Sona Creidhe Homeschooling

Despite last year's complete failure as gardeners, the kids and I have decided to give it another shot this year. Mommy has decided to cheat a little this year though by buying a few starter plants. Hopefully that way we'll have a better chance of SOMETHING growing. *laugh* So as not to completely bypass the beginning process, I did however buy a few packets of seeds and we joined the Tomatosphere project again.

I bought starters of- thyme, Italian parsley, and strawberries

Seed packets of- eggplant, spinach, zucchini, and grape tomatoes

I also got an English Ivy plant for inside and then of course we have the Tomatosphere seed packets.

We've had the starter plants for almost two weeks now and they are actually doing well (surprising for us I know!). The Italian parsley is growing really nicely and MonkeyBoy has been kind of excited to see white flowers show up on the strawberry plants. We haven't started the seed packets yet but that is on our agenda for this week.

I guess to say our foray into gardening last year was a total loss would be a lie. After all, MonkeyBoy's little pot of mixed flowers survived and even continue to bloom in our windowsill throughout the winter. Seriously, one of the flowers grew upwards two feet and then bloomed a pretty yellow flower. We're all waiting to see what it can do when it's the right season!

These are the words muttered to me by MonkeyBoy recently when I informed him that he needs to do something educational for awhile. You see, he received Pokemon Colosseum for Gamecube for Christmas and is completely addicted to it. On one hand, I want to let him play because the poor kid has pretty much been left out of playing the Gamecube for the last three years. On the other hand, I'm not big on kids spending a lot of time playing video games and his constant want to play Pokemon is starting to grate on my nerves.

MonkeyBoy knows exactly what the attacks are for each Pokemon. He can actually read words for the attacks like "metal claw" and "mud shot" so he feels that playing Pokemon IS educational. After all, Jumpstart World and Pajama Sam are games and Mommy says THEY are educational. I think the rotten child has me there.

So I've been trying to figure out how to let him play the game he loves so much (when he earns game time) and not obsess over it when I'm trying to get him to learn other things. Good luck I know. *smile* I thought if I bugged him constantly while he played that he would get tired of it and not want to play. Instead the kid become a living Pokedex and starts telling me everything imaginable about more Pokemon than I ever knew existed! Yeah, that one backfired on me bigtime!

Anyone have any other suggestions? I'm more than happy to listen.