Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Our Second Year of Homeschooling, Day 3

We started school on Monday and things were good and things were pretty bad. I chose to just jump in and do it all this week. When I say do it all that includes introducing the kids to some of the new curriculum they will be using this year. It really is a lot of info to give the kids all at once and as prepared as I thought I was there was a lot of things I still wasn't fully prepared for. I found this tip today on Kris's website and I will be sure to implement it next year.

Anyways, my middle child was awesome. She really has had no problems with anything so far. We switched her to Horizons Math from Saxon which seems to be a better fit for her. She has a hard time staying focused on things that don't interest her, like Math. Horizons is colorful and she has a workbook to write in rather than transferring problems to a piece of paper. May not seem like a lot but for her it makes a huge difference. She also is using Sonlight 3/4 for her core. This is our 1st year to use Sonlight. She loves to read and Sonlight is all about reading so again a perfect fit. My youngest did ok but still complains quite frequently when she has to write more than 2 sentences. It's easy to get her back on track though. I just give her a choice: go to your room with no privileges for the day (no tv or game time) or do the work I ask. Smart girl, she always chooses to do her work. She particularly enjoys science experiments. So far this week she has done experiments to learn about water currents and to learn how blubber protects whales from the cold temperature of the water.

My big problem this week was my oldest! The first day he complained the entire day about everything! And the sarcasm meter was hitting the roof. It may be his age (12 1/2) but I also think that on Monday he was tired and he was having PS3 withdrawals! During the summer I am very lax. I let them stay up pretty much every night until 11 pm 0r midnight. And towards the end of the summer they were spending way too much time playing video games. Once schooltime hits so does the change in bedtime and restrictions on all screens. Another issue I have with Tyler is his goofing off. If I leave the room he is usually the first one to start acting like a nut and I am not sure what to do about it.

Anyways, today he was good. He told me he thought this year would be a good year (surprise, surprise). He enjoys studying the Middle Ages, loves Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra and enjoyed his science experiment today. Also, today we decided to adjust his schedule some so we will see how it goes. I do know it will take a good month to get in the groove of it all so I will try to be patient. Patience not being my strong point.

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