150th Anniversary of the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain.

This weekend the kids participated in some activities commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. http://battleofkennesawmountain150.com/
We spent quite of bit of Adventures time this past school year on the Civil War because it is very much a part of the history of our area. We pass memorials and markers everyday as we run errands that remind us of the War between the States. We've had a lot of conversations about why in our area there are very few building much older then the 1870's, while a few hours south in my husband's hometown of Savannah there are building dating back to the 1600's. It was fun for them to  get to see some of the living history they pass everyday...

They had several exhibits set up about life in Cobb County in the 1860's. The area was very poor, made up mainly of small farms. Most of the confederate soldiers who fought at the battle did not own slaves and came from "dirt farms" where they barely scraped by day to day. For crafts the girls made corn husk dolls with scraps of fabric and yarn. After the crafts and camp area, came the part they kids really enjoyed. They joined in the children's reenactment of the charge of Big Kennesaw. The kids chose to be a part of the union charge instead of being "dug in" on the the Confederate side. Yang dramatically died seven times to the delight of one small boy on the other side..lol.. They had a great time. I think they  came away with a better understanding of how much war changes things in an area, and how both sides are human.

Yang "dying" in the corner, Ying in the black t-shirt holding the line.

Ying and Yang charge.....

My Thoughts on Adventures in US History by MFW

So now that we've finished the year "What do I think?"......

I think it was pretty amazing. I loved having a flexible, Christ-centered outline to guide me through our first year of home schooling. Every program is going to have its pluses and minuses and this had more pluses, IMO. So, here is my pros and cons list for your perusals....

Pros

1. Christ centered and biblically focused without feeling like your having a daily sermon. Bible never felt forced or disconnected from the rest of the program
2. Flexible- nothing was locked stepped and very open to supplementation. We had a very fluid schedule this year and this program worked very well for us. Some weeks we did history all in one day because we had other stuff going on, some weeks we had gap days. We even skipped a week that felt like overkill. Any moving around we did, did not adversely affect other portions of the curriculum. When we felt areas were too light or the girls had more interest it was easy to pause, add extras and then pick back up
3. Literature based- I am lucky. I have great readers, who love to read. They loved the book basket, once Mom got over her need for them to finish a book. I will testify that if you fill up the basket with appealing material, you'll be amazed at what they learn when you're not hovering.
4. Easy to read and follow Teacher's Manual.
5. Great mix of book and hands-on
6. A whole lot of great family time.

Cons

1. While it's presented as a complete curriculum, I feel it required quite a bit of supplementation to add enough rigor. If one solely went with the check box approach, this would be a very "lite" 3rd grade.
2. The Science portion- the science portion was very light and chaotic. While I originally thought my kids would like the variety in the science curriculum, it turned out to be very annoying to them to never get in depth about anything. They did like the hand on experiments to an extent, but many took longer to set up then do. We ended up chucking it and going with a focused co-op class.
3. Primary Language lesson- Ummmm... we lasted 3 weeks... just was not for us. I can see the value of it, it just wasn't the right fit for me as the teacher, or them after 2 years of other instruction.

Things I had a Love/Hate relationship with-

1. The Book list- I know no list can be comprehensive and classics are just that classics, but the book list is very dated. Many titles were simply unappealing to my kids. And frankly due to age unavailable, even through a truly AWESOME library system like ours. It was a great jumping off point, but by no means would I want to just use the list.
2. The TM---- the grids are awesome. The notes? Great in the first half, but as the weeks go on there is very little
3. The state sheets--- after 50 I won't say hate but glad they are done. By the end the birds and flowers were colored well. The states were taking a beating. The facts are fun to read but honestly I feel very little was retained. I think I would have preferred less information, but then again on some states it was the ONLY information.
4. The cooking projects- Depending on where you are from these are great, or just not interesting. I found most of the cooking projects to be "country/southern" cooking..lol.. Well since we are both, they were nothing new to my kids. They liked doing them but saw nothing special..lol
5. The Read- Alouds- Stretched wayyyyyyyyyy out and some just plain dated and boring. We skipped some, read others at triple speed. My kids could handle this and we just supplemented a lot.
6. The bible lessons-- When there were lessons, they were good. But they weren't daily, and often bible only consisted of memory verse work. While this helped it not feel "preachy" it also left you feeling a little empty some days. We supplemented a lot.

