YAY!

or "YEAH"

Brian helped me attach my baskets to my bike! I can get 3-4 bags of groceries now! I've enjoyed walking and biking places.

We have a dryer now. But I plan on hanging wet laundry often, still. But the dryer will be very handy.

My mom sent me a care package! It had something I have been wanting! Day of the Week kitchen towels!


On the not so YEAH side- the baskets I bought for the boys won't work with their bikes. But they have carrying handles, so we may find other uses for them.

Rock Climbing

KI
GAVINCONNOR

LEMON

Connor (13.5) found a lemon on the tree next door. The n eighbors all agree my kids can pick the lemons and oranges next door because no one owns the house really, it has been forclosed.

anyway- this is the lemon he found. looks like a grapefruit!

FINANCES/MONEY MATH

i got this book last year, it was mailed to me free.
http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/mar/marmoneymath.htm

Money Math Lessons for life. This link has a free download. it seems well written. I use it as a 'idea spring board' and plan on doing more with it this year.
OK.. found it... for a free copy, email moneymath@pbd.treas.gov

from the website:
"For years, teachers have used Money Math: Lessons for Life in core mathematics classes, helping to promote financial literacy among students nationwide. Why? With America's household debt reaching a staggering $13.6 trillion, it is important that we make financial education a priority, and provide our kids with the knowledge and skills they need to manage their money, stay out of debt, and save for retirement.
Money Math: Lessons for Life is a four-lesson curriculum supplement for middle school math classes, teaching grade 7-9 math concepts using real-life examples from personal finance. The 86-page book is a teacher's guide with lesson plans, reproducible activity pages, and teaching tips. A teacher needs only one copy of Money Math: Lessons for Life to teach several classes of students.
Free to teachers, Money Math: Lessons for Life was developed by the Center for Entrepreneurship and Economic Education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis in accordance with national school mathematics standards. The lessons were tested in Missouri schools and received rave reviews. Teachers need not be experts in personal finance to use Money Math in the classroom; questions and answers are clearly provided in the book.
A second printing of Money Math: Lessons for Life is now available. It is co-sponsored by a group of four generous partners who provided monetary grants and in-kind assistance to the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy. Many thanks to:
Citigroup
Department of the Treasury
Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy
University of Missouri-St. Louis "

sponsored by:

unschooling works

Ki is going to be in the 6th grade. he has never done well in math. he gets easily confused. He decided to do the SAT question of the day. it was a MATH question. So I read it to him. It was:

For a certain Triangle the (BCline) [written mathematically, I don't have the font. a BC with a line over it]
ANYWAY- there is a triangle. BCline = 2 and ACline=12. What does ABline equal?

and he drew the triangle and filled in the info and said "It's 12." and explained why (the most important part, I think). He was correct and only 49% of the people who answered got it correct!
He did a Grammar question last week on the SAT question of the day (his big brothers do them so he likes to do them, too, of course).

He reads about 2 grades 'below level' and has dyslexia and dysgraphia, so we doesn't write much. Ho got that question correct as well.

I guess I shouldn't worry so much about him. Though his 'daily performance' isn't always 'grade level', he's obviously a smart kid and can figure things out when he needs/wants to do so- eventhough we let him go at his own pace and only learn when he's ready and what he wants to be learning (for the most part). Once again I am reminded the reason we homeschool is to teach them HOW to learn, not to have them memorize a bunch of facts.