Well, it was a busy weekend. The big kids stayed overnight with grandma while Ryan, baby and I went shopping at Ikea and deep-cleaned the house. There is still a ways to go, but we got the carpet cleaned, which is very tough to do with kids underfoot so grandma's help was greatly appreciated.
Sunday night we had a Thanksgiving dinner with my little bro and Monday we had his goodbye party with many of our relatives and his friends. He is in the air now on his way to Texas, then Ireland, then Kuwait then back to Afghanistan.
School with Joss is going really great. The first couple weeks have been an adjustment of course, but I think we are finally hitting our groove. Science continue to be MY stumbling block. Joss loves it, though I can tell she is a little confused about why we are learning about plants by reading a book, when we usually are learning about plants outside! I also find the experiments a little tough to pull together. I have made a couple rules in regards to experiments
1) The benefit has to outweigh the trouble of putting it together. For example: We skipped the experiment where you take two similar plants and don't water one, but water the other. Honestly, to get two plants together to show her something she has seen a million times and could predict would happen is just not a good benefit:PIA (pain in the rear) ratio!
2) If it is a big PIA, but does have significant benefits we will do it on the days her cousin is here. If I am going to go to the work, I want as many kids as possible to benefit from it!
Another rule I have decided is that no matter what all the "experts" say about doing Math in the morning, it just has to be last. Joss is such a little nerd (just kidding!) that she LOVES math and does extra sheets for fun in the car! She enjoys reading but it is work for her, so we will do that first with the prize of Math to look forward to.
Last rule, when she is hitting the wall (frustrated, unable to read words she could read earlier in that lesson) with reading we will stop immediately. I have always insisted on finishing the page she was on at that point, and then stopping as I wanted her to perservere - but more and more I feel like it just discourages her so that's my latest thought on that.
Last of all, I have this stupid internal pride that wants her to keep ticking along a lesson/day a full grade level above her age, even though there is a larger, more rational, less prideful part that knows it is fine for us to take it slow. I struggle with this, despite knowing better. I actually have overcome that evil side of my homeschooling personality a little bit. We are doing 45" school in the AM then 30" in the PM and are scheduling some projects and assignments for later to keep any one day from being too long.
At this point we are averaging 3.5 lessons a week. If this year goes like last we will get up to 4-5/week as the year goes on. A 4day school week done year-round, still allows for 12 weeks off so this is the plan at this moment in time! I definitely want to take most of December off again as we did last year. It is such a busy time with so many great events and things to see and do, not to mention so much to get done for the holidays! Speaking of which: maybe I should be smart and request some holiday materials from the library now or soon. Maybe I should even start my Christmas shopping now.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That was hilarious. I think I will order most of the presents online again, though. It may have been a little more expensive, however I got free s&h everywhere I ordered and didn't have to drive or park or bring or ditch kids so it definitely has that going for it!
Well, enough rambling for this morning, hope everyone is good!
Sunday night we had a Thanksgiving dinner with my little bro and Monday we had his goodbye party with many of our relatives and his friends. He is in the air now on his way to Texas, then Ireland, then Kuwait then back to Afghanistan.
School with Joss is going really great. The first couple weeks have been an adjustment of course, but I think we are finally hitting our groove. Science continue to be MY stumbling block. Joss loves it, though I can tell she is a little confused about why we are learning about plants by reading a book, when we usually are learning about plants outside! I also find the experiments a little tough to pull together. I have made a couple rules in regards to experiments
1) The benefit has to outweigh the trouble of putting it together. For example: We skipped the experiment where you take two similar plants and don't water one, but water the other. Honestly, to get two plants together to show her something she has seen a million times and could predict would happen is just not a good benefit:PIA (pain in the rear) ratio!
2) If it is a big PIA, but does have significant benefits we will do it on the days her cousin is here. If I am going to go to the work, I want as many kids as possible to benefit from it!
Another rule I have decided is that no matter what all the "experts" say about doing Math in the morning, it just has to be last. Joss is such a little nerd (just kidding!) that she LOVES math and does extra sheets for fun in the car! She enjoys reading but it is work for her, so we will do that first with the prize of Math to look forward to.
Last rule, when she is hitting the wall (frustrated, unable to read words she could read earlier in that lesson) with reading we will stop immediately. I have always insisted on finishing the page she was on at that point, and then stopping as I wanted her to perservere - but more and more I feel like it just discourages her so that's my latest thought on that.
Last of all, I have this stupid internal pride that wants her to keep ticking along a lesson/day a full grade level above her age, even though there is a larger, more rational, less prideful part that knows it is fine for us to take it slow. I struggle with this, despite knowing better. I actually have overcome that evil side of my homeschooling personality a little bit. We are doing 45" school in the AM then 30" in the PM and are scheduling some projects and assignments for later to keep any one day from being too long.
At this point we are averaging 3.5 lessons a week. If this year goes like last we will get up to 4-5/week as the year goes on. A 4day school week done year-round, still allows for 12 weeks off so this is the plan at this moment in time! I definitely want to take most of December off again as we did last year. It is such a busy time with so many great events and things to see and do, not to mention so much to get done for the holidays! Speaking of which: maybe I should be smart and request some holiday materials from the library now or soon. Maybe I should even start my Christmas shopping now.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That was hilarious. I think I will order most of the presents online again, though. It may have been a little more expensive, however I got free s&h everywhere I ordered and didn't have to drive or park or bring or ditch kids so it definitely has that going for it!
Well, enough rambling for this morning, hope everyone is good!
posted by KatyM @ 6:49 AM
1 Comments:
At 9:20 PM,
Spryte said…
Oh my- laughed so hard about why there is no need to do an experiment to not water a plant- you are hilarious!
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