Who this curriculum is NOT for.......

1. Those looking for their kids to be very independent. My kids are mature, very advance in reading, and could do a lot independently, but much of this is based on parent-child-literature interaction.
2. Those who want to just check boxes off...
3. Those who don't enjoy reading and learning through literature. If you are looking for just the facts and nothing but the facts (as in a strictly classical approach) this is not your curriculum. 
4. Those with small space and no great library. This curriculum thrives on lots and lots of books. I was lucky enough to be able to have 20+ books per subject with 2 kids doing Adventures. Most were needed for  1-2 weeks. I would not have been able to do this, nor do I think we would have enjoyed this curriculum if we had to buy these books and store them.

Books I would add to the Book list: Most of these are secular in nature. While not Christian-based, I found nothing objectionable or derogatory is the ones we read unless noted.... 

1. United Tweets of America : 50 State Birds, Their Stories, Their Glories by Hudson Talbott. Great illustrations that have catchy themes for each state.
2. Blood on the River: Jamestown 1607 by Elisa Carbone -READ ALOUD-( for mature kids)- 2 kinds of Christians and missionaries are depicted in the novel. One has a true desire to spread Christ's love to the "savages" and others who are very hypocritical. We used this as a great discussion starting point about how it's not what you call yourself or what church you go to, but real Christians are recognized by how they live in the small moments and treat other people.
3. No Man's Land by Susan Bartoletti- READ ALOUD- Because he had been unable to fight off the gator which injured his father, 14-year-old Thrasher joins the Confederate Army hoping to prove his manhood. Great depiction of what the  war looked like  from an uneducated southern view point. Gone with the wind its not...lol..*** Note- some depiction of the graphic events of war (injuries,amputations, minor swearing."
4. The Disgusting History Series:- Colonial America, American frontier,Civil War, Age of Pirates... Wanna know what the colonists did for toilet paper...lol
5. The Who Was... Biographies: we read Ben Franklin, and Harriet Tubman.
6. You Wouldn't want to be series- A Viking, An American Colonist,  at The Boston Tea Party... Similar to the Disgusting History Series, but more cartoony in look and feel.
7. The I Survived Series- Many of the events chronicles here are much more modern history but my kids still loved them. Gettysburg, San Fran earthquake, Pearl Harbor, 9/11, etc...
8. Magic Tree House Fact Trackers- American Revolution, Twisters, Pilgrims, & Abraham Lincoln
9. You Choose: History- These are "chose your adventure books" that look at different point is history from two or 3 points of view. Great for teaching that events in history have relativity based on what side your on. We have only read a few of these so far. My father, a Vietnam era vet, did not like one view point of the the Vietnam era book. One of the three lines follows protesters of the war. Honestly, I like that multiple viewpoint are shown because I want my kids to understand that history is not just 2 dimensional. That being said, You choose.
10. The Graphic History collection- too many to list.. great graphic novel presentations of history that are still full of great facts. These were actually the easiest books for my girls to research from for note-booking/ writing assignments because the facts were not buried in other words, and the pictures were great visual clues without looking babyish.

The Last Lap

Here are our finished final lap books for this Adventure....

Ying chose The Civil War....

Yang chose The Great Inventors. Not all were American in this project or from this time period but it was a great study...

Yangs suffered a bit from the humidity but all in all a great 3 week project!

Aloha and the Last Frontier

We did it! We finished Adventures and our trip through the 50 states. We celebrated our success with a "luau" of sorts...lol.. No roasted pigs in the back yard but we did the best we could living in a clay state..lol
It was fun to do two such contrasting states in the last week. We bundled up for Alaska and looked at how even today many areas a still only accessible but boat, or small aircraft, and that there are  villages of a 100 people isolated by the extreme weather for more than 1/2 a year . Yang wasn't sure she could survive with so few people to have conversations. When we hit Hawaii the kiddos were quick to dress up and ask for the beach. They loved the colors and flavors. We cooked a great dinner with the flavors of  Hawaii : fish, fruit, sweet bread and a coconut poke cake. we left out pineapple because the girls have started to shows signs of allergies to it.  Their favorite thing was recreating "Stitch Juice" from the O'hana restaurant at Disney World.

1. Our Stitch Juice Recipie:
2. 
   
3. 21 ounces Passion Fruit Juice
4. 21 ounces Guava Juice
5. 14 ounces Orange Juice (pulp free)

Mix well and serve cold. We found it was best if it was let sit together for at least a hour for the flavors to meld.

