Our school day starts later here than I am used to, but I think I am finally getting back into the swing of things...
Mom and I have had a lot of requests for low sugar jellies and jams, so I went recipe hunting on Pinterest and found some that looked neat... I managed to get two batches done today and I have fruit ready for a third batch tomorrow.
On the left is a Low Sugar Marigold Jelly that has beautifully sweet floral flavor and on the right is a Low Sugar Apple Rhubarb Jam that is the perfect balance of sweet and tangy!
After I got my jelly and jam done I made a trip to downtown Christiansburg to check out their Farmer's Market. It is a fairly small market, with only about 10 vendors, but I think there is a lot of potential for us to do well there. Hopefully Mom and I can do a trial run in two weeks and see if we want to switch Thursday markets or even pick up a second one.
When I got home I had just enough time to get the kids off the bus and started on their homework before heading back out for curriculum night at AES. I was running a little late, but luckily I was the only one there for the first session in our 3rd grade class and it allowed me some one-on-one time with the teacher.
I had enough time to talk to Ms. Sowers and find out about the behavior chart for this year, the academic plan, and to learn a little more about what they are doing in class. Poor Aiden is having a little bit of a hard time with the concept of no warnings, but so far he has not dropped below yellow for behavior so I am hopeful that this new system will work well for him. Though he did get yellow today and it upset him so bad he was off the charts. Now that I understand things a little better I can reassure him that yellow isn't that bad, but I still don't want to see it every day. His teacher said he is very intelligent and she is very good at handling some of his "quirks". It was nice to be able to talk to her about some of his frustrations, some of my concerns and to get to see examples of the assignments and tests. She also has a very calm nature, but is very firm about the classroom rules and I think he respects her ability to stay calm and collected.
I went to Kindergarten second. It was a group setting with all of the Teachers working together to give the presentation so it wasn't as personalized, but I still found out about the plan for the year, their goals, and state mandated tests. The girls also have a great teacher that is already getting to know their academic strengths. She is very impressed with what they already know and is excited to see how much she can build on that foundation. Though the methods of Head Start always bothered me because they couldn't direct the learning, between the Head Start teachers and watching their big brother, the girls are almost ready to graduate Kindergarten academically. Kindergarten is going to bother me if I start to feel like we are stalled out academically with the girls, but then again they will be learning about social situations they aren't exposed to at home and growing socially.... soooo....IDK... I guess I just don't want them getting too comfortable with easy work for the first couple of years of school and then getting irritated when things start getting more difficult in 2nd grade or so. From talking to Mrs. Facemire, I think their she is going to be good at encouraging them to use their extra resources to keep challenging themselves. AES really feels like the school we have been looking for and I am looking forward to the year ahead!
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