Just Stuff

Today we finished Abel's Island (see sidebar - and we read multiple books at once here, must be good for them right?) and I pulled a mean trick. It was kinda fun though - evil laugh. We listened and watched Abel grow from quite a pompous idle mouse to a mouse who loved his island home, loved nature and fending for himself and who had developed quite an artistic bent. We watched him suffer and long for home and FINALLY we see him escaping from his island. As he reached the other side - it's quite momentus - I have tears in my eyes I'm so happy for Abel and SO enjoying the prose of Mr. Steig - I read falsely "and the owl ate him." Sawyer was shocked into silence, Holdy was silent and August, who reads along with me laughed out loud. Sawyer wasn't very happy about my "joke".

We thought Holdy was better, especially after he ate 4 or 5 hotdogs in about a 24 hour period (Hold on a sec....maybe that's why he's sick again....) and munched down on his halloween candy. Poor little guy. He had a nap again today, and his temp is going up again. I REALLY hope we get some results from that unmentionable sample we took in last week.....

My big boy, he gets numbers. Wild. Overheard in the kitchen while cooking the last hot dog for Sawyer, "Sawyer, if you give me 1/4 of your hotdog that'll be fair, cuz I had 1/2 of Holdy's and 2 quarters make a 1/2 and then we'll both have 3/4" Amen John Holt.

unschooling support group for me

Well after looking at the provincial learning outcomes for grade 2 and seeing that August must be/should be writing full sentences/paragraphs I started to mildly panic as there really is not a chance in H3ll that that is going to happen. And then Math, argh, I can look at the Miquon book (don't get me wrong, I think Miquon is a great system) and I know he knows it....why make him fill out the pages if he can do it? As for printing, it appears when we "play" with letters he knows his letters just fine. As for reading, he reads along and WANTS me to put my finger on the words when I'm reading.....So I am rereading John Holt's "Teach Your Own" reading lots of unschooling blogs and trying to reinspire myself. The first chapter of JH got me feeling better, Rue's pictures of her mushroom adventures made me laugh out loud (see her blog here) and I feel better. I just gotta focus on bugs. Bugs! August's passion right now and all will be ok, I have to trust.
At homeschooling swim lessons today I spoke with another unschooling mother, who really said the right things....and she even called me tonight to see if I felt better. I said to her "We need an unschooling support group" and what I really meant was "I need an unschooling support group" If only I had the time I would make time.....a playgroup for mum's right?