It's Monday again!

And boy does it feel like one! This week, we are taking my sister's two kids to school part of the week. That means doing something we haven't done since the middle of December...waking up at the butt-crack of dawn! Today went pretty well, but it was really hard for me to get out of bed. Got the kids up and dressed, fed, and out the door to pick up her 2, all within an hour!
Today's been pretty laid back, just kind of getting things done little by little, no real hurry. School has been going well, but we aren't doing as much book work as I had anticipated. Mostly what we are doing is watching educational programming, and picking something each day that they want to know about and going from there. Like the hawk in the yard. We see, we look up, we learn. Seems to work well for the older 3. Gabe is hit or miss with a lot of it, it all depends on what catches his attention and keeps it for more than a few minutes.
I also did something I thought I'd never do recently. I bought 4 Fisher-Price Kid Tough DVD Players. One for Caitlin, and each of the boys (James got a regular portable dvd player instead of a kiddie one), and an extra for those times that one or the other needs to be charged. We're eagerly waiting for them (YAY for Ebay!!). The main use for them is (supposed to be lol) to watch educational, learning dvd's. We'll see about that though, lol.
The biggest problem that I'm having with teaching Gabe is that if it's geared for his actual age, he can't do it. But even if it's geared toward a pre-k level, he is still having problems attempting to do things. He seems to have a real fear of trying and failing. I think it ties to his public school experience, where nothing was really expected of him. By the time I pulled him in December, he had JUST (after 2 + yrs of public school) started to attempt writing his name, but the kicker is, even when I sat in and watched during school, they weren't making him do anything! He didn't have assignments, or homework (other than have mom or dad "help" you read for 15 min a night). They expected him to sit in his seat with a minimum of noise or redirection. They gave him the same papers as everyone sometimes (other times they gave him paper to draw or pretend to write letters on, or trace letters), but didn't expect him to actually accomplish anything. I think that he figures home is the same way, and I've been trying to impress upon him that we DO have to do work when it is school time. I need suggestions on working with him!!! Anyway, this is turning into a book, and I have kids to chase and do more school stuff with!