Tag: SAT

Phew!

20130908_203152I hope everyone had a wonderful Rosh Hashanah. It was beautiful over here; not too hot, not too cold, and we even ate outside for one of the meals. If the holidays have crept up on you making it difficult to finish planning some of your teaching, or if you just are unsure of what or how to teach the Judaics, Rabbi Resnick is having a free classes week in Room613. Feel free to pop on in by going here. His new 2013-14 schedule can be found here.

Having a fast day the day before school starts was a challenge – especially since DH wanted us to go sell popcorn as well. Before yesterday, the boys did manage to sell $1000 in just 3 days by going just door-to-door! That definitely was a record for us. The new training we had for selling popcorn has sure helped so far. I have even set up several days in the next month were we are going to be selling at a table. I am hoping the new training will help us sell more there as well.  After all, we are getting over $4000 worth of popcorn this Friday. Anybody hungry? We even accept credit cards this year. (Don’t be shy, there is plenty for everyone!) 🙂

Yesterday I was running around in a panic – I made my schedule for the boys last week. Even with an added boy to the list, I was still able to get it all on 2 pages. The problem was that I was missing one of the pages – and it happened to be the one I needed for the first day of school. It did not help that there seems to be papers that have decided to procreate, making the kitchen look quite hideous. It is amazing how that happens. Baruch Hashem I found it before I felt I should try to make a new schedule. It took several hours to create the first one. As it was, I did have to recreate an evening schedule, however that was not terrible. The boys ended their day with a green smoothie and Ryvita crackers for supper along with green back-to-school cupcakes for dessert. Thought that would be a great way to start the year off. I even went through the schedule with all 4 boys separately before they went to bed so they would know exactly what to expect from the new year.

The morning started off on the right note. Five out of six of us were up, dressed and ate at the same time. Just the little one was in bed, but he did not have to start at the same time as his older brothers. The boys even got to daven with their father instead of davening with me. Breakfast jobs were done on time. I was feeling great. Everything was going as it should. And then I made *the* mistake. Yes, the one that threw the ENTIRE day off.

I DID NOT CONSULT THE SCHEDULE! 😐 Yes, the same one who said that even after a full year of doing the same thing every week she knows how it is so important to still have a physical schedule to help keep everything going like it should, did not even look at the schedule this morning. The morning of the20130909_214809 first day of school. I was so cool that I knew what everyone was supposed to do….. until 8:15 in the morning. How did this happen? I am not sure. I must have been a bit over confident that I knew what was going on until around 11 am that I did not even bother to look. That may not seem like the end of the world, and I would have thought that a small mistake would have been just a little ‘oops’, but that little ‘oops’ affected our entire day. What happened was that I thought that since the boys davened earlier with their father than was listed on the schedule, we had extra time to catch up on some mishnayos that the boys got a bit behind in because of the Yomim Tovim. That would not have been the end of the world if it were not for the fact that we totally skipped out on one of the subjects for each of the boys and I did not realize it until about lunch time.

One boy did not consult the schedule very closely either for he ended up missing a second subject. We did catch up one subject, but it was too much for me to fit in the second one, even at night. Between getting ready for his Bar Mitzvah in a few short months (oh my, where DID the time go?), working on his SAT vocabulary and SAT math (aka algebra) for the SAT he is going to, IY”H, take in January, and the extra subjects he is taking because of his grade (and selling popcorn), we are sure keeping him busy and out of most of the trouble.