So, now its time for a bit of a break. We will continue with math and reading for another 20 or so days. The girls will have their end of year testing, and we will enjoy some fun end of year shenanigans and field trips. We will break completely for the month of June for VBSs and summer camps then pick back up with MFW's next program : Exploring Countries and Cultures. The kids are very excited for it. I am excited for a bit of a break! Aloha!

Weeks 32-33

 We are approaching the finish line of the school year and only have alittle bit left in the Adventures curriculum, and then we are kinda doing our own thing. We are finishing up the last few states, and each girl has chosen a lap book from A Journey Through Learning to complete on the historical subject of her choice. Ying chose to do more on the Civil War, while Yang chose The Great Inventors. Each lapbook is a large undertaking, and will take us approx 3 weeks to finish. We've chosen ones this time that require more independent writing, and will allow us to show our year's progress in Language Arts. We are working on crafting strong sentences and paragraphs, and making sure we are clearly on topic (answering the question asked). The lapbooks are designed for grades 2-7 and come with study guides. Since, the girls are just finishing 2nd, I am not requiring more research than the 1-2 page study guide that comes with each section. I think these are appropriate length and detail. I find them very similar to the writing in The Story of the US by MFW. We are also continuing our way through the last few states in the west and southwest. We really enjoyed making Navajo Fry Bread while talking about New Mexico.

 Poor Ying had to sick back and watch because she had strep throat....

Any project she can Yang can get her hands into is her kinda thing.

But Mommy does the frying...lol

 We finished our bread off with some worm honey.

We've switched spelling curricula starting this week. Spelling by Sound and structure just didn't seem to click. We did the whole 2nd grade book but just never seemed to really connect with the girls. So we have switched to Spelling Skills: Grade 3 by Harcourt Family Learning. This book combines spelling, vocabulary, light grammar work, and dictionary skills. Each week they have a short passage to edit, mainly for spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.  After just a few weeks I can already see major improvements in their writing and spelling. There is a corresponding writing book to this curriculum and I am definitely getting interested in it.

Science- the girls are winding up there human body study through co-op working there way through the sense and nutrition.

Reading- Ying is bucking at anything challenging right now so really we are just reading alot of little books. The last two weeks she's done the Dragon Slayers Academy, Flat Stanley, and The Civil War: An Interactive History. Yang has worked her way through all the Sarah, Plain and Tall series.

Read aloud- The kids loved Bunnicula so much, we have moved on the another book featuring some of the same characters called Howliday Inn.

Week 31- Life on the Northern Plains--- Ok well really

 So this week we did the Dakotas. Spent a lot of time on Mount Rushmore. But let me be honest... Spring fever took over. We wrapped up studies in LA, Math, Spelling, History, and Sci in prep for our Spring Break! So there is not much to add this week.. here's the brief over view......

Reading- Ying finished up the  Tales from the Odyssey series with The Final Battle. Yang Read Sarah, Plain, and Tall.

Math- Reintroduction of multiplication through arrays. We will start on the memorization of facts after the break.

Spelling- Lesson 31

Language Arts- We are nearing completion of time4learning 2nd grade LA. few more lessons and then we'll have to see where we go....

Read aloud- We tried a book called Navigating Early. I had pre-read parts and the story is great but it just didn't work as a read aloud with my kids. Its very complicated in style. I am sure a great middle school read but not for 2nd and pre-k even as read aloud... So we've moved on the recommendation from our children's librarian that's totally from left field called Bunnicula by James and Deborah Howe.

Science- The girls put together there whole human body they had been working on in co-op. We also study more about forces and engerey ( ya that lap book didn't work but the info was great... we just ran out of time and attention span!)

History-- We read the assigned stuff  on the northern plains but the girls are still very into the Civil War so we revisited one of favorite  local site the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield. We spent a little time in the museum and watched the movie about the battle for Atlanta. Then we walked the trails and looked at the old fortifications and talk about the battle.

United by rail..... Divided by greed..Week 30....

