3 1/2 Time Outs – 1st day of school

1.
School started last week for #1 and this morning for everyone else.  I love the first day of school where they all are eager, listen well, and work hard, and I don’t have to spend any of my day nagging them to get back to work.  It’s the day I lie to myself that it will always look like this:

School at the kitchen table

2.
I ended last year frustrated with my ability to help #3 control his ADHD long enough to learn well.  What do you do with a boy whose body needs to be constantly in motion?  This year I have a plan.

Problem solved

It works beautifully.  His little body is wiggling and moving and the upper part of him just keeps working away.  Eureka!

3.
#1 did her college algebra homework last night in the near frantic What-if-I’m-not-perfect-? manner which has defined her school career up until now.  She worried and fretted and then got a 100 on the electronic assignment.  (On line math homework that grades itself!  I love it!)  She grinned at us sheepishly as she realized that she knows the material and might just want to take a deep breath and calm down a bit.

3.5.
#5 started kindergarten this morning.  It went pretty well, and he begged to do more.  I just wish that when he was younger that he’d