Mid Year Update

It's been a while since I posted. I have lots of things to write about and I need to change the name of my blog. I'm not sure freeing is the right word for knowledge (although it can do that but that's another post). But I need to update on my darlings now that we're at the midyear mark, and since Erica left such nice questions.

Mornings are horrible! The kids are so used to waking up and just mellowing out before having to face the day. Now we have a mad rush no matter what time I get them up. They won't eat, they won't get dressed, they want to fall back asleep on the chair, the couch, the floor. Camille has sensory issues about her clothes, and now they must all be pink or at least have pink in them. Things that were okay last week are not okay this week. Certain shirts have to go with certain pants, etc. And she won't wear a coat which isn't a big deal here. Her teachers make it a big deal but that's on the other blog. Umberto spends most of his morning groaning about how he hates school, wants to stay home, etc. By the time we get to the car, I'm raging, yelling too much, etc. I try to keep a good attitude because I know it effects them but I'm not really a morning person. But we do manage to get to school on time with everyone alive and no one crying.

Umberto moved to another room last week. I LOVED his teacher but we both felt that Umberto would get more of the reading help he needs from another teacher. This teacher is also awesome, and she's a literary specialist. Now he has this teacher, special reading classes, and he'll be doing after school tutoring. All of this will add to up interventions which can be used to argue his case for testing. And maybe just maybe it will all click and the testing will be unnecessary. His former teacher told me when I talked to her about moving him that Umberto could do anything if he could read. He's taken the move well but he misses his friends from his old class. I noticed today at their Thanksgiving Feast that he hung out with his old friends. But he has already shown a lot of improvement, and he actually talks about what he did in class as opposed to what his friends did during lunch and recess. He is making some slight improvements but he still gets frustrated easily and has a hard time with memorization.

Camille has overcome her friend issue. She now has several friends both girls and boys. She's also learning to read, and does well academically. Her classroom is horrible though, and right now I'm about to go to battle because of her teacher. I try to not be a perfectionist when it comes to teachers because I know it is a hard job but there have too many incidents that concern me. I want her moved to the teacher Umberto has now next year. She has some kind of anxiety, obsessive thing going on where she licks her hands. It's more pronounced when she's nervous, agitated or upset.

Both kids are doing drumming with the world's best music teacher. They love it. Music is awesome at CCS. They sing, make up ballets and musicals, play all kinds of different instruments, and just have a really good time. The teacher is excellent about teaching them traditional stuff but combining that with improv.

For the most part, I really like CCS. Most of the teachers are superb. The staff is mostly welcoming and friendly. Piper has become a part of the family, and is treated like a student. The other parents are funky, cool, and friendly. The school's small size is nice, and I know kids from all grade levels at this point. When I walk the halls, I hear "Hey Ms. Ginger!" a lot which is kind of neat. So if I can deal with Camille's problem I'd say we picked a good place for us to be.

And do I miss homeschooling? I don't know. Sometimes I do. There are days I miss the lazy, in bed mornings with the kids all around me. I liked being such a huge part of their learning process and definitely feel a bit left out of it right now. There was a freedom to how we learned things that has been lost. I miss random park days and unplanned adventures. It seems like we don't do the park as much as we used to. On the days I teach, I don't see the kids much which makes me sad. But I wasn't able to do homeschooling the way it should be done. I just didn't' have the time. And I think we were very isolated onto ourselves which I'm not sure was such a good thing.

But we're working it out just like we worked out homeschooling.