Small Successes!

1. My kids (including the teenage boys!) watched two movies about women this week and actually liked them! The first was Amelia about Amelia Earhart! The second was The Young Victoria, about the early years of Queen Victoria.  Two different women from two different times, and yet remarkably the same when it came to determination ( or stubbornness) and bravery. Some good discussions followed from whether or not they made good wives (Victoria yes, Amelia not so much) and whether Earhart’s last flight was a foolish risk from the outset!

2.  Last night Sam reffed a soccer game that had a lot of the kids from people at church on it.  He even knew the coach and assistant coach.  That was fine.  I knew Sam would not have any trouble being impartial.  But he did have his authority called into question.  When the ball went out, Sam motioned where the throw in should be and the very authoritative assistant coach yelled, “Oh come on Sam, it should go in back here!!”  But Sam didn’t waiver. The throw in happened where Sam said it should and the game went on.  I know that was a little difficult for Sam. He has been raised to respect his elders and to be obedient, but he had enough confidence in his skills as a ref to stick by his decision and I was glad to see that. I think he showed maturity.

3.  I have mentioned before that I suffer from a deficiency in math proficiency! I have tried to help my offspring avoid this fate and it has worked with two. I thought I had it all figured out and that the best curriculum for us to use forever and always would be Saxon Math!  But I had to get real with myself this week.  Saxon is just not working for my 8th grader, Gabe.  I spend an hour going over his problems with him every day , and then having him re-do lessons, but he just doesn’t seem to get it!  And it certainly didn’t help that his little brother Noah just started the exact same math book, or that his oldest brother Calvin has offered to buy Noah dinner at Steak on a Stone if he passes his Gabe! I put in an SOS with the gals in the 4Real Learning Forums and they had a lot of great ideas that I plan to investigate their suggestions. But in the meantime, I found ALEKS and had Gabe take the assessment. And the miraculous happened – he spent 2 hours working on the program without complaining, or trying to get away.  He said he actually liked it!  So for now, maybe this is the way we are going to get math done for him, at least up to Algebra I!

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