Bread and circuses...

All I can think of to write about it homeschooling stuff and I'm trying not to do that so much here.

We have no bread in the house. None whatsoever. I don't think that has ever happened before for more than a few minutes. Not good during Lent.

Maria and Zoe made construction paper crowns for themselves yesterday and look adorable running around the house wearing them today. They used glitter glue and buttons to decorate and they are really quite nice.

I had cookies cooling on the counter while I was in the shower this morning and I don't even want to think about how many of them Luci ate, though she was told to leave them alone, while I wasn't watching.

I have enormous amounts of laundry to do today. No motivation.

We have been offered FREE tickets to go see the Ringling Bros, etc. circus in two weeks! I'm very, very excited about that. Especially since Mari and I have been talking about circuses in school lately. I thought that was kind of silly actually, that our discussion time every day for over a week should be about circuses, but I guess it will pay off now! Yay!

Homeschool post

I think I'm finally completely sold on the idea of intensive phonics. I do not like the way Mari is learning sight words in Calvert right now. It makes it easier for her to read beginning readers I suppose, but she is constantly guessing words based on the first letter and reversing letters when she writes. She isn't decoding as much as I'd like, though I am supplementing with Spalding phonics as much as I can. Both Zoe and Luci are learing more phonics from writing (coming to me and saying "how do you write...?" and then sounding it out with me) then anywhere else. I think the writing to spell and read concept really seems to fit with how they are all learning anyway. So...I'm pretty definate about trying the Spell to Write and Read program next year. It is a hefty investment, but I just keep reminding myself that it is the only thing we need for the first three or four years for phonics/grammar/spelling. And I've seen people sell the program on the yahoo group really quickly, so I think if we hated it I could get some of my money back.

I received the Children's Bible Reader I ordered for the girls today. I'm so excited about this thing. A children's story bible that tells the stories from an Orthodox perspective. I can't even express how wonderful that is. Not only for the girls...but for me too!

I want to get started on all this stuff RIGHT NOW! I'm sooooo not good at waiting.