Can you believe it? It is Madison’s last full day of school! She has a program in the morning tomorrow and then she’s done! It doesn’t seem all that long ago that she was just starting school. I can’t believe the school year is over though she’s got a busy summer ahead of her.

On that note, Will had his physical for school (so he can get speech therapy services through the summer) and he weighs 34 lbs. and is 38 inches tall. I went to his IEP meeting last week, and now I am just waiting for them to call and set up exactly where and when it’ll be. We also have to wait till August to see if he will get into preschool come fall. Keeping my fingers crossed.

We are in the process of potty training him too. Can you shoot me now? He went through 3 changes of clothes before I put him a diaper and gave up. Today, only one set of clothes and he made it into the bathroom. He just didn’t get his clothes off in time.

This weekend is his birthday, so it’s a crazy week this week!

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.

I came across an interesting discussion on Amazon of all places regarding homeschooling versus public school.  A person on there came across this topic on another forum and saw this statement:

“By the way I am a teacher ,I had to study years of child development and psyc ,as well as subject material ,how everyone now thinks they can home school is a joke.Even Judge Judy asks what university did you graduate from ?when someone says they home school.How do they feel so qualified!”

Now, Madison attends a private school, so this question doesn’t quite apply to me.  However, to each their own.  Seriously.  I’m not a fan of our public school whatsoever.  I lucked out that I did find a private school that we do like that Madison is excelling in.  I’d love to know your thoughts on this topic!

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.

Most of us know the sorry state of education funding whether we have kids in school or not.  I live in IL where the budget is calling for a 17% cut in education spending.  Our schools aren’t getting the money from the state like they are suppose to.  I won’t find out if Will will get preschool from the public school (even though he qualifies for it with his speech delay) till the middle of August!  Madison will be back into school most likely before I find out!  Education is in a sorry state in the country.

Bing’s Teacher Appreciation Website helps teachers help themselves. Here’s how it works: a teacher can log onto the DonorsChoose.org website to start a “classroom project” or donation request. Parents and students can then visit the Bing Teacher Appreciation site to leave a comment [up to 5 per visitor] about a teacher who has made a difference in their life, enabling them to receive a $5 giving code to donorschoose.org [one per comment]. Parents and students can then apply the $5 giving code to the “classroom project” of their choice. Classroom projects are created by teachers, so reach out to your childrens’ teachers and encourage them to submit their own projects!

Madison and I embarked on doing this.  The Bing site is super easy to use and $5 can add up quite quickly.  As my children have learned, every little bit counts.  I’ve also taught my children about giving back, so I let Madison choose what classroom project we were going to donate too.  I was given a $100 giving code to use.  Donorschoose.org is another awesome site (though I wish they would include private schools so my daughters school could benefit from this).  There is a classroom project for everyone!  Madison picked a classroom of kindergarteners like herself in Texas.  We were able to get a science kit for a class of 22 students.  What grabbed me was this statement in the description of the project:  ”Imagine a class full of little students walking around with a magnifying glass in the garden looking for bugs and looking for the grooves of a leaf.”  That is Madison to a tee, so I am very happy to help fund this class!

Make sure you check out the Bing’s Teacher Appreciation Website and write about your favorite teacher and help some kids in the process!

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Bing and a $100 DonoseChoose.org giving code to facilitate my review. Mom Central also sent me a thank-you gift certificate.

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.

I hate dealing with our public school.  They make things 10 times harder than they have to be for everything.  Seriously. However, with Will aging out of speech therapy in June, I have no choice but to deal with them.

In March, we were suppose to have a transition meeting.  The state and the public school were to set up this meeting and let me know the date.  Said meeting never happened, so I started making phone calls at the beginning of this month.  When I called my service coordinator, I was told the school hadn’t called them back.  I waited another week and then I called the school directly.

Getting to the right person wasn’t too tough.  However, whatever list we were suppose to be on — we aren’t.  I was like “I have a letter from the state saying that we need to get this scheduled”.  She then put me on hold for at least 5 minutes and then magically found Will’s paperwork.  We scheduled what I think is an evaluation for next Friday.  She told me I had to go to our home school and fill out a bunch of paperwork and prove residency.  She gave me a list of what I had to bring to do that.

Will and I went this morning to get the paperwork and give them what I needed to prove residency.  The paperwork was annoying and long (Just like it was when I had Madison screened for preschool.  Seriously, why is it any of their business how much I make and how old Bill and I are).  The kicker — I didn’t bring the right information in, because I was told the wrong stuff!  Needless to say, I was pissed.

Now, I’m not the first person doing this.  I do not understand why 1.  they can’t use all the crap I filled out for the state or 2.  how the administration building and the school don’t have the same requirements.  I was told from the school that they would not send the paperwork over unless I proved residency first (even though I have an evaluation scheduled for next week).  Now, the admin people told me that I could fill out the information packet and not to worry about having the other paperwork.  I could have screamed.

Now, you’d think the two buildings would know what the other one is doing.  Seriously, you;d think they don’t want to give us services.  Needless to say, after about 2 hours of running around, I got all the paperwork and went back to the school and turned it in.  Now, hopefully they manage not lose it between now and next Friday.

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.

I’m so proud of her.  She’s has a crazy week since I last blogged.  As many of you know, she goes to a Catholic school.  Well, she got picked to read a petition (if you’re not Catholic, it’s the part of mass where we pray for others).  She’s got hard words to read like classmates and principal, so we’ve been practicing every night.  She’ll be doing it next Tuesday at 8:30 mass, so if your interested, let me know!  Bill is going to go to work late that morning to see it!  I’m super excited (and a little nervous) for her.

She’s also full of crazy questions like:  Why did God create sharks — they hurt people?, Why do trains ride on train tracks and not the road?, and you know stuff that MOM just doesn’t know the answer too and cant Google the answer.

The last cool news is that she has a new tooth coming in.  Unfortunately, the tooth in front of it isn’t loose yet.  I called the dentist, and we are suppose to get her to wiggle it.  If it’s still not loose in a week, we have to bring her in.  I love our dentist, and they straight out said that they prefer the tooth to fall out on it’s own and pulling would be a last resort.

We are taking the kids tonight to a preview of How To Train A Dragon.  It’ll be Will’s first movie at a movie theater so wish us luck!

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.