still homeschooling - what i mean is, well...  mandy had math homework last night. its a review of what theyve learned thus far in the other school. but she just wasnt grasping the concept. shes gotten in the 70%'s on the quizzes. she had more exercises for homework last night.

when i looked over her work, i saw what she was doing, grabbed a greaseboard, and said, 'hey mandy - let me show you a trick.' then on the greaseboard i showed her how to work the problem. she got it right away and you could even see the lightbulb moment. she then finished all her homework and then asked her daddy and me to make up more problems for her to do. we did. she got 100%'s on both our papers.

shes been there 3 weeks and her teacher wasnt able to get her to 'get it'. i sit with her for 3-5 minutes and shes got it figured out. which just goes to show you that i'm STILL her best teacher and that no one knows their students like a homeschool mom.


when a locust tree is NOT a locust tree - weve had a locust tree growing out from under one of our back decks for a few years. when it was a baby it grew through the lattice and up the outside of the deck. each year it got SO much bigger that eventually it pulled the lattice from the decking and finally we had to remove it. the lattice that is. the tree is still there. its gotten quite tall and has left notches in the deck and roof side where it rubs up against them. see?


well, yesterday mandy and i were collecting leafs for a school project ive, um, er, shes been assigned. i mean, come on. we all know whos gonna be goggling all the leafs for identification!

anyway, i collected one of the locust leafs and brought it in to see which variety of locust it was. but i couldnt find it. none of the locust leaves were like mine. locusts are rounded. mine was pointy. after much research, it has been discovered that our infamous locust tree is not really a locust tree at all! it is an Ailanthus. ive never heard of such a tree and was quite surprised by our findings. i guess ya just never know...


BIG acorns - well, pictures speak a thousand words...


thanks for stopping by and have a great day. i'm going to clean now!