What a Lovely Day!

The kids and I got up an hour late this morning, had waffles for breakfast, and then settled in for a few hours of lessons. The boys are progressing well in maths … except the older one has NO self-confidence about it. Present him with an addition or subtraction problem, and he shuts down. No, melts down, complete with tears.

Sigh. But we were in the museum’s gift shop the other day, and the kid suddenly tells me, out of the blue, that he needs $5. Of course, my immediate response was “Why?!” So he tells me that he wants two toys, one of which costs 2.50, and the other costs 1.99. And, of course, he’ll need an extra fifty cents or so for tax. So five dollars should do it.

And then there was the other day, when he told me, again apparently out of the clear blue sky, that he had sixteen dinosuar books. Because he got three from me for Christmas, three from me for his birthday, two from his dad last Christmas, five from yard sales in the summer, and he bought himself three more the last time we were in the bookstore.

This from the child that weeps, wails, and gnashes his teeth when I ask him what 6+5 equals. “I can’t do math in my head like that!” But he can — unless you ask him to. I KNOW he can do it, but he just has no confidence in himself.

Anyway, so we did math and grammar/spelling this morning. We’ve done history, science, and geography through the museum and planetarium visits over the last few days, so I’m not focusing on those things right now.

When we finished school, it was time to go to my co-worker’s birthday lunch, which was a lot of fun. Then we went to the museum for several hours this afternoon, to look at the natural history exhibits. I love free days, when you don’t have to pay admission!

Then we ran by our house and picked up the day’s mail, went to my mom’s and picked up our tickets for tonight’s screening, and went to El Chico’s for supper. Oh, and somewhere in there we stopped at the consignment store, where I found the blouse that I’m going to wear to tomorrow’s awards luncheon.

After El Chico’s, we went to the IMax to screen the movie. It was really good — it was about the Mars Rover programme, and my oldest was spellbound. He cannot decide whether he wants to be a palaeontologist or an astronaut. I think he’d be great at either. The younger son was interested, but not as enthralled as his brother.

After the movie, we came home and played our video game for half an hour, taking turns each while the other was in the tub. And now they are in bed, and I’m going to fold a load of laundry and head that direction myself.

I’m enjoying this vacation immensely. The kids and I are having SUCH fun together, even though we aren’t really going anywhere “special.” It’s just our hometown museums and zoo … but we haven’t been able to do anything like this in soooooooooooooo long. We’re loving it!

Tags: challenges, child-rearing, home education, home schooling, homeschooling, math, vacation