So, the update on the homeschool front - it's going great, but if anything, we're erring on the side of working her a bit much. We'll slow down. :-)

This week included the routine calendar/time/weather, math facts, and some spelling/grammar work. It also included nutrition, chemistry and math in the form of baking, some history, geography and social studies in looking at John Cochrane (Johnny Appleseed) and his migration of the apple tree from Pennsylvania into the midwest, some library exploration and the start of a very elementary research project, and finally some math puzzles from Phil.

In our world we're trying not to drive, on the whole. The bare minimum is driving ONE direction (to or from school) if necessary, and making sure we have other trips to link to it. So this past week was a comedy of errors in Piper's world in riding to/from kindergarten.

Day one, we were going to ride/walk/something-other-than-drive, except I had an appointment at 12:30 after an 11:45 drop off time, along with staying long enough to help her adjust to the classroom etc etc. So we drove there, and I took Phil and Phoebe back home (Chloe was at preschool, which I had ridden her to) and dropped them off and ran to my appointment. Piper was upset at going in the car. Then I picked her up on the tandem, with Phoebe on her solo bike, which made her pretty happy, except that I'd had to turn away the popsicle they were handing out to the Kinders in congrats on their first day of school for fear of artificial color (there wasn't, they were Breyers, and the colors were all natural, mia culpa). So she was down about that.

Day two, she insisted on riding her little pink princess bike to school (now mind you, the lower traffic route we were taking goes around a little further, to about a mile and a half one way. About 7 blocks from school she had to take a break because she was hot (it was all uphill a little on the way there too boot), and about three blocks from school she had to hop off and walk the rest of the way. She begged me to drive to pick her up, and so I did. Well, somewhere in the finagling to get her to ride the rest of the way to school, she had internalized when Phoebe said that the way home was all downhill and SO much better, so of course, when I picked her up in the car (with about three errands to run, and her little sister to pick up all in one run), she was upset.

Note, here, that I'm three for four directions in making her UNhappy about the way we're getting to school so far, and on the one day that she WAS happy about the mode of transportation, she was unhappy about something else. Ugh.

So, Friday, day three, I leave enough time to get her to school by tandem, and not enough time for her to try riding her little pink princess bike again. So she's upset about that because for some reason, she really wanted to try riding herself again - which in theory, I"m all for, but in reality, we did NOT have time. So, despite her unhappiness, she climbed aboard the tandem and we got her to school. This time, I KNOW I have an appointment in the afternoon and that I'll be driving to get her, so I give her that heads up, and she's okay when I do so.

I'm not doing so well in that regard. Of course the adjustment to kindergarten has been a little hard on her, I think, and the heat hasn't helped... we'll find our rhythm, for sure.