This is the week. Annika went to second grade at a local elementary and Harry and Sam started sixth and fourth grades at home. Emma is a K4er, something completely made up but that makes her feel better about not going to school with Annika. She so wants to be a kindergartner and completely missed the cut-off. In other news the ants have invaded as they always do this time of the year and I spent my summer planning time watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
I won't say much about Annika's school. She is so far doing well but has been coming home exhausted every day. The don't use any scary math programs like Everyday Math but I'm still going to supplement after school. (She doesn't know that yet but I'm sure she'll be thrilled. (You got the sarcasm, right?))
We have a few big goals this year. Harry needs to learn to sit still and concentrate for more than thirty seconds at a time and how to problem solve and Sam needs to realize how smart he really is and have confidence in what he does. So everything we do is structured around those goals. For instance, Sam reads at a high-school level but I'm taking him back in some of his history and science readings so that he gets the content he needs and he knows he understands the work right away. Harry will be required to find a science problem/question to answer. He's interested in cells so we're going to find out all about them which will lead into biology and by January I want him to have a hypothesis he can work on for the rest of the school year.
Other than that we're pretty much continuing on with everything we did last year. I think the only big change is with Sam's math. I've moved him from Math-U-See to Math Mammoth. I can go into exactly why if anyone is interested. Just let me know.
And now for some pictures.
