Today

So this morning when I woke up the sky was still black as night...blacker than even normal and my window was creaking. When I looked outside the rain was pouring down in a sideways motion and the wind was whipping trees around like a hurricane. As my husband and teenage daughter are at Lakenheath for the weekend leaving me without a car I decided there was no chance I was walking my boys the two blocks (yes I know it's not far but it's just too cold) to the bus stop. So I woke up my teenage son and sent him off to catch a ride with our neighbors and I went back to bed with the younger boys. Funnily enough we woke up one hour later to beautiful blue skies and sun. But oh well. We have been spending our day doing all sorts of school work. We were supposed to start with Bible but as the eldest of the three took forever loading the dishwasher I decided to go ahead and start math with the younger boys. We played dice math rolling two dice and making them into addition or subtraction problems. The boys each got 100% of their questions correct! Gryphen then went on to pull a fit of not wanting to do work but Phoenix wanted to write a Bible story so he wrote about Zaccheus in his notebook while Gryphen pouted alone in the living room. I printed up some worksheets on Zaccheus but Phoenix stuck his nose up at them and went on with his own notebook page. Tristan is taking a math placement test for Saxon math, I won't be using Saxon but I am going to give him several placement tests over the next few days to help me to guage exactly where he is and what we need to work on. After lunch I decided to tell the boys about our new "incentive" program. I made a list (looks a lot like a schedule but not quite) of things that had to be accomplished and added in unacceptable behavior (like fighting, whinging, and pouting) then I told them that each thing I marked with a check earned one point towards an electronics coupon and each thing I had to put an X on would be a point taken away. It takes 5 points to earn 15 minutes of game system or handheld game, 3 points for 30 minutes of tv, and 20 points for 15 minutes of computer time. I know the numbers may seem off but as we are just starting I find it important that they are able to earn something most everyday.

So it is now almost 1pm and the last of our pencils have broken and the boys have completed everything written they can without a sharpener (DH is bringing one home from Lakenheath) so after some clean up they are free to do any nonelectronic activity they would like for a few hours before we do some read alouds and get ready for bed.

So here is what we accomplished so far...



Phoenix
1. one page of dice math
2. copied "Bed in Summer"
3. did a written narration of Zaccheus
4. wrote a poem of his own
5. read for 30 minutes
6. Listened to the story of Zaccheus (read by Tristan)



Gryphen
1. one page of dice math
2. copied "Bed in Summer"
3. Made his own poem
4. Listened to the story of Zaccheus (read by Tristan)
5. Did one Phonics lesson in his "I love to read" book

Tristan
1. Did a handwriting sheet (his handwriting is completely illegible
2. Took the saxon math placement test for middle school
3. Read in his left behind book
4. Read aloud the story of Zaccheus to his brothers
5. Taught the Zaccheus song to his brothers