I have always been totally honest with describing math and writing being our boys curse.  They are both good in math; not so good with the writing (or penmanship as it were)  Today we struggled.  End of story.  As I write this both boys are doing math.  One is subtracting 3 numbers and one is subtracting 2 numbers.  “Taking away” or “carrying” is always a challenge but I think that more than not understanding, the boys are just lazy and don’t want to do the work.

They both happen to land on math at the same time so at each end of the room I have groans and moans.  The excitement of the morning is gone and now we are struggling to get through 10 problems.

I must say that I am impressed that they each got a piece of paper and a pen unprompted from me and began their work. With all the moaning they are doing well but it is just frustrating listening to them.  I am thrilled that they are finally each understanding that scratch paper is a necessity and it really does show an amazing growth. 

So through aggravation and tears I see a light and see improvement that was not there very long ago.