May 15, 2008

So I checked our new babies this morning and it looked as if the parents had made the nest bigger, maybe to accomodate the growing brood, I checked the depth of the addition and found a dead end. Curious, I made a small hole where the old nest was and find 5 dead babies. I spoke to Mr. Parson so suggested that a house sparrow might have moved in there and "buried" the babies by building a new nest on top of the old...very sad.

Thursday morning and Emily eagerly went off to school for her last day. Really she just wanted to hang out with her friends one more time in Math lab...there's a good reason to homeschool, one would think they should be learning Math in Math lab, not the social sciences.

Anyway, I'm encouraged after having a discussion with her SPED teacher about Migraines and kids in general. He is a homeschooling advocate and encouraged a discussion about curriculum and advantages and disadvantages of this or that. I will be submitting my letter of intent this afternoon at the Superintendants office, and was preparing for battle, I think maybe a happy, but matter of fact approach would now be the best front. I'm meeting with the SPED teacher at 1pm to downgrade Emily's help from a IEP (Independant Education Plan) to a 504. Very exciting...

I can't help but wanting to dive right into homeschooling. Yesterday I had her take a practice GED writing test and she passed with an 80%, so I'm curious to see how she'll fare on the rest of the tests. I've been advised by veteran homeschoolers that children just being pulled out of school need some time to de-school, which means giving them enough down time to change their mindset from "I have to learn" to "I want to learn". It's a pretty interesting concept. Danny is a great example... just this morning he mastered the concept of gravity and is very interested in how electricity works so we took a video out of the library on electricity and hopefully Dad will get a chance this weekend to do some electrical "experiments" to help him understand better.Last week we spent at least an hour working with money, but because he wanted to. I know I learn a whole lot more when I want to, so it only makes sense that they would too!

As for Emily, I'll give her a day off , then it's off to work with you child ! Lots to learn at a garden center, and making money too, welcome to real life !

Emily is now on the couch working on another picture, and watching the movie The Nativity (Bible study) it just keeps getting better !