Andrew in January 2014

It felt like this January was a holiday! Andrew hardly had any school. He was out for New Years, of course. Went back to school on the 8th. Because of the huge cold, he had late start days (starting on a 2 hour delay) at least two or three times. The week of Martin Luther King day, the kids had 3 days of school off (Mon - Wed) and then last week, they went to school on Monday and then the whole rest of the week was cancelled due to snow. So, we have spent A LOT of time with all the boys hanging out at home. Which Andrew has really enjoyed. He is already bummed that he won't have so many days off in Feb (no planned days off at all ... a totally normal month!).

Big change this month - Andrew is reading chapter books. I was a little conniving. I figured he read well enough to do it, but he always told me he didn't. So, I got the first 8 Magic Tree House books on CD. Andrew listened to all of them in short order and loved them, of course. Then, I checked #9 out from the library. I told him I wanted to hear all about Jack and Annie, but I couldn't read it to him right then because I had to cook dinner, and could he read it to me? And sure enough, he could! He has read #9 and #10 and is reading #11. He used his money from his aunt and uncles at Barnes and Noble (which he always called Books and Noble) to buy two of them and then got a third from the book order at school. He LOVES it and I am so happy for him!

Also, Andrew is really getting into games. Katsu has been teaching him card games and I taught him Set today. He is finally getting to an age where he can play adult games (well, at least not preschool ones)! Yay! 

Even though he didn't have much school, he did finish up a 9 weeks (with tons of dojo points), but they had to cancel their special shark party, which he was very disappointed about. They retested their reading this month and he went up about 4 levels. I am glad because the books were getting too boring and easy, in my opinion. He is working on his math facts - we really need to force him to memorize them all now. We also did some work with him over the holidays on his handwritten and it is starting to look better. I am planning on doing a homeschool handwriting course with him over the summer. Also, will probably work on some math, too, and reading. We'll see what else.

This month had lots of fun playing in the snow. Amazingly, it has been very cold and we got lots of snow. A few days, it was wind chills down in the teens when it was time to pick him up and they wouldn't even dismiss the kids from outside - they had to call each one of them out individually. I still think that kids are coddled nowadays, so rain or shine or snow or low wind chill, I pretty much walk over there. Walking school bus is cancelled in the mornings through Feb. so Katsu usually drops him off on the way to work, but we usually walk to pick him up whenever they cancel walking school bus in the afternoon (which is almost every day!). The snow was not quite as much as they anticipated because we got a thick sheet of sleet first, but it was probably still 6 inches or so. Enough to build a snow man and a snow fort and a big incline to go sledding down. Andrew definitely had the most stamina for playing in the snow and we're lucky to neighbors next door to play with.

 Fun Things This Month
- New Years - eating Japanese food all week
- Trip to Raleigh to see the Natural History and History Museum, hot dogs outside inbetween, and a trip to Trader Joes with lots of fried rice for Andrew
- Birthday party at gymnastics place
- Date with mom to get ice cream and pick out books at Barnes and Noble - School off for MLK day - 3 days
- Visit to children's museum Marbles in Raleigh
- Lots of late start days
- SNOW and 4 days off of school