Friday August 21st

Great day today, just the weather to put a dampener on things.

Becca had her 2nd 'Light Unit' test for reading - as we are still going over stuff she learnt in Kindergarten, she was able to work through this easily. It is by far her preference to work independently, so she actually likes to do tests, as she can do them by herself and I don't have to 'teach' her anything. She then whizzed through her math and read me a book with assistance, not necessarily willingly but she did it! She then worked online through a couple of websites recommended by her science book.

Jake and Caitlin both had math self-checks, they're finishing up their 1st 'light unit' and will have the end test next week. The light units take around 3.5 weeks to complete for their grade levels, there are 10 for the year. I am happy that we are nearing the end of the first one, kind of gives them (and me!) a sense of accomplishment that we're doing OK and have made it this far: 1/10th down, 9 to go!

They are a couple of lessons behind in the reading as we started the math in July to get a feel for it before we got on the road, however they'll probably get to that test at the end of next week. It is a huge struggle for Jake but he is doing it, I'm impressed, it is challenging, we often have to look up words in the glossary and dictionary as I'm unable to give him a good explanation. His story today was taken directly from the bible: King James Version: lots of haths and thous, tough reading for me and I knew the story!

We are working through an English English text book for Language Arts and one of the final assignments for the 1st chapter was to work with a partner to create a little 'play'. They are obviously working on different grades so I let them chose whether to do Caitlin's or Jake's. They chose Caitlin's because one of them needed to be an alien and they were both excited to see Jake be an alien! They did well, collaborated together, planned it, gave good info; Dave recorded it so if the sound came out well, I'll post it on here at some point (you know, along with the pictures that I keep promising, LOL!).

So a relatively calm morning of school, finally a day without tears!

Then, the thunderstorms rolled in, Jake's friend came in to play, we skype'd with the Kuo's - the kids were so excited to see Evan and Dana and the rains came down, it poured and poured!

Mid afternoon, we headed to the library in Randolph. It was my intention to get to a library each week but I am realizing this is an unrealistic goal as there is just too much going on. We stayed for well over 2 hours, I read a LOT of books to Becca and Nate, Becca also looked through many on her own while Nate was enthralled by a huge container of stickle bricks. Jake and Caitlin each read an entire chapter book in the comfy seating area - it was a good afternoon, everyone was happy!

Now we're packing up and getting ready to head to Verona, NY in the morning.