Yesterday I woke up before K did (that’s really, really unusual) and could not get back to sleep – I needed a brain dump. So I got a piece of scrap paper (I am more comfortable with junk paper for brain dumping) and listed everything that I needed to work on and was afraid I’d forget. Once I saw my own list I though, No wonder I couldn’t sleep. So much for the “get the tail end of school done,” resolve: I had to start on the big projects that were bugging me or burst. So the kids vegged out on videos while I entered the co-op data, ordered books, and started studying the Bible lessons for the Family Fun Fair on August 28th at my church.
Today was M’s first orthodontia appointment. It didn’t take too long to get the bands on his teeth, so we came home to attempt some school (I want to get back on the finish up the tail end of school bandwagon). He was jittery and random; we are back to February as far as his ability to do concentrated work. I cut the writing in half, and skimmed for an easy page in the math book. Fractions, I thought, he’s been baking with me…but fractions were opaque.
NOT FAIR wailed my heart – this is the little boy who figured out the cookie problem when we read Little House in the Big woods – true, with manipulatives and a bit of a hint, but why doesn’t he remember?
Well, ease is not the goal, learning is. So, if we need to review a lot, we need to review a lot. We need to play some math games with fractions, to give him some more concrete understanding of fractions, and I’m going to need PATIENCE to keep at the school work with him; because when his teeth are wonky, so is his schoolwork, and they are going to be wonky, because we have another appointment for next Thursday.
We pulled out some unit blocks for K to play with during M’s school, but they turned into the math lesson. M could show me how many blocks it took to make the same volume of other blocks, and I used the chance to talk about fractions. He know more concepts and vocabulary than I thought he did.