Such a Nice Day

We're having such a nice day, today. B* and I did our "math meeting" this morning and made a nice pictograph of the indoor and outdoor winter activities that he likes. He wanted to hang it on the wall when we were done, so we did.

J* is only doing math on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, a decision he made after I told him how far ahead we were. He was getting angsty about math again, so I reminded him that it was his decision whether we continued or stopped. Whenever I let him know that he doesn't have to do math, that it was a decision he made and that I supported by buying supplies, and that he can quit anytime he wants to, he completely freaks out at the thought of not doing anymore lessons. I told him that we were way ahead and if he wanted to do less math, then we could figure that out. We counted the days until his evaluation in June, figured out how many more lessons were left in his book, and did some math to figure out the minimum number of lessons per week he could do and still complete the book by June. He dropped the bad attitude immediately and has been excited about his math meetings again. I think he had forgotten that he's the one in charge of his studies, and that these decisions are his to make. Once I put it back in his hands, he felt much better about it.

The boys played outside for a few hours at two different times during the day, and when they came in we all had some hot tea together. I love those little quiet breaks in the day.

We've finished earth science and have started astronomy, so we spent the day gathering together supplies for our "stargazing kit", a bag full of mittens, warm hats, scarves, a flashlight wrapped in red cellophane (so that when we need it, our eyes won't have such a hard time re-adjusting from the too-bright light), a thermos full of sleepy-time tea and honey, a bag of homemade trail mix (honey-nut cheerios, life cereal, peanuts, sunflower seeds, dried cherries, dates, butterscotch morsels and chocolate chips) which the boys assembled using ingredients each of them chose, our glow-in-the-dark book of star charts, and binoculars. We also took down the rocks and minerals poster from last year and put up a star chart poster in its place. On a home decor note, the star chart is much more appealing than the rocks.

J* worked for a while on his cursive handwriting, read some history and science books from the library, did a few pages in his spelling book, and then we did a grammar lesson together. When we changed his math schedule, we also evaluated all of his other studies and he decided what he wanted to continue (everything) and what he wanted to quit (nothing) and what he wanted to add (a course on the new Bionicles). It wasn't all that different from any other day, but the shift in his attitude has made all the difference. He had been balking when I would ask for a narration, for example, but after we evaluated all of his studies and he re-made his commitments to the different subjects, he asked me to do a narration on the first section of his astronomy book "because the astronomy section of [his] science folder is so empty." And after he watched a video from the library about the sun, he wanted to do another page for his notebook on five things he learned from the video.

Now I know exactly what to do whenever he starts to feel anxious about any of his studies. I knew that already, but it's one of those things that I forget in the day-to-day shuffle. His anxiety kind of creeps up on us, and I often don't realize that we're struggling until it's too late. And I hate that, because the thing I want him to know, more than anything else, is that learning is all about having fun. I guess we both need these little reminders.