School Stuff

I don't know why I feel like I need to title each post, even though the posts are about...school...seeing as this is my homeschooling blog!
Nothing really fantastic is going on right now. (Other than the fact that I'm apparantly choking on a pretzel!) How's that for an update? Ha ha, just kidding.
Sorry, this has become less of a post and more of a stream of consciousness....

Anyway, Reilly is doing really well with being more independent in doing her schoolwork. I decided the other day that we were going to change our morning schedule a bit. Previously, we would have breakfast, The Kids would do their Morning Routine (dress, make bed, brush teeth and hair) and then they would play while I showered and got ready for the day. The problem I was facing was twofold. First, we were constantly starting school at 10:00, which just puts us being IN school later, and second, despite giving a "we're starting school in 5 minutes" warning, Reilly would almost ALWAYS complain that she had just started whatever it was that she was doing, and then she'd be in a bad mood and school would start with an argument. Blegh! Not a good way to start the day.
So I decided that, given the fact that she's able to do her work much more independently now, we would go straight from the Morning Routine into schoolwork. She can get started on Red Book or something like that while I'm getting ready. It's been going pretty well so far, although I'll admit that we've only done it for two days.

I'm a little frustrated with math. Not the program, because I still think that MathUSee is awesome, but just with the fact that we're not progressing faster. I mean, she certainly has a better grasp on addition and subtraction facts than I did at her age, but I'm really, really TIRED of doing addition and subtraction facts!! I'm tired of reviewing them, I'm tired of trying to come up with new and exciting ways to practice them, I'm tired of having to re-explain for the five bajillionth time how to subtract 8 (or 9) from a bigger number. I'm ready to move ON, already!

OK. I'm going to stop now. This is just turning into a complaining post!