We're Baaaaack.........

Well, gma is now retired and moved out of her room to her garage (you can only fit one car in there now!)....and of course since we went to her school we are all sick again. It always happens when we actually go to her school especially since we are not exposed to all the germs at her school and invariably catch something.... ah well for the last time we hope since we will no longer have to go to "her school" and help set up or close out a classroom. I realized sometime in the time I was down there that not only is she retiring but so am I! I have been helping set up and close out classrooms as long as I can remember being able to do so.....after discussing this with my mom, we figured that that was about the age of 6 or 7. SO......I have been doing that for 25 years.... do you supposed I could start a business out of that????? Just kidding.....I have officially retired from classroom setups, unless it involves my kids' space for schooling....Sniffle, sniffle.....still haven't quite beaten this cold so I am off......will try to post more later....

Nameless Kids

Ok, this has got to be the most asinine thing I have heard of yet.....My mom has informed me that as of next year, the other teachers are no longer allowed to spend time teaching kids how to spell their names (and yes she is still glad she is retiring)......Granted this is first grade we are talking about, but still, COME ON!!!!!!! She can only guess (and hope) that some how it is worked into the curriculum as it is one of those things that can only be effectively learned by repetition.

Reason three-hundred seventy-three I will never stop homeschooling my kids in CA......I reserve judgment on the other 49 states.....

Little Blue Marble, where are you....?

Poor little man, my youngest, DS2, tries so hard to be the experimenter, the daredevil, and more times than not he ends up either hurting himself or pissing someone off. Sighhh, genius is soooooooooo misunderstood.......His latest experiment? Let's see what happens when you drop a marble in your mouth from up above....wait for it.....(can YOU predict the end to this one?).....yep you are right, he swallowed it, with a loud gulp that caused me and big brother to turn around and find out where the noise was coming from, especially since he was standing next to the fish tank at the time. "Oh yuck, that was gross, I didnt want to do that..." were just some of the phrases out of his mouth as soon as he realized that spitting was not going to work anymore. His last wail? "That's why we dont put those things in our mooouuuuthhhhh!" Uhhhh.....yep....hit it right kid! In seriousness, he is just fine and, though he cried himself to sleep for a nap (and is currently still up making up stories with his Thomas the Tank Engine characters), he now waits not so patiently for it to come out the other end.

He has been assured by his mom (me) and dad, big brother, and big sister (and even the store checker at the local market) that we have all swallowed things about the same size at about the same age and lived to tell the tale......I wont bother to update you all if it all goes well.....

Homeschooling Continues......

Well another homeschool year is over.....has been a odd year......depsite all the sickness and aborted schoolwork, DS1 seems to be reading FAR better than he was at the beginning of this year. SO much so that when we did the CTBS testing for 2nd grade he finished all the reading comprehension areas in the time allotted (some thing that he has to read all himself, I cannot even help him decode a word). Not only that but he barreled through the whole test in one day (this is 5-6 hours plus break time worth of testing, mind you)!! All of us were amazed, from his grandma school teacher, to me and DH, and his supervising teacher at the school.....
He has hit a short wall in math , but nothing that cannot be scaled over with some effort.
Grandma Schoolteacher will be retiring in 2 short weeks, and we are all thankful for it......she will design their cirriculums and I will make sure they do their homework and art and music and science experiments...this is just fine by me since I have no idea where to start when designing a cirriculum!
On a kinda-funny note, my 3 yr old was complaining today that he doesnt know how to read....it is apparently frustrating him to no end....after all big brother can and now big sister is starting too on her own with plans to work over summer with gma on it. HE wants in!!!! So I will spend the next several weeks drilling both preschooler kids on their alphabet letters, and playing flash card game with DS1......wish the stupid June Gloom (fog every morning, sometimes all day) would just pass on, happens every year and never fails to drive me bonkers.......though having the two youngest decide to become the "Terrible Twosome" of late is not helping!!!!
I am off to bed since I am getting grumpy and yawning!

Creepy Movie, Part 2

Just to let you know in case anyone is interested...yes we did have rain after watching this movie again....not much but still......havent watched it since.........probably will some time soon though just to see......

Damn Internet Explorer

I spent the better part of 2 hours tonight trying to delete or disable a MALWARE - otherwise know as malicious spyware - on my computer. I had to actually go into the registry (anyone who has tried this knows what a freaky prospect this is especially if you havent been trained to decode it), with the help of my DH, and delete several instances over a couple different sessions, in addition to running Ad-Aware (good program) that searches for, quarentines (sp?) and deletes anything that threatens your computer. The problem came when it could not delete it even after rebooting, since the "file" (hiding as a driver for either the printer or the scanner) was read-only. ARRRGHHHHH!!!!During one of those sessions, I got lucky. I found the registry file containing the boot sequence for this MALWARE. SO far so good, but we will have to see what happens after the computer is rebooted tomorrow morning since I will just plain shut it off in a bit.
Yah Yah I know this just sounds like on of those darn computer things, but the strange thing I think is that My DH had a similar issue at his work. He uninstalled and deleted any instance of Internet Explorer he could find and is using Mozilla's FireFox (or is it FoxFire? I forget....) now. Voila! NO more malicious spyware for some time now....go figure......does this seem suspicious to anyone else????