Hellooooo out there!

So after much prodding from one of my friends (ahem, Cate) I finally sat myself down to write a post. I didn’t realize it had been so darn long!!!! The last time I wrote here, we had just purchased and received our curriculum from Moving Beyond the Page. It took us a couple of days to find a rhythm with it and now we have finally settled on something that works extremely well. We only get it out when we can’t think of anything else to do! It seemed like all the boys needed was a jolt and now they’re in a creative burst.

For a couple of weeks now, Ryan has had a real fascination with mathematical concepts. At any given time, he will shout out, “Momma! I just figured out what 7 + 7 is!” and then he will give me the correct answer. He is, completely on his own, discovering subtraction. For example, we bought this package of snacks at the store the other day. It was a “Mystery Box” and cost more than I wanted to spend but it came with 16 packs of snacks inside. The first day we had it, Ryan kept going back to the box over and over again and I asked him, “Ryan, how many of those do you have left? You’re going to eat them all in one day!” Without skipping a beat, he said, “No Momma, I’ve only eaten three. There were 16 in here before and that means there are 13 left.”

Well, he might eat every snack in the house but he’s grasping the concept of subtraction at the same time. LOL

Iain has been in “deep” mode. Sometimes Iain is all about doing, playing, having fun and at other times he is very contemplative. He came down for dinner last night and out of the blue he said, “School is pointless, right Momma?” I asked him what he meant and he said, “well, school wants you to learn things that aren’t important and they put all kinds of pressure on you to learn it. It’s stuff you forget anyway.” I wondered where in the world this was coming from. Had he seen something on You Tube? Nope. Apparently he was just up in his room, reflecting on his life and thinking about how much he liked being home. He said that when he was in school he felt tremendous pressure to perform to a certain level and then felt very bad about himself when he couldn’t do what the teacher expected. I swear, some days, the things they say really amaze me.

I had a conversation the other day with our favorite neighbor, Miss Charlotte. She is a globe-hopping woman who is living a very exciting life and my boys absolutely adore her. She told me the other day that she and her husband get a kick out of talking to my boys. “It’s like talking to little adults,” she said. She finds their perspectives fascinating as well. It makes me feel good to hear her say that. I know people from that generation can have a difficult time understanding how we learn without books and schedules to follow so it’s nice to hear that they see the magic that I see.

Ooooh! I almost forgot! We finally got some serious snow here!

It was beautiful! Sean and Iain made a giant snowman:

My niece thought it was way too cold:

It was really awesome to get one good snow. Now we’re ready for Spring!!

I hope all has been well with you and your world!