This week we've covered the transcontinental railroad. MFW does a nice glossy version of the tale which we expanded on to show a bit of the uglier side. I don't really like just showing the up side of history, because very rarely was history a win-win proposition. We read a lot of books but also found some great resources online to include Math problems involving the railroad and great videos on You-tube. Here were our favorites:
  Video from Education portal on transcontinental railroad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl0lxIMMb9E

 Free reading comprehension worksheet on the Transcontinental Railroad. Listed as 4th grade:

http://www.k12reader.com/worksheet/transcontinental-railroad/

Math worksheet with interesting facts on the transcontinental railroad. My girls could do about 1/2 of problems. Definitely written for 5+grade and up....
http://www.blm.gov/pgdata/etc/medialib/blm/wy/nhtic/education/lessons/transcontinentalrailroad.Par.61847.File.dat/mathskills.pdf

Science- We have Skipped over magnets because the girls did an extensive study in K. We have been expanding or study of Energy and forces. We are using a lapbook I found to do some hands on motion labs and to wind up our study prior to Spring Break!

Math- We are moving forward after a long period of review of adding and subtracting with regrouping, and reintroduced multiplication. We are mainly focusing on concept and will being with memorizing facts after spring break.

Birthday Week....And honest Abe...

Pikachu Cake...lol.. the Homemade kind.

The girls have spent this week anxiously awaiting their 8th Birthdays. Its been interesting getting any work done... Luckily, Daddy helped us out last weekend by taking the kids of a field trip to the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History. He was dreading this but had resigned himself to it. He actually enjoyed it, and was pleasantly surprised. He was amazed at what the kids could tell him about things in the museum, and once they got the hands on "education center" he was home free. The kids showed him a cotton gin, and explained what it did. Then they found a working telegraph, and spent a long time writing messages. They watched the 20 min movie about " The Great Locomotive Chase" and The General. This is all leading up to our study of the Civil war. Where we live the Civil War is everywhere. We pass monuments daily. "We" as in the state still debate the Stars and Bars annually. Our neighboring church still bears bullet holes in the old sanctuary. So, we are probably going to spend more time and depth in this area the MFW ever intends.

   The question I've heard a lot from friends not living in the south is "how will you introduce/handle the issue of slavery?" Well, the public school system has already introduced that for me. Slavery is introduced in K here. It's called "Black History Month" & Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. My K'ers learned about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, and were read Dr. King's "I Have a Dream". In 1st grade it was George Washington Carver and the Tuskegee Institute. When the girls first asked "Why would people keep slaves?", we went back to the bible. Why did Pharaoh want the Israelites as slaves? It was priceless to see their little minds connecting a bible story they knew so well with the realities of modern life. We will keep it maturity appropriate but you can't ignore the history here.

Moving on.... We celebrated the girls birthday @ the American Girl Bistro. We had lunch with their dolls and each one got to pick out a new outfit/accessory for their "girl". Ying is patiently waiting to cut her girls hair off. Told we had to wait until Mommy made an appt with Miss Amanda who does her hair.

Ying with her doll "Mayson".

Yang with "Anna"

The night before their birthday they celebrate with friend from church at our monthly "Celebrate Family" Event. It was a great time of fellowship and roller skating and laser tag.Hubby and I got in on the action and managed not to fall.

Hulk Flying like a mad man with his Helper.

If only she could figure out the stopper....

Everyone also finally got some cold soccer in but they had a blast. We lucked into a great coach who keeps them moving continually. They much prefer this to softball and all the standing around waiting. You could see how much running club had helped as they were still going strong after an hour when others were fading. Luckily running starts back up very soon after the time change. 

Ok... on to the academics of the week...

Bible- Continue memorizing Matthew 28:20. But the girls also got bibles on their Nooks. So they have decided to start reading the Bible from the beginning. They are up to Genesis 6 right now.

History/Geography- OR and MN, Abe Lincoln's early years. Yeah it was dry.

Math- Algebraic thinking... lots of find the missing part of the equation problems. after they got good at solving them they had to make up word problems to represent the problem. This was a little tricky. they could easily make up problems for the equation solution but making the one with a missing piece was more difficult.

Reading- Book 4- Tales from the Odyssey : The Grey Eyed Goddess by Mary Pope Osborne.

LA- Minimal Time4Learning and some dictionary work. The preformed their play "Trouble on the Farm" in co-op.

Sci-Left this to Co-op this week. They did an experiment about the digestive system that lead to me hearing "That's so disgusting, but really really cool!" all week. They built measuring car again in Lego and worked on measurement.

