Brent then drew a diagram of the layers using the outline of the apple.

Tomorrow, the orange!

We were reading "Swiss Family Robinson", but we haven't read it a long time.

Do you know why stars twinkle? It's because the atmosphere churns, making the stars look as if they are twinkling!

Callie has been attending Rock Club and working with Jim for several months now. This is a recent pendent she made. Last night she had her first injury on a grinder, poor thumb.

Brent's team won his last offical game of the season. They have an upcoming tournament as well. He did really well and I was able to capture his home run on video.

Callie and Brent are currently obsessed with Fred. He did an episode of iCarly. Here they are, sitting and laughing at more clips of Fred

JB has gotten huge! What happened to the tiny kitten with the one inch tail we got last November? Callie and JB are the best of friends. Though she sometimes tries to discipline him, which is hilarious since he is a cat. He is now larger than Delilah and top cat in the house.

The netbook is small, inexpensive and perfect for the tasks the kids do. Lots of Internet and a word processor. There is no CD rom, but you can use an external. We don't want to add a bunch of software to them to slow them down. We still have the desktop to do large CD programs. The only thing we installed was some heavy duty security software. The pictures are from the Best Buy site where we purchased them from. They both got the red.

Callie was first. We are using the forms on Google Documents to send out assignments. She prefers her work to be Internet based. I get her answers as she submits them on a spreadsheet. Nice. So her answers start coming in and unless she has become an astrophysicist, the answers clearly aren't hers. She was finding the answers and cutting and pasting them in. Not a problem, except that I asked her to use her own thoughts after she found the answers. She never read the instructions. Second one, same thing. I asked her if she read the instructions, she said "no, sorry"

Brent wanted a complete to do list of everything. That's his style. Many of the things he was going to be doing were things we would do together. Each thing that was for the both of us was marked, yet he tried to do everything on his own. So cute, but frustrating at the same time.

So we all sat down and had a chat about directions and what to do with them. I'm all for doing your own thing your own way, but we discussed the advantages of instructions when working with other people. Sometimes reading instructions saves time and make the work more efficient. I had provided links to all the websites Callie would need to complete her work in the instructions. She used search engines and it took much longer. I praised her resourcefulness, but it wasn't the goal of the assignment. I also told them if they new a better way, let me know. The directions were more notes from me to help them do what they were working on.

I don't want them to blindly follow directions, I want them to be informed though when they do what they choose to do. Let's see how next week goes.

Funny note: at the winery last night Callie asked to to explain Kepler's Laws to her

Callie and I had a long heart to heart Tuesday about her writing. She feels her writing doesn't reflect her thoughts and feelings and so she avoids writing at all cost. So we are embarking on a creative writing adventure to give her more confidence in her writing ability and give her a way to express all the great ideas she has. I found a Fearless Writing; Creative Writing Guide at BN yesterday and picked it up. I love that it is written directly to the writer, not a teacher who then has to present material to the writer. I am hopeful and so is Callie.

Callie's computer has gone to a better place. Such a short life: it lived one whole week. We are returning it tomorrow and will be replacing it with a new one. Callie is having to do her school work by hand again, it is like we are returning to the dark ages or something. She is being stoic; you hardly notice the pouting. We have our suspicions that its death may have been due to a fall, but we haven't confirmed anything. The investigation is ongoing. Needless to say, both kids will be taking a computer care refresher course.

The most important question? What will happen to all the Fruits Basket stickers!