Day 192--Fun Being Grandma!

Wilson and Kamille are here for their Christmas visit, and Eliza is saying all kinds of things. And doing all kinds of things. Her favorite is to look at pictures. I showed her which button to push to take selfies on the computer and she took 41! Here are a few of them.

After a while, Kamille started making faces in the background. Eliza had no idea.

She can say everyone's names too. I LOVE that! She likes to talk about us when we're out of the room or doing something. She hasn't said our names like she's talking directly to us yet. They only have 2 more days here. It's gone by so fast.

Obviously, we haven't been having school lately, but I got a couple new books to use for the rest of the year. I finally got Sam that Life of Fred Statistics book. It looks really terrific. Wilson has taken 2 stats classes at college and he says he only knows about half of what's in it. They did say it was a college book and there's more info in it than in most college stats classes. I guess they were right. It should be fun, and motivating for learning Algebra.

I also got the Little Norton Reader. Brave Writer added some essay prep classes recently and they're going to have students reading essays before they have to be expected to write them. I thought that was a fabulous idea, so we got the book they're using in the class so we can do some of that here.  Now I just have to figure out how I want us to talk about the essays. Do we just read them and discuss them as a reader or do we analyze form too? Probably just as a reader first and then maybe after we see how well the essay defended the author's view, we'll analyze form. I'm really excited!

See you next time!

Day 191--Homeschool Coaching!

So one of the commitments for my starting your business class was to sell something. I don't have anything to sell, so I decided to offer some free homeschool coaching. And some people actually said yes! I started at the end of last week, and I love it so much. I might have to consider this for a business after all. I even thought of another book to write--of course. It's a homeschool coaching manual. I added it to my growing list.

I have had terrible migraines this week and last, but I'm finally vertical tonight. I think the barometer was crazy high yesterday, but I started feeling better right when a big storm broke. I didn't even think it was supposed to rain. Anyway, today has been very slow too--like I didn't do anything. But my headache is almost gone. I wish I could stay up all night because going to bed will bring it back. But if I do that, I'll fall asleep tomorrow and it'll come back anyway.

Sarah didn't actually do NaNoWriMo last month. I wasn't too shocked by that, since I was making her. It's one thing to make them do a small writing assignment, but it's not that effective to try to make them write a novel. Ha! I guess we'll just move on to a research project after Christmas. I hope she can find a topic she likes and doesn't need to change three times. She's so fickle!

Sam's doing constant research and telling me about it, so I don't know how much I should have him write about anything. It shuts him down so much, but I know he needs to do it. I wish I could just record his voice and type things up for him, but he doesn't want to be recorded in any way. Ever. Not video, not by me writing what he says, not audio, not by his own writing. He just likes conversation!

I ordered him the Life of Fred Statistics book today. I think he's excited. I told him it was a college book, but you don't have to know any more algebra than he knows already. I'm not sure how that's going to play out. But I can't wait to get it. Fred finally turns 6!

Wilson and Kamille are coming next Wednesday! I can't stand the excitement. Eliza's starting to say Grandma! Actually, I'm planning on having her call me Grammy so the grandmas will be distinguished from each other. I can't wait to have them around for 10 whole days. I wish it was longer! She's going to love putting up the Christmas tree!!



See you next time!