Monday, January 03, 2011

Back to School...

The holidays are over. Now it's back to school for Haley and the boys. We took the holidays to do a bit of re-organizing, a lot of violin practice, and just took some time to enjoy ourselves. I read a few books and started an annoying puzzle.

Last Wednesday, Newt had a holiday tournament and took 3rd, suffering his 1st loss of the season to a senior who placed in regions last year. He wrestled hard the entire match and in a desparation move, nearly pinned the boy in the last few seconds but didn't have enough time to get it done. I was very proud that he walked off the mat the same way he walked on with his head held high and no theatrics (unlike many wrestlers I've observed with their throwing of headgear and pouting). Newt returns to a full schedule of wrestling this month...matches every Wednesday and Saturday with practices and lifting in between.

Last night, I took Dylan and Haley to play with Paraic and Shawn at their Con Murphy's gig. They have so much fun playing with those guys, laughing, joking, and fiddling around. There were some women with wonderful voices singing and a violinist (not a fiddler) showed up and asked to sit in. She had a lot of interest in learning fiddling.

Dylan goes back to school today. He's spent the holidays playing with his friend, Drew. He has especially enjoyed their snowmobiles with all the snow...which has now been rained away in 48 degree weather.

Haley has been working really hard the past couple weeks on her Souvenier de Sarasate by Potstock. She wants to play it in their upcoming concert and had to convince her teacher she could have it ready. She had a nice break this past month from all the technique books but is back to them this week and though not very excited about it, at least refreshed and ready to work. She said her New Year's Resolution was to practice technique happily.

The other day we met a friend at Barnes and Nobel and while there purchased a few workbooks...Singapore Challenging Word Problems and a grammar workbook. Haley sees her brothers doing homework and wants homework herself. Doesn't matter to her that all her work is technically "homework." She wanted books where she could tear out pages and have them assigned outside of our regular school time. Who am I to keep a child from learning?

I also was told about a website that has Spanish teaching videos in story format where she can learn conversational Spanish rather than the boring Rosetta Stone way. We are having technical difficulties with our computers and have been unable to get Rosetta Stone working in either one for about 2 months so we are going to try it.

My goals for her homeschooling this month are to finish up our study of colonial times and get through the Revolutionary War for history and finish up the Human Body for science. Math and Language Arts will continue with the addition of "homework" in the evenings. LOL

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