I just read a great quote in Lisa Rivero's book, "Creative Home Schooling for Gifted Children". It read, "For children who have been labeled underachievers, self-directed learning may be a critical component of rekindling a love of learning." I love that. That's exactly what I wanted to read. J is surely an underachiever - in school.

This morning I found an elementary school CD-Rom about teaching languages. I put it in to check it out and J came right over to me, sat on my lap, and proceded to do all 3 levels of the Spanish section and 2 of the German section. She loved it and was having a ball. No one can tell me J can't focus or pay attention.

She's at dance now. They have a competition next month. She has been in dance 5 years and takes tap, jazz (hip-hop), and ballet. We stumbled upon this dancing school by accident, as we were looking for something closer than her old school and with "do-able" hours. She qualified for the competition team and what's great about it is that they will be dancing every year together on the same team. There are only 9 of them in her age group which is pretty cool. With tuition, costumes, fees, team gear, etc., it gets pretty costly, but I would never take this away from her. K is taking healthy cooking classes every Wednesday afternoon (1.5 hrs). It is so hard to find something K likes. She has done dance, karate, gymnastics, acting lessons, and now cooking. She never wants to continue another year with anything. She loves drama and will most likely be a part of her school play agian this year. She also takes violin and piano during school. W just has preschool every day. That costs us over $200 per month. Since his school doesn't have free preK, we will be paying over $300 next year (full-time 8:30-2:30) . When he's in (free!) Kindergarten he can join an activity if he likes. Little league, soccer, basketball, etc., starts at 5-yrs old anyway around here.