On the Dusty Trails.....

Ying on Guitar

Hulk Banging the Drums

Ying trying her best to hang with some older kids in the outdoor chess match. She did her best.

     Oh yeah! We've finished our "Going West" lap books!!!!!!!!! Both girls were excited and proud of the final products. Took us three weeks to finish but it was a nice bridge thorough the last few weeks of Adventures. This week we finished up the CA gold rush and talking about the three majors trails heading west.
     We concentrated MFW into 3 days this week between our field trip and Co-op. One day we spent on our  CA Gold rush paragraphs. Ying has really had a huge break through on the last two assignments with the post it "notes." She seems to do so much better with taking notes auditoryily ( is this a word?) , and then being able to arrange the noted into the order she wants. She also understanding for of the need to connect the facts for the reader.
      Still searching for the method that is the breakthrough for Yang. She still does very well with a concept map but she must read the facts to be able to process them. She's a much better book note taker, and uses a concept web most times. She is still producing great 2nd grade work (IMO).
     Our other 2 days we finished up talking about the difference between the Trails, and completed our lapbooks.
   

Ying's finished product.

Yang's finished product.

Science this week covered the states of matter. We watched Bill Nye explain the concepts on You Tube. Read some great graphic novels on the topic. The girls highly recommend Werewolves and states of Matter and Max Axiom. Friday we did a quick hands on expire kent with a hot frying pan and ice.

Field Trip!!!!!! Monday we made the trip back to Creative Discovery for their latest exhibit called Healthy Fun on the the Run.

The girl wish they could add something like this in the backyard to aid their fort building.

Yang singing her heart out.

     Math this week we have continued our subtraction and addition review with worksheets for Mathworksheets4kids.com. Ying is still having a huge mental block with regrouping. So we are trying to  give her as much practice as possible before moving on. Yang has it down but "hates" math so she is happy to keep doing something she has mastered for a bit.
     Reading the girls are continuing the Tales from the Odyssey series by Mary Pope Osborne. Read aloud just didn't get done this week and by group vote we are done the the lapbook that goes with On the Banks of Plum Creek. Its just making the book drag and taking the fun out of it for the girls. Its been nice to see that they do remember a lot of what i read aloud to them but even I am sooooooo over this book and lapbook.
      Coop science this week focused on the Respiratory system. The girls found it fascinating to learn that their lungs hold as much air as a basketball. They came home full of fun facts and balloons trying to teach anyone who would listen about their lungs. In Lego they built cars and raced them down inclines. Words of the week were "friction," "drag," "inertia," and "aerodynamic." In play production they continued to work toward next weeks performance of "Trouble on the Farm."

Chemistry has gone to the dogs! Week 25....

This week has been interesting week. Between an ice storm and 3 inches of snow for a 2nd time in 2 weeks, we were home bound for 4 days, again. This storm had more warning and since it was on the heels of the last disaster people listened to the warnings. Taz got to spend this snow time with his parents..lol...We mixed school with play time. I think I was in the minority of parent here at not pulling my hair out as the PS kids here missed another 4 days.
 Here's our run down of week 25...

History/Geography-- IA, WI and continuing with our Going West Lap book... The girls wrote paragraphs about what they think their lives would have been like on the frontier. I was rolling on the floor with Ying's. She said she would have been very frustrated by having to wear dresses all the time just because she was a girl. The girls also had a paper doll to "dress" for the book, and both dressed it as a boy because "overalls are so much more fun"..lol... Yeah, I am raising tomboys for the Lord.

Math- We are still reviewing and reinforcing our addition and subtraction and associated algebra. Lots of word problems, find the missing part of the equation, and some drill.   We also worked more on time and temperature.

Spelling- Lesson 26

LA- We let this slide this week. The girls had writing exercises in science and history.

Reading--- Well the Greek mythology has captivated them. Both girls are now through book three in the Tales from the Odyssey series by Mary Pope Osborne. Is it  American History?..lol.. no... Are they reading avidly?.. YEP! Success ;)

Hulk got a test of real home school with his preschool being canceled due to snow and a weird break straddling the President's Day weekend. He didn't get to play video games all day much to his dismay....

 Read Aloud-- Yeah um I dropped the ball this week. Not enough hours in the day to fit in snow time and everything else.....