That is not mentioning the one boy that was not feeling up to par today with a headache and had to lay down a few times, missing some classes, a boy who tried being a challenge. I think the mild headache I had all day until supper time was due to the amazingly, crazy first day. On another note, I did have ONE boy who got all his work done, even did his organ practising. Must have been the extra morning sleep. Baruch Hashem, there is always the good, just sometimes it is harder to find. The nice thing is that it is always there; if you look, you WILL find it. 🙂

As I am typing, I sit here feeling almost bored. The good is that as soon as I pick my eyes up from the computer screen I am reminded that I am really not bored. I have dishes to clean, tables to empty, the rest of the papers to put away. And that does not include the laundry that is so patiently waiting for me (and most probably procreating as I type.) No, I do not have to worry, I am not bored. I just wonder how long I can keep my eyes on the computer screen…

20130908_175018Sweet dreams and I really should get a little more friendly with my dishes. Tomorrow is another day, and that means the potential for a great day (and humbly remembering to look at the schedule!)

Summer Has Started!

20130728_144349After the third and final birthday party for a very lucky 4 year old, the last couple of days I actually felt it was a summer day for me – I actually got to sit down without having to rush and do some prep for the school year. (The watermelon was carved into the shape of a jeep, along with windshield wiper blades and side mirrors! A brother loved the birthday boy!) The best part of the school year is having all those books come pouring into the mailbox. Most of our books are purchased from Amazon.com and most of them are used so they come from varioius sellers. We have had several shipments arrive at our house over the past week and still have a few more to go.

I am very excited about one of the books that came; How To Read a Book  by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren. Yes, I know it sounds like a funny name, but it is very accurate. I have decided to start the pre-reading of new school books by reading that book first. I have read the first 5 chapters so far. It is a very good book which describes how to effectively and systematically skim through a book to learn the main points, as well as how to read it when you decide to actually read it so that you get the most out of the book. I figured this would be a great start so that I could pre-read all the books that come in over the next week or so for I need. I will not have time once school starts to read, or more appropriately perhaps, I will not want to read anything else once school starts except what I will be reading to boys during school time. I highly recommend this book.

It has been gorgeous outside so I threw the boys outside as much as possible. That gave me some nice quiet time to sit, do nothing, and then feel like I needed to and wanted to do something, so I read the book on how to read a book. 🙂 I even took some time to sit outside and enjoy. I had the branch of one of our flowering trees just a few inches from where I was sitting and it was very peaceful to watch the bees buzzing and getting the pollen all over their bodies.
Our summer schedule has not really gone on as I thought it would. I am not too worried about it for hey, it’s summer time! I am a bit more carefree about what is done or not done. I really would like to get more of certain things done that are not being done, but I will not sweat it. Rambam twice a day, along with20130724_090125 mishnayos. Afterall, Torah learning is for every day and it is good to get into the swing of things with some things so when we start school, it is just adding the rest, not doing it all at once – rather less overwhelming for me anyways that way.  I also get to see how it is and how I can/need to incorporate time for the newly 4 year old and his all important school work. 🙂 It might be better than I imagined for most days for since all 3 older boys are in the kitchen listening to and following along with the videos for Rambam, and each video is around 40-45 minutes long, I found myself sweeping and mopping the kitchen floor, along with washing some dishes and cleaning of the kitchen. Mr. 4 year old was off playing by himself for one entire Rambam (yeah!) I cannot expect him to do that three times a day, but once a day would be nice and very helpful.
One boy is finally learning what it means to be busy. We have him busy. We are trying very hard to get him ready to take the SAT’s – and no, he is NOT that old yet that he is taking it for university, he is taking it while enrolled in grade 7 so as to see how well he does and perhaps help him get some scholarships for education camps, etc. He has his Rambam and mishnayos, 2 sets of math, SAT math book as well as SAT vocabulary words to work on, and not to mention his laining and the reading of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens.
A 4 year has been begging me to let him make his ‘experiment.” What he wants to do is use salt, water, sugar and flour and let it sit. I guess that is one way to learn. I instructed his oldest brother to make sure he makes a VERY SMALL concoction, and to oversee everything and make sure there is no mess. Good thing we used only food items – he wanted to test it before he let it sit! The little things that make them happy. 🙂
As I am listening to DH playing the organ for me, he really is saying it’s bedtime and I need to go. ‘Night!