Back in the groove

Last week we took the whole week off from schoolwork (although most days Ian did some reading and Nadia did reading and piano). After nine days off, it definitely was a challenge doing our work on Monday morning. Thankfully on Tuesday things were back to normal. We are going to have two more weeks of school, and then I am planning on taking off two weeks for Christmas (December 19- January 3 which is 16 days). I realize now that January 4 might be a bit of a struggle, but I am sure we will all enjoy our two weeks off. Paul will be in Baltimore that week (Jan 5-8) with Kennedy Concrete. I thought about heading down to my parents' house that week, but the kids would miss basketball, AWANA, ice skating lessons, and gym class so we'll just stay at home. In light of ice skating lessons on Thursdays starting January 7, I've decided we'll skip gymnastics on Monday nights in January and February as I don't want to have a commitment every single day of the week. We can resume gymnastics in March if we so desire.

In light of the upcoming break, I have set a few goals for the next two weeks. I would like Ian to see if he can finish the first grade spelling book before we go on break so he can start the second grade book in January. He finished the first grade handwriting book this week so today I had him start writing in a journal. I'll post a picture of what he wrote and drew. If you can't read the last line, it says "My favorite character is yellow dot." He didn't ask for any help with spelling that sentence. I had planned to wait until January for Nadia to start the third grade handwriting book, but she was just DYING to learn cursive so we started it on December 1. She is VERY excited about learning how to write in cursive. Nadia is almost done with her second grade math book, but she won't be able to finish it in two weeks. The goals I have set for her are to finish the third grade spelling book and her two Level 1A piano books this month. It would be wonderful to start Level 1B in piano and the fourth grade spelling book in January. We shall see! Ian's science lesson yesterday was on magnets, and as you can see Oliver enjoyed the lesson as well!