Science- We went more in depth with the Atom this week. Had lots of fun with some hands on projects. the girls loved the Bill Nye video on Atoms and watched it several times (We had gotten it through our library on DVD but i found later  most of his "Science Guy" videos are available on You Tube.) The girls were most amused by a short video we found called Dogs Teaching Chemistry- Atoms. Very cute, very elementary explanation of atoms. Great for 2nd-3rd graders.
 We created our own Bohr models on paper with gummy bears, and the built water and sucrose molecules with gummy bears and marshmallows.

Gummy bear Bohr model of a carbon atom

Fighting H2O molecules.....

Our Sucrose Molecule

Nature studies- Winter Wonderland in the South...lol

Hulk and Yang on the largest snowball they've ever seen or been able to make.

Hedwig the Snowy Owl ;) built by Ying

...---... Florida and TX

So, we picked up on week 24 this week after recovering from the snow apocalypse by studying warm and sunny Florida and TX. We continued with our Going West lap book which is coming a long nicely. I think we will finish much of it up next  two weeks as we focus on life of the trails and frontier etc... We did a one day in depth study of Samuel Morse and his invention of the telegraph. I saw huge strides in Ying's writing skill on this one. Mainly because her attitude toward the assignment was so much better than normal. Sticky notes worked wonders. We tried a new method of information gathering this go round. Each girl got a sticky note pad and wrote notes while listening to me read or from a book after I was done. Each note was then stuck to a blank page and then could be organized into a coherent paper. This method worked wonderfully for Ying. Yang had attitude...lol... though she got it done in the end. Here's Ying's noted page, rough draft, and final copy.

So 

This time I didn't rewrite the whole rough draft for her because her errors for only in spelling. Her sentence structure has vastly improved this year. I circled misspelled word and wrote a spelling list on the side. She was responsible for making the correction. You'll see at the bottom where I did let her dictate two sentences to me after we talked about needing to connect two events she had included for the reader.

Final draft

Science this week finished up on the human body. The girls will continue on the anatomy in co-op for 10 more weeks so we will still be doing more even as we move into other topics in MFW. This week in Co-op the girls made sugar cookie models of blood with different kinds of cells. They were having a hard time accept the fact that blood is not really red... only appear red. So we made a candy model at home to explain what the teacher was telling them. Blood is actually a clear suspension, but its packed with red blood cells making it look red... Our model was made from corn syrup as plasma, red and white candy hearts and RBCs and WBCs, popcorn kernels as platelets, and string as fibringogen. The girls really seemed to get the idea after the activity. We even went on the make blood of a person with leukemia. The girls have a friend from church who recently had a bone marrow transplant after his second bout with leukemia @ 8 years old. It was a very concrete way of explaining why goes one, and how the doctors were hoping to "cure" their friend, but in the end its all up to God's design.

Math- this week we have split topics because I was kinda not thinking... I let each girl pick what math module they wanted to do and they of course picked different ones. Ying is working on temperature and reading thermometers and Yang is working on time. I plan on continuing next week with some worksheet I got from mathworksheets4kids.com. We will also add in some practice with addition and subtraction with regrouping.

Spelling--- I feel like a robot here... on to lesson 25. Next year we will rethink this.....

Reading- Yang finished up Seasons on the Trail by Lynn Glaze and has moved on the series Ying discovered last week Called Tales from the Odyssey by Mary Pope Osborne of "Magic Tree house" fame. She has taken Homer's  The Odyssey and broken it down into 6 elementary age chapter books. I think the girl are over American history at this point and need a break. They are eating up the Greek Mythology. Ying is through book 2 and will start book 3 next week.

Read Aloud- We are trudging through On the Banks of Plum Creek. I regret starting the lapbook, because it has interrupted the flow of the book. It's taking forever!

This is Yang with her reading body and the most fought over, sought out book basket book ever called GEE WHIZ... Its all about Pee by  Susan E. Goodman. 

On other notes this week we are starting a new behavior modification approach with the Hulk. Hulk is very jealous of Taz being in our house. I thought he'd be over it by now, but its only getting worse. Part of it is Taz's behavior. Because Taz has had such issues adjusting to the structure in our home and the preschool environment, he receives "rewards" from his parents for things that my kids are just expected to do. With the boys only being 10 months apart , Hulk is having a real difficult time with this. So, we trying some rewards for him ,too. 

This week was also our monthly home school skate @ the local ice rink.They had fun ;)