Holidays

As usual, the Holiday season seems to be more of a hectic rush than a peaceful rest. We are surviving, but it certainly is challenging. Funny...I thought it was hard being a single mother. It's harder, in some ways, to be a blended family of 6. The difference, however, is that there are many more experiences and more people to share them with. We've made some wonderful memories together so far in our first family Christmas.

Steve turned a year older and we got a snow day to celebrate it with him all day! Playing outside, getting caught up on homework, and having a family movie night (Mr. Bean's holiday) made it a pretty special day overall.

I had to crunch about 3 weeks worth of curriculum into a week. It's the most horrible way to teach, but I really had no choice. We were already a week behind because of OGT testing and then we were hit with 2 snow days...I was left to "teach to the test" and, unfortunately had to cut out labs in order to cover material (lecture...ugh). It's not fair to the kids, but we have so pigeonholed our education system that we are mass producing cookie cutter citizenry. There is no wiggle room for creativity. Oh sure, they tell us how we need to differentiate, slow down and reteach if necessary - but when? They still use final exams to assess our student's learning. Old, proven ineffective ways of assessment lead us to hang on to old, proven ineffective ways of instruction. It's a catch 22. How I'd love to teach in a truly innovative school.

We had a nice Christmas with many family celebrations. I think everyone got at least one thing they wanted. The kids got along pretty good during break. We had a little party for the new year...it was Ethan and Noah's first year to stay up. I got us some hats, noismaker, champagne poppers - it was fun! I also introduced them to the tradition of praying the old year out and the new year in. Can't get them on board for black-eyed peas and sauerkraut, though! LOL!