No more school.

Abigail left school last Friday and will not be returning after Christmas. She brought home all her supplies and we will go through it all next week some time and see if any of it will be of use to us.

Of course the last week of school was all parties, concerts and gift giving, so she is a little sad to leave now, but our first week of homeschooling will hopefully be focused on swimming and other fun activities, so all should go well if the weather and health goes to plan!

Perhaps we can fit in a trip to Kidz Quarterz too! We also have Sams birthday that week too! We could look at the Ukrainian Christmas festivities that week too!

For now though we are focusing on our own Christmas celebrations.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Mini Marshmallow structures!!!!

Abigail and Sam had fun building with mini marshmallows and cocktail sticks! I built a pyramid and a spider too :) It's a yummy craft :)

Sew much fun...

Abigail had today off of school.....a trial run of homeschooling I guess you could say ;) We spent much of the day 'crafting'. Abigail did some cross-stitching and then used some felt and created a gingerbread house design. She has stitched the shape of a house and is stitching on buttons and other embellishments onto the house to decorate the gingerbread house. Here is the house with just the square of the house even before the roof shape has been stitched - I will take more pictures as it progresses. As I type though it has already progressed much further and I am really impressed because she has done it all by herself with no help except for the occasional help with threading her needle.

Three days

Abigail only went to school three days this week. On Monday she didn't want to get out of bed and today she got out of bed, but at 7:30am she came in to my room still in her pj's and asked if she could stay home. She is just NOT happy at school.

Last week she went to school two days.

I have noticed a few things though - the less she goes to school, the MORE she loves to read and go back to her work books as 'fun'.......she sees them as quiz books - you know, the way we all see Sudoku and word search books as adults. When she started school she lost all interest in them and she stopped reading for fun - it was a chore and something she HAD to do as homework and for a set time - she had to get the clock and would time herself for the 15 minutes and then stop!!!!

But before school, she would just read and read!!! She loved to read! On library day we would get massive piles of books from the library and bring them home and sit and read all day - read them in the car on the way home....but once in school she would maybe choose one or two :(

It's nice to see her already becoming more like her old self.

We've signed Sam up for Pre-K again after Christmas, and on those afternoons, Abigail and I will go ice skating and swimming together and maybe walking/ running on the indoor track. Abby will have dance class still on Tuesday nights. She wants to go back to drama if we can get her in (maybe not until September) and we can start going to the homeschool group at the library on Fridays.

I'd like to do some voluntary work somewhere somehow.....I'm not sure how we can do that or where with Sam but hopefully we can....