Homeschooling Friday #... um... I've lost track

First off: listen, all you wussy people who whined at me "wah-wah, I was born in the seventies, the seventies weren't all bad-" oh. Wait. Chris was born in the seventies too. As was ninja_kat. And... um... me.

::muttering:: All right, fine. We'll keep the decade. Just don't ask me to be happy about it.

***
We are now alternating the home thing: one week of two afternoons home, the next with all of Friday home. I prefer the whole Friday thing, myself. Much easier to plan around, and I don't have to go into the school and sign Daniel out with the secretary saying, "You're signing him out again?"

So today we cleaned, did Daniel's dictee and some other school-type stuff, met the French-English dictionary, played a couple of board games, had Monique, Noah and Oscar visit for a couple of hours, then went to choir. All in all, a pretty good day. Talked about it on the walk back to school to pick up Justin, and Daniel was pretty pleased too. Good vibes all around :)

Also: I really need to hang out more with other kids and their parents. It's a great reality check. Justin has been rather whiny the last couple of weeks, and I've been getting impatient with him. Oscar, today, was Justin to the nth degree. I don't think I heard him open his mouth without a whine coming out of it. And Monique was doing everything right - not encouraging the whining, giving him positive feedback whenever he spoke in a normal tone, yadda yadda - to almost no effect.

I know if Justin was acting like that I'd be going out of my mind and wondering what I was doing wrong, or what was wrong with my child. But another person's child? Not a problem. The kid's been a little sick; he's whining. Big deal. He's a sweet little guy most of the time, Monique's a great parent, and anyway, so what? So he's whiny right now; he'll get over it. Pass the carrots.

Let's hope I can keep this in mind while dealing with Justin ;)

!

We just finished The Magician's Nephew. And Justin just read "END" and "OF" all by himself, and "THE" and "THIS" with a bit of help.

I'm sure Daniel wasn't figuring out words by this point. He'd memorized all his letters since he was 2, but he wasn't putting them together. Justin still doesn't have all of them down pat, but he knows that they're supposed to make words.

My God, they grow up fast.