Clear and Cold, School is in Session

Weather reports from some obscure portion of North America. Just what people come to read, no? No. Yeah. Well, I'm trying desperately not to write a "to-do" list, which is what AM blogging usually turns into, for me.

Tried to teach Smidge his reading this morning. I should never have deviated from my belovedly mangled method of teaching via of WRTR. He *hates* (loathes? thinks dark thoughts toward?) Spelling Workout. I thought he'd like it. Turns out he's not a workbook kid. And that's okay. That's why we don't have to do it, and he doesn't have to hash out whether that's supposed to be a "car" an "automobile" or a "Jeep" in the picture before he decides what the beginning sound is supposed to be. So. Yay.

But then, trying to spice things up a bit, I tried to be funny. Or fun. Or something. So I'm telling him about the "magic letters, e, i, and y" and how they can magically change c or g to say different sounds. He didn't buy it. "There's no such thing as a magic letter, Mom."

So I called in the big boys for backup. (I should know better.) They were with me on all of it, up to the point that I said, "So, see? They're magic letters!" They bailed on me! There's no magic letter! No magic at all! It's all *gasp* LOGIC.

And humor. Oh, everybody's a comedian. They took that ball and ran with it, juggled it, and then somebody fell off the chair and everything was all pandemonium.

Fine. We'll do it your way, then.

But Smidge won't soon forget that C, followed by e, i, or y, says it's second sound. ;-) And, he much prefers the dry erase board and a slightly botched Spalding method to learning this stuff than the workbooks and pencils.

More fun with words: John is doing battle with the dictionary. He's pretty sure we know the definitions and could save him a lot of time, but -- for whatever reason *cough*cough*, we aren't sharing the information. And hostel is just a wee bit different than hostile, just in case you were wondering!

Not bad for a Monday morning, with nothing yet to reflect on, I think. But it is quite clear and cold this morning, and Zorak didn't leave me enough kindling to re-start the fire. (He has too much faith in my abilities, that man. Far too much faith.) So, I'm going to redirect the children in a few minutes and go hack up some splinters for the fire.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy