.  IEW has been wonderful ~ bringing out creativity and actual WORK, even from my boyus, who untilnow loathed writing... and they were really bad at it because of that!

I have seen wonderful results, and I am SO thankful that my friend found the IEW tapes at our HS support group and offered to share!!  I would have never been able to afford to buy them any time soon... and I never would have even thought of finding it any other way!

So, my recommendation is that it is certainly worth doing!  See if you can find it on loan from a HS group ~ or even go in with other families and do it co0op style ~ that has been wonderful for our kids to have other kids to read their stories aloud to and bounce ideas off of!

That's all for today... I need to go check ont he little girls progress~