We had a pretty good day yesterday. J slept til after 9am and was pretty eager to begin her copywork. She's back with poetry. It's what she prefers. This week will probably be all Robert Frost. I've always liked him, too. We moved on to reading. J loves that Little House book. Reading it as slowly as we are is working wonderfully for J's comprehension. She is getting very involved in the story and thankfully looks forward to it. Her narrations are getting better, too. I can see she is paying attention and truly understands what's going on. This is such a big improvement already from PS. She did math fairly quickly - always 2 pages. I found a cool Spanish online worksheet on the days and months. She got most of those correct and wanted to do another one. For History today, we chose from the World Book list and did "shelters of animals and people". W was home by then and we all "played school". I was "Miss Mommy" (according to W) and I had the computer screen open to a fantastic animal homes page. They raised their hands to answer questions and W even asked where the bathroom was (lol). J loved that and I could see she was learning so much. I guess I can take J out of school, but I can't take school out of J yet. We were going to start Nature Study yesterday, too, but it started snowing (AGAIN!!). I thought it would be nice to just sketch one of the bare trees from the living room window, but she never got to it. That's ok. We'll try it maybe later this week.

Today, J copied another Frost poem, we finished another chapter of Little House, and started on more difficult math. We did lots of fractions stuff: improper, adding/subtracting, and reducing. She picked it right up and enjoyed it. We moved on to World History. I have a great book that covers the Stone Age, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, and Ancient Rome. We're going to follow it in order. That also incorporated Geography. The book even has lots of crafts to do for each time period. I have Art scheduled for later, so maybe instead of a famous artist, we'll learn more about cave drawings and they can draw/paint their own. I want to keep with the time period and besides, I think they'll like that!

I am realizing that because J is still in "school mode" she prefers structure now. Last week when everyone was off she didn't so much as pick up a book. When you're in school, the days off are for sleeping, watching crap TV, and maybe going somewhere. As much as I love the idea of unschooling, I think J isn't ready for it yet. I don't think she knows how to just "be". The kids were so bored last week and I found myself constantly creating things to do for them. I don't think they know how to fill their own free time. It's sad. With J, I hope to lessen the structure over time with the hope of J establishing more creativity and getting a sense of knowing what her own interests are so there would be no way for her to become bored. She could then be an example for K and W. Does that make sense? I don't know. LOL.

I was dreading K going back to school yesterday because of the "mean girls" giving her a hard time. I said to call me from school anytime if you need to. She felt confident today, though, in that she was wearing new awesome clothes and looked cool. After a lengthy chat with the guidance counselor, all the girls apologized profusely to K for believing some boy over her and now they're all friends again. I say this loosely because K will never truly trust them again. But...they are all part of the "populars" and she still insists on hanging with them. K is really very smart and does what she has to do. I have to keep in mind she is only 11 and doesn't handle things like an adult would (which is usually a good thing). She makes me so proud. Now if she would only find some new friends. Sigh.