Furniture and 3rd Grade Math

Thanks to all of you who commented on the Noodle's math issues...It always helps me to know what others think or have done in a similar situation.

Noodle has a spiral curriculum and Mrs. Fortner nailed it when she said it doesn't teach the facts well. She is still counting on her fingers, didn't know what "place value" meant and didn't know how to regroup in subtraction. We've since worked on the regrouping and found a great video online to teach her place value. A while back we also joined Brain Pop Jr, but we're not getting what we need math-wise from that site.

Here's the other thing: when she's doing her homework at home and gets a problem wrong because she just doesn't understand the concept? I just let her hand it in with the problems solved incorrectly. That way, I figure, the teacher will know what she's having problems with and teach her how to solve them. But you know what her teacher does? She circles the problem and then sends it home for ME to help her with.
Ummm.......hello?? **knock-knock**?? I'm not a freakin' teacher!!!

Anyway.....that's what we're dealing with over here. I think it's slowly getting better, but it's going to be a long year, I think.

Oh my gosh. You know what we did on Saturday? We went to the new American Girl store at the Mall of America. We went in the evening and it was crazy-busy. You could barely move in there. Noodle and her fave cousin Louie could've cared less. They were happy as clams and chatted back and forth the whole time about what they wanted and what they already have, etc...
At dinner they were telling each other (and us) about their doll's personalities and Louie told us that her doll, Julie, "is a very active girl...."
To which my sister Myrna and I laughed like crazy at.
Lou started to laugh like crazy, too and then realized she didn't know what was so darn funny and said, "What did I say?" .... which made us laugh even harder.

Here's a photo of Louie and Noodle:




Also, Louie just turned 9 and I made her a birthday cake shaped like a croc:
I wasn't all that thrilled by the way it turned out, but I was wingin' it, people! I planned to make it all perfect-like out of rolled fondant, but I found the homemade fondant I made wasn't a real good texture to work easily with. I need to take class on working with fondant.


Here's a photo of my Dad with all of the Grand kids..Schmackie, Angel, Noodle and Louie:






Here's a cute one of the Louie and the Noodle:


Okay, on to the furniture......I'm priming my life away, people.

Here's what I'm working on:

• The Hutch
• Noodle's desk
• Chair for the desk
• Noodle's bookshelf
• 2 dining room chairs
• Another bookshelf for Noodle's room.

I'm about half way through the priming.

I'd be finished with everything if my evil friend Sandy hadn't made me join facebook. I joined it a month and a half ago and didn't do anything with it until last week.....now I'm hooked and I'm stalking everyone I can think of. Even complete strangers. It's sick and wrong. And I'm staying off today.

I am.

What? I AM! I mean it!

Seriously.

Well...maybe I'll let myself log on one more time........but only after I finish all of my work today.

Or maybe during a break. Yeah. At lunch. A lunch break.
Or maybe?
Maybe I'll have a nice healthy mid-morning snack and check then?