Checking-in

Wow, am I a bad blogger this year :D

Our January was very challenging indeed, we managed to do school, read a lot and learn about a new country, but there were difficulties such as two new additions to our busy household- my sister came to visit and brought her sweet but demanding cat with her. Kids are overwhelmed with all the attention (5 grown ups around them) and so am I. I'm not sure I can do inter-generational household again. We had a small crisis regarding D. learning Russian, while his ability to write improved, his willingness to read it diminished, we tackled the problem, but I still have to remind him to speak more, and push him to find an appropriate word instead of just switching to English. Boy, am I grateful we homeschool, I don't think I'd be able to raise kids bilingual if I had to compete with school so much. Our math activities suddenly became "too easy" (c) for D., I'm trying to be more creative with our activities,it's trial and error so far. D. enjoys roller-skating classes, he's getting really good and asking for inline skating hockey classes (we'll see). He also continues his clay classes and learns piano with grandma. Baby C. started pre-school, she's slowly learning to read now, turns out she can count pretty well and knows her colors (oh joy of having an older brother), her English is far superior to D.'s at the same age (which is one less worry for me I guess).

Books we read in January can be found here.


Plans for February are to learn as much as we can about Ireland, to re-organize our home for leaving enough space for everbody, to re-think our math curriculum. I also need to find French curriculum for small children, D. keeps asking to learn and I need more structure in our lessons.

Getting Kids to Read

Interesting and helpful article with lots of great links:

How to Get Your Kid To Be a Fanatic Readers