27--The bad attitude monster strikes again!

Well, yesterday just started out bad. I was sick, for one thing. Then I discovered not one, not two, but three secret caches of toys, dirty clothes, and general STUFF that E had hidden instead of putting away when she cleans her room (probably been going on for at least a week). It was all put into a giant trash bag, which she was made to put away later, on HER time. She was also grounded from reading for a day, which you would have thought she was going to call Child Protective Services about, she wailed so loud. (I've since come up with a better punishment, and I told her if she failed to pass inspection on any given day, {and I'll be looking for the secret caches} she would have to clean her room AND T's room the next).

Needless to say, after all this she was rather uncooperative and balky, and was just not listening to the story for narration. So I lost it, and told her if she'd rather go to public school she could. After I calmed down, I said to her "You know, when you were a baby, I fed you everything you ate. But now you're a big kid, and you feed yourself. I buy the food, fix it, and put it on the table, but you are responsible for eating it so you don't starve, and no one forces you to eat. It's the same way with your education. I can't force you to learn. I can gather knowledge and try to present it in a fun, interesting way, but it's up to you to learn it. You can make your education happen, or you can starve your brain and be ignorant, but it's your education and you have to participate if you want to get anything out of it."

After this little speech she was a lot more cooperative and even (somewhat suspiciously) enthusiastic. But we didn't have much more morning left at that point, so I had her do a leftover Egyptian math sheet, and had her write some numbers in arabic numerals and Egyptian numerals to show her the benefits of our system (99 in Egyptian is something like nnnnnnnnniiiiiiiii). Then I read Why Do Leaves Change Color? by Nancy Ellwood and Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert. Then they colored leaves and made leaf men of their own, an activity I found at the book's website. After lunch, we went to their dance and tumbling classes.