My daughter is growing up...

It has come to the time now that for school work, my daughter is given a folder with all of her school work for the week. She has gotten to the point that she can finish all of her school work in one day - if she wants to. This morning I gave her the folder and within 1/2 hour, she had already finished 4 subjects - three of those she did the whole week's worth of work.

It is becoming difficult for me to accept that she is becoming independent. She really doesn't need me to help with any of her school work anymore. I just need to either hand her the folder, or put the things on the board that needs to go up and she is all on her own.

She is amazing. I have challenged her to do a blog herself this year. We recently watched Julia and Julie. Madeline loves to cook and I have told her that she should cook her way through one of her cookbooks and blog about her experiences with it. We'll see if that comes to light.

Have a wonderful day!

Jenny

Last night we lost one of Madeline's kittens. Jenny was a family favorite - struggling with life from the get go. She was the runt of the litter and due to her brother's huge appitite, she struggled to get enough food when she was young. Once she started eating better and building her strength, she became the alpha of the bunch. She quickly could take down her brother and sister in her playful manner. She also started her hunting skills young and would attack anything that moved. When we found Tiny out in the rock fence, it was Jenny that babied him and acted like his mom. She was very protective of him as well as the other kittens. When she, Tiny & Tubby moved outside, she became very protective of Cupcake's other litter. When Cupcake had to go and hunt, Jenny is the one that would go in and lay with the babies, making sure that they were protected. During one of these outings for Cupcake is when Jenny got in a fight protecting the babies. Sad to say, the oppossum that got her did quite a bit of damage to her. We brought Jenny in and started treating her with medicine and lots of love. Her appitite left her until she was unable to eat anything. We lost her last night between 10:30 and 11:00. She was a wonderful cat and she will be grately missed.

Such a wonderful morning...

I know that school isn't finished yet, but Madeline is in Chinese class with her daddy so I had a few minutes. We start the day with Math and in the past, Math has been such a struggle. Well, today she got perfect papers in it all around! I am so proud of her. And she told me that she really likes the layout of this book. She likes having the little practice box first thing and then doing her lesson herself (instead of me teaching her) and then the review with me and finishing up with her assigned work. Praise the Lord! I think we might have finally found her the perfect book! The Lord is so good!

Today's grades!

Math...98 A
Journaling... + great job!
Spelling... 100 A
History... 99 A
Typing...100 A
Handwriting... 101 A+
Logic... 100 A
Latin... 100 A
Language... 98 A
Reading... 100 A

1st day of school!

What a wonderful day at school it was! Today, we had 10 subjects. The day started off before 7 (she was ready to go). Because handwriting was today, we started with that, and shockingly, she got extra credit for knowing what book it came from. I did a quote from Pride & Prejudice today and we have never read that book. Then we jumped straight into Math. Math is so different this year. I am used to teaching her, instead of her learning on her own, but this year, she has all of the information in her book. So after the warm up box, she read the lesson to herself and then came and did the examples on the board. It went great. Then she did a short practice and we corrected it together. Then she had complete confidence to do her work. It went great! The other lesses were pretty simple, but she isn't happy with History this year. No coloring sheets and a lot more writing. Basically this year she will learn how to take notes! She did great though and I am very proud of her. Really ready for tomorrow! I'm so glad we are back in school :)

Setting up the school room and extra preparing

Today I am rearranging my school room trying to get it ready for school to start. Not a lot of changes going on, but hoping that this will be our main place of learning.

Daddy will be doing two of her classes this year and he spent all day preparing for his Chinese class yesterday. I think he is getting as excited as I am about the possibilities for the year.

My daughter and her will to learn...

The last time that we went home to Georgia, my father in law was fussing at my husband about Madeline not knowing Chinese. He says that she is now too old to learn and we have missed our opportunity for her to learn to speak Chinese. Well, of course, my dd has decided that she will prove Ah-Yeah wrong. She has asked her daddy to teach her Chinese this year as apart of her school work. If there is one subject that she is determined that she is going to do well in - it is Chinese. All to prove to Ah-Yeah taht she can do anything!

My sweet husband has been working all day (on his day off) figuring out how he is going to teach her Chinese. He has been preparing his notes and getting ready for our first day of school. This will be his first subject that he is teaching her, but I have no doubt that he will do excellent as well as she will prove to Ah-Yeah that she CAN learn Chinese.