Rats, Math and Piano

This week went by very quickly. I was expecting a lot of whining and complaining. As usual the kids surprised me with their desire to accomplish things, and we managed to finish everything with no complaints at all! The literature unit was supposed to take 3 weeks, but we finished it in just one. I was amazed at how far the kids have actually come in the last year with their reading comprehension! Between having to share the piano and the computer for math, they both ended up working on the literature at different times. It was good to hear their own answers to questions instead of the normal Zoë answers and Aiden may or may not add something.

Everyone is nearing the end of their math levels. They're both above 90% completed. Zoë had an assessment early in the week and improved 7% (that's really high for those of you not knowing how to score-- 4% is normal). She was thrilled, and diligently worked the rest of the week. For now I still sit with her while she does math, but I'm hoping that soon she will discover her own confidence and that will no longer be necessary. If only she could see herself as the brilliant young lady that everyone else sees! I'm sure my family is thinking "Hello, kettle" right now. It's funny how your own flaws appear so clearly when you see them in your children.

Aiden only has 22 objectives left to finish before he'll move up to middle school level 2 math. This morning (yeah it's a Saturday) he decided to do a few problems. I had a brilliant idea to help curb his problem with trying to do everything in his head. He was working on finding the area of a trapezoid and was taking forever to do one problem. I told him that we were going to run an experiment. I would time him doing a problem in his head, and then the next problem he had to work out on paper, and we'd see what the difference was. When he does them in his head he ends up making simple math errors and becomes unfocused. He did the first problem and spent over 2.5 minutes working on it only to have the answer wrong. He was very frustrated, but I explained to him that it was actually perfect, because that way we'd only have one thing different in our experiment...the way he was doing the problem (the program makes you complete the problem correctly before you can move on). So he sat down and did the problem, using paper this time, and finished it in less than a minute with the correct answer. He did a total of 3 problems in the amount of time it took him to do 1 in his head INCORRECTLY! He was so excited, and I'm hoping that now he understands for himself why I keep asking him to write things down.

We seem to have also had a breakthrough with piano. Zoë has practiced every single day for about an hour for the past 2 weeks! She's learned how to play her most difficult song, and has started on a new one. In addition, she's taking some extra lessons from Ms. Heather, and has been doing all of the things for that. She has decided that she wants to get 100 practice days in a row. I'm hoping it's a spark of confidence that will only grow! She really plays so beautifully.

Aiden is flying through book 2 material. He already knows the first 2 songs and is over halfway through learning the third. He is CONSTANTLY at the piano. He can't pass a piano without sitting down to play at least one song. It's a blessing and a curse. Nothing like being woken up at 6:30 on a Saturday to him playing. I'm feeling like I might have to make a new rule that he can't play from 10 pm to 7 am, but I really hate to discourage him from practicing.

Right now I'm just trying to enjoy the fact that things are going so smoothly. I think having a vacation really helped everyone refocus their energy. As with everything in life, there is bound to be a valley looming ahead, but for now it's a great ride.