Late Start

Late start on the day today. DH got up early (5am!) with Greyson, leaving Cassia and I to peacefully sleep in until almost 9. Nice. :) They watched some Little Einsteins and then Cameron asked to play video games early. I don't know why I let him, but I did. And of course that just sent the whole rest of the day into a dragging, bargaining sort of tailspin.

We finally started school around 11:30. We *always* start with either math or phonics. I asked Cameron which he would like to do first and he said "Neither." I'm pretty sure he meant that he didn't want to do school at all, but I said, "So that means you want to start with History then?" and he kind of shrugged and agreed. I started reading The First People and was pleasantly surprised when we made it through the entire book! All 30 pages! That's probably a record for a read aloud, lol. But it made me realize why I always start with math and phonics. When I do, I know that we can spend as long as we want on history or science later. But without them done, I spent the whole time I was reading worrying about if we were going to have enough time to finish everything before gymnastics. Turns out we didn't. Anyway, after we finished the book, I had Cameron do a narration on the subject of Prehistoric Men and he drew the *cutest* picture of a woolly mammoth that I have ever seen. (I will try to scan it in tomorrow.)

I wanted to do phonics next so that we could take his math along with us to gymnastics for him to do during Cassie's class, but again I was met with bargaining. He insisted on doing math first. I knew that he would *never* do reading during gymnastics so doing math meant putting phonics off until evening time. But that's how we did it! I don't know why I was giving in. I guess I just wasn't in the mood for a fight and he was in a stubborn mood. I did make him to two math exercises instead of just one though.

Then we went to gymnastics and I was very happy to see him putting in a higher level of effort than I have seen yet in this class. I think he wants those level ribbons. He was oggling the display case of them before Cassia's class started, lol, and I told him that he had to work really hard to get those... even when he thought he couldn't do it, he still had to try. I guess it finally sunk in. Another thing is that they paired the boys up today and it looked like his partner was really helping him to do the skills right instead of encouraging him to slack off. So it was a good gymnastics day. Cassia did great too. She is trying so hard!

Home from gymnastics and the kids disappeared into the backyard and their bikes. So much for phonics. And again, I don't feel much like fighting about it. I guess one day of skipping phonics won't kill anyone, but I do feel a bit manipulated. Tomorrow is another day though.

In other news, this weekend Cassia did two more lessons in OPGTR. She and Cameron and I are having a great time learning the short-vowel poem. Cameron is very enthusiastic about it, lol. We've also been reading Dar and the Spear-Thrower almost every night before bedtime. The chapters are really short so they are tolerating it well even though no one really seems to be interested in the story in the slightest. I think we may need to pick up the pace though and read more than one chapter a day or we'll be studying Ancient Rome by the time we finish it! Last night we all stayed up late watching the meteor shower. Gorgeous stuff.

And that's the news from here today. Hopefully tomorrow will go more in the direction that *I* decide... or at least, maybe tomorrow it won't bother me so much when it doesn't. ;)

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Interesting post script: Cameron just came in from riding his bike and said, "Why do I still have to do phonics tonight?" LOL, if he would have just ignored it I probably wouldn't have brought it up. But he acted very responsibly and now we are off to do phonics. That's my boy. :) I guess it's ok to grumble about the things we have to do sometimes as long as we still do them.