School has been in session for a few weeks now and we are all so happy with it! Audrey is loving 2nd grade. Her teachers are wonderful and she has great friends in her class. At back to school 'night' (which was really a 7:00am meeting!) her teacher told me that her Spanish has advanced enough this year that she no longer needs the separate Spanish tutoring. She goes with the other native Spanish speakers in her class for Spanish this year. She has worked so hard and has really blown us away with how fast she has grasped the language.
Redick and Reid are loving Kindergarten. It is interesting to me that they have gravitated to separate best friends and don't actually play with each other a whole lot at school. However, they still have a sweet and special bond. Reid had a stomach ache on Tuesday morning this week and stayed home from school. Audrey and Redick were fine and went to school at 8:00am like normal. By 9:30 Reid had rested, eaten and was feeling much better. He had me take him to school because he "missed Redick." Both of them are working and playing hard.
Layne goes to school on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and this year he absolutely loves it!! He started with this schedule last February when we switched to this school and he cried everyday when I dropped him off. Over the summer he asked about school a lot and it was clear that he missed going. Once school started up again for the year he has not cried once! In fact, he runs off to play and hardly looks back.
I definitely love this school. They use a Nordic style curriculum in that much of their education is play based, outdoors and child led. Especially the young kids do most of their learning with engaging, hands-on activities. Redick, Reid and Layne's programs are 100% Spanish which has obviously helped them become proficient with the language very fast.
I found the 4 of them playing together at the end of the school day. They had constructed a store and were buying and selling stuff.
Audrey spends a lot of her free time reading. She reads anything and everything she can get her hands on! She is loving chapter books lately. When she's not reading she is probably creating something with paper, cardboard or some other medium she finds. I found this creation set up in her room after she had been in there for quite a while drawing. She told me later that it was a reminder for her of how she can live with Heavenly Father again.
I can't remember what #1 is but the other steps are: 2. Read the scriptures, 3. Keep the commandments, 4. Get baptized. It's neat to see her mind at work and what she thinks about in her free time.
Karate classes have begun! Hooray! They love karate!
On Friday afternoon after the 2nd full week of school and the 1st week with karate classes everyone was wiped out! I haven't had 3 kids sleeping simultaneously during the day in years! School is so fun and so exhausting!
While the boys slept the girls enjoyed some quiet reading time on the couch. A rare but appreciated treat for us both!
Speaking of reading I am reading a wonderful book called The Entitlement Trap by Richard and Linda Eyre. They are kind of my parenting heroes and I love so many of their books! This book talks about giving kids real ownership in their lives and how ownership fosters responsibility. Part of the process of giving kids ownership involves giving them ownership of the management of money so they can learn responsibility of their money and their belongings. The kids asked me what I was reading and I explained it a bit and I told them that someday they would get to earn and manage more money than they presently get. However, with more privileges comes more responsibility and we started talking about budgets. They understand that a budget is a plan for your money so that you can accomplish all of your goals. They each wanted to make a budget on the spot so we did. Redick worked diligently on his budget for quite a while and loved the concept.
Without much guidance from me the kids divided their budgets into 3 categories: Buy, Save and Give. Redick wants to buy Kinder Surprise Eggs, Save for more Kinder Surprise Eggs, a drum, a toy car and a bow and arrow and he wants to give to old people.
We get some of the neatest thunder storms here in the Summer! This particular night the sky was totally black until the lightning illuminated the clouds. It was spectacular!
On Tuesday and Thursday the big kids go to school and Layne stays home with me. He calls it a "Buddy Day." He has started associating grocery shopping with buddy day because we often take advantage of not having all of the crazies in tow to shop. One of our local stores has these tiny carts which are simultaneously so cute and the worst invention ever! If you ever see a 2 year old pushing one of these fully loaded carts around, guard your shins! There's a reason toddlers shouldn't drive!
My baby is growing up! He used to fall asleep in my arms everyday, now it is a rare occurrence. Who gives these kids permission to do that?!!?
Stay tuned........next post is all about our fabulous trip to Costa Rica!!
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