National Day of Encouragement

This is perfect for any Monday or Wednesday that I tutor Thomas. He is so far behind for third grade (at least in math) that I really worry about his future. Today he brought home an assignment made up of four projects that all must be completed by Friday. We got through one in which he had to make up a word problem involving five or six digit numbers. I suggested a few subjects for the problem, but fortunately he chimed in with, "Let's use dinosaurs!" And so we did, although I had to look up the spelling of allosaurus and deinosuchus, which were the two types he wanted to use.  I encourage him constantly or we would make absolutely no forward progress. And I actually met his mom for the first time today. She works downtown and rarely gets home before I leave. His dad, who brought him to my house last year, now works out of town Monday through Wednesday, so I've only dealt with the nanny/housekeeper thus far. His mother is from Venezuela and seems to be a great mom except that her kids have very few rules. She did ask Thomas if he'd apologized to me for last week and I was befuddled as to why. Then he said he was sorry for the inappropriate words he'd used. Sadly, I have no recollection of that. The nanny must have overheard him and apparently, I wasn't offended. Oh well, at least he's learning good manners.