So Much to Say...

...so little time!

I have missed this blog and I have missed all of you!

I have so many things to write about that it feels like climbing a mountain to catch everyone up, so I'll just try to hit the important parts and then (hopefully) fill in the details later.

Miss C and her two boys continue to come faithfully on Monday and Wednesday mornings, and her 4yo continues to be my star student (he chooses his work, diligently completes it, and puts it away - oh, if only my 5yo and 3yo would work so well!!).

We attend our homeschool co-op on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Through the co-op, we've met another family with four kids (a 7-1/2yo boy, a 6yo girl, a 4-1/2yo boy, and a 2yo boy) who have started joining us at least two and sometimes three days a week on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoons. That means we're doing Montessori work up to 5 days a week, which makes me so happy!

The 2yo takes a nap in our Pack-n-Play while my 1-1/2yo (and sometimes my 3yo) naps. Maybe there's something about doing work for another person (as opposed to your own mother) that makes kids respond so well, but these kids are fantastic, too. The wonderful thing is that, because my 5yo tends to "play up," they provide peer pressure for her to do her work and do it well - love it, love it, love it!

Also, because the little kids are sleeping, both Miss M and I stay in the Montessori room with all of the school-aged kids. Their family uses a completely different curriculum, so Miss M often brings work for my daughter to do, which I think is a total win-win. I believe wholeheartedly in the Montessori method, but I sometimes worry that my daughter is "over" it. Anyone else out there experience that?

For instance, when working on addition and subtraction, my 5yo will shrug off every offer of finger charts or other manipulatives, saying, "I can do it in my head." She can do the math in her head, but it's hard for her to get in a flow when she has to think about each problem so hard. (She's doing addition with carrying and subtraction with borrowing, which adds a whole other dimension of difficulty.) Maybe I should be cheering her "passage to abstraction"? In the meantime, though, I love having a Montessori-free outlet for her - if she so chooses - on the days when Miss M's family is here.

That's it for now, I guess. Thanks to all of you for sticking with me! As I said, I truly miss this blog, and I hope to be able to post more often.