Saturday is Clean House Day

The girls didn't do half bad for their first week of school. Kendra is still working at catching up - but she likes the Algebra 1 and the Home Ec, so maybe she will stay on top of it this year. She is a book worm and gets side tracked way too easily. Vannan just gets bogged down in the reading or speeds through and has to redo lots when I finally get it from her for grading. We have got to get a better system for turning work in for grading - though I do my best to stay on top of it. I think I'm going to have to get reading glasses or bifocals soon.

Joel is loving school time - though since he already has his alphabet down pat (in sign language too), knows most of the basic phonics sounds, counts to 10, spontaniously adds and subtracts - though he doesn't know what he is doing, can spell his entire name (though he still struggles with the middle name), knows his basic and some of the other colors (his favorite is yellow), knows his shapes.... what is left to teach him to get ready for kindergarten. And he is sounding out words - he knows cat, dog, mom, dad, and all our names on sight. His favorite toy is his My First Leappad Bus - he's got about a dozen different books for it - wish the writing one was still available. He will sit and work with that for hours. I love the way he puts away each book before he gets out a new one. He loves puzzles - though he still needs help if there are more than 12 pieces. He also loves his cars and trucks and trains, builds with blocks, and reads books.

Vannan is doing 4th grade reading and math and English - in spite of the fact that she should be in 6th grade this year. Switching to Rod and Staff curriculum 2 years ago really showed up the holes she had in her learning. I had gotten slack with the "new" house and being pregnant with Joel. Several subjects she's almost ready for her 5th grade books. She's the only morning person in the whole house. Her favorite color these days is pink, and she tries her best to stay organized. We had her do the state testing last Spring - and except for Spelling - she did very well on it.

Kendra is somewhat between an 8th and 9th grader - she basically took 3 years to go through 6th grade - then zoomed through 7th and part of 8th grade. I never know what to expect when she gets up. She works way better in the evenings - but not sure how to accomodate that with our schedule. Her favorite color has migrated to purple - though it has been red and blue in the past. She is working at starting her own knitting business - but I told her that school comes first.

We are getting ready to start a new AWANA year. Looks like I'll be doing Cubbies again. I've been involved with AWANA and mostly Cubbies now for 25 years. Amazing.

Off to check to see how the girls are doing on their chores. We use http://www.chorebuster.com/ to help assign chores - and use the http://www.flylady.com/ to organize how to do them. It works only as much as people are willing to do what is assigned to them. I still need to do some decluttering - though so much of it is not clutter - we do use it! It just doesn't have a home. I am trying to get rid of stuff though - selling or freecycling or good willing what we are not using. Not an easy task when there is no pick up this far out and I don't drive.

Back to paperwork and whatever else I can see that needs doing.