1st days

Back to school, 2008-2009 ... Christopher started back at his school yesterday, entering grade three - wow, there goes that time again...especially if you consider that we had him held back a few grades...had he continued, he'd be in a grade five class this year... I mentioned that to my mother the other day and she said "Imagine, that little guy in a grade five class!" ...having him moved back to grade 1 again after we changed schools was definitely a good idea. (He did grade 1 and grade 2 at one school, then back to grade 1 in another)

He was happy, and excited to see his teacher - he knew that he'd have the same one this year, as the grade two teacher transferred to the grade three class - and his TA, though he'd seen her a lot during the summer too.

Here he is, early yesterday morning - excuse the colour & quality, I still haven't had a chance to investigate all the changeable settings on my camera! (I need to alter the ISO or something too) ....



Of course there's a cat sneaking into the photo...that's Toby there on the left. It was an absolute downpour when we went out to the bus, or I'd have taken a photo there too.


Cindy is properly a "junior high" student this year, grade seven... we were meant to kick off the new school year by getting together with the provincial homeschool group out at a shore, but the weather wasn't the best and they postponed it until next week... It did clear up later in the morning, but everything - the playground equipment, the shore, the fields, etc - would have been soaking wet... our "official start" (outside of the 'school light' that she did over the summer) is Monday, having been planned like that because of the group thing and that starting on a Friday is annoying LOL, but we ended up jumping into her new science curriculum for a bit and having a great time with the introductory lesson in the afternoon. (We're using Considering God's Creation this year, after finding out about it from our friend Ganeida - thank you! It's a multi-level program that can be used with younger and older kids - covers a wide variety of topics, which is something she wanted this year.)

Today, though not yet our 'official start day' (ha, does learning ever really 'start' or 'end'? Of course not!), she worked a bit more on science, did some reading, and quite a bit of math - the child asked for MORE math when she was finished. Did someone replace my kid with a robot? *grin* ...She's keen on her math this year - last year was a fair bit of trial and error with various different curriculum (curriculi??)....You hear so much about trying alternatives - about how the traditional textbook/workbook format is "so schoolish" and everything...well guess what? That appeals to her. We tried Math-You-See, as it's often touted as the perfect curriculum for a visual & hands on type of kid, but it was a bust here. The first few days, she was amused... then bored silly. She says that watching those dvds is about as exciting as watching mud dry. The workbooks are very plain, black and white, look like photocopies or whatever....I know that visual appeal doesn't make or break a curriculum, but it's important to this kiddo -- she said she wanted something that was "normal math" and something "not so dull looking!" ...we ended up ordering Abeka Arithmetic 6 after borrowing the level 5 from a friend to have a peek. Yes, I know it's six and she's in grade seven, but it fits where she is right now. (hopefully that link works.)

Okay, this wasn't meant to be a curriculum post! ;-) ...I'll pick that up later...

Meanwhile... even a homeschooled kid sometimes drags a heavy school bag around...



..she wanted it! All of her friends (we're surrounded by ps kids) have new school bags, so I took her out shopping for one too..apparently, the side kind is "the style" this year. Or so says my 11 year old.

That was today, and we were actually headed over to work on a blanket in the park - it was sunny, and we're supposed to get a bunch of rain this weekend, something about the tail end of a storm, so we took advantage and moved outside....

But hmm, this looks more like sleeping than working!



*grin*

This afternoon, she decided she wanted to bake and decorate a cake to have with her friends later - we had a bit of a mishap with the cake breaking as it was removed from the pan, so it ended up as two little cakes instead of one big one... There was leftover food colouring in the cupboard, so she went mixing and came up with some...ummm... unusual cake colours.






I don't think I've ever seen a cake decorated quite the same. ;-)

(It was delicious though - even if the added mint chocolate chips did fall to the bottom...guess we better try smaller chocolate chips next time.. figure they must have been too heavy in the batter.)