Just another average homeschooling day

Today has been a roller coaster of sorts. We started off with reading our current read aloud, The Wizard of Oz. We are reading the children's illustrated version, and Mary and Katie are loving this book. I'm enjoying it as this is the first read aloud that Mary keeps jumping in and reading paragraphs aloud to us. It started because she didn't like my 'munchkin' voice and thought she could do it better. I don't ask and I don't expect and I'm pleasantly surprised every time she does.

After that we left to go run our errands, and something happened to me for the first time ever. I actually lost a child. Or, I should better say, a child got mad at me and decided to leave. We had picked up the items we needed and had gone back to the toy section to look at the selection of guitars. Mary's had recently been broken (not her fault) and since she was just learning how to play we are going to replace. Walking through the toy section Katie decided that she had to have a certain toy. I said "No" and moved on. She sullenly followed me, then when we got to the aisle with the musical instruments she wandered back over to the toys. A couple of minutes later we finished what we needed and went back to get her and she wasn't there!!! We went up and down every aisle and she was gone. My heart was thumping! We asked one of the associates for help and they called a "Code Adam" over the speaker.

Two minutes later they brought her back. She was crying and I told her everything was okay, but she replied that "You embarrassed me". They had found her over in the sheets and towels sitting on the floor with her arms & legs crossed. A fun little temperament on that one.

We finally got out of the store and came straight home where I could "keep everyone in my sight" for a little while.

This Winter/Spring I have slowly been increasing Mary's daily workload. I am still so impressed with her willingness to do her work. Especially over the last month on her medication. Today she needed to write her spelling words two times and she did it three times, just because. Next week is Spring Break and I so don't want to take the time off. I just hope we don't lose this rhythm in April.

When she wasn't doing her school work today she was working on her new project inspired by her class last Friday, a bow and arrow.
She started by finding a soft rock and shaped it to resemble an arrowhead. Then finding just the right sticks, using her pocket knife to shape them. Of course we don't have the right cordage, but she really tried and spent hours entertaining herself.

With Mary finally on track, I need to devote a little more energy to some hand-holding with Katie. She doesn't want to be doing schoolwork, would rather be spending 10 hours a day on the computer. Katie will do what I ask her, and doesn't seem to suffer from the low frustration threshold that her sisters do - it is just very lackluster and s-l-o-w no matter what we do. Today Mary completed seven subjects in the same time it took Katie to do 4, and Mary's individual assignments had more to them.

Yep, just another average day.

Peace,

Amy