The weekend; Education

We went to John's wedding at the Pumpelly House. The reception hall was really pretty, and the food was good. The cake was a carrot cake with a cream cheese frosting, which was actually really tasty! You don't often get "tasty" in the same sentence with "wedding cake". lol It was also fun because my parents watched the kids the whole time. :n) THANKS GUYS! It's always nice to just be able to relax and enjoy the day without having to worry about the kids; especially when they are within my reach if they need me, but otherwise occupied. :n)


It was really nice to see John so happy. <3

His sister, Jody, was full-belly pregnant, and I was trying to push the baby out of her. And it worked! LOL She had him yesterday afternoon. A WHOPPING 11 pounder! Yipe! And no c-section!

Sunday we went to the pumpkin farm with my parents. We went to Jacksons. I think there was more "Free" stuff there this year than in years past, but everything that you had to pay for cost money in koopins. We didn't do any koopin stuff. And I didn't remember my camera, of course. My mom took a bunch of pictures so hopefully I'll get to see those.

Afterwards, we went to The Ground Round. It was a nice dinner, save for the sports fans hootin' and hollerin'. It was only my second visit ever, and

Then my parents came over and saw the Halloween decorations, because the kids were really antsy for them to come look. LOL I'm sure that they were just so impressed LOL but anything for the kids. ;n)

Brooke has been doing really great with homeschool. :n) She's really sounding out her words and starting to read. She isn't thrilled about doing homeschool *before* we start, but once we're into it, she enjoys it and doesn't want to stop. And it's my fault that she doesn't want to start school, because I've been impatient with her in the past. I feel bad about it. There's been times when we've been working on something that she already knows, and she's screwing around, and I've been impatient about it and yelled at her. So I've given her anxiety about it. It makes me feel bad. I've stopped doing that now, but there's obviously already damage. But I'm working at it, and have started just having as much patience as is possible.

Most days we go through our letters, and sing the ABC's together as she points at each letter. Then she goes through them and tells me the sound of each letter. Then we go through the phonics workbook. But today, we actually finished that book! :n) I'm not sure what I'll do starting tomorrow.

After that, I tell her to choose a word that she'd like to learn to write. Together, we sound the word out, letter by letter, and she writes the letters on the paper. Once the word is written, she draws a picture of it.

So far she's done "kite", "umbrella" and "squid". lol she's so funny. I don't know why she picks the words that she does, but she really enjoys it.

I have to admit that I've been slacking in the math department. I work on it in odd ways, like counting together, but it's nothing formal. When I do math activities, it's generally counting back and forth using pennies. Sometimes we do sorting of things like fruit snacks. We sort by color and character, and then she counts how many of each, and how many altogether.

Corbin is doing great, as well. We got a sample progress report at the parent info night, and it shows what each child should know by 10, 20, 30 and 40 weeks. Corbin knows all of it already, save for perhaps his birthday, which we're working on. Tim doesn't want him to skip kindergarten. I guess I'm fence sitting about it. I would have to *ask* about it, because I don't think it's going to be brought up.

Interestingly, at the wedding, my cousin's girlfriend, who also has a kindergartener son in Newark Valley, asked me who Corbin's teacher is. I told her and she said, "Oh really? How is she?"

I said, "Oh, she's good."

I took it in the way that she knew her or something. But then I said, "Oh wait, did you mean as a teacher how is she?"

She said, "Yeah... I heard a lot of people saying that they don't like her."

So that kind of reverberated with me. Tim got the same vibe that I did. She just comes off as "bitchy". I'm wondering if she's just one of those people who has that kind of "bitch face". Hopefully she's really nice and just "looks" that way.

Corbin gave her the letter today... and I have to talk to her after school to find out how many students there are. I'm nervous about that. I don't think she'll mention it, but if she does... I guess I'll just try to be as gracious about it as possible.