I am happy to say that we survived the first 2 weeks of school. It has been busy. It has been tiring. It hasn’t been all smiles, but we have made it.
What is going well:
I am very happy with my pre-planning of Tapestry of Grace. It has helped my 6th grade daughter tremendously. She doesn’t have to depend on me to tell her what to work on. She’s got her list for the week, and she decides what she’s going to read on what days. It’s going well for her. For my 8th grade son, it’s going better than nothing. He tries to figure out how to do exactly 1/5 of each of the reading assignments on each day. He will round to the nearest paragraph, which drives me nuts! I’m trying to be quiet about it after initially asking him why he would choose to do it that way. We haven’t mastered actually getting all the questions answered, but I’m ok with that. We’ll keep working on it.
Independent science for my oldest 2. My 8th grade son has completed Module 1 of Apologia’s Physical Science. He likes it OK. He doesn’t like to do experiments that he doesn’t think are interesting. Let me rephrase that. He doesn’t like to do ANYTHING that he doesn’t think is interesting. My 6th grade daughter is using Considering God’s Creation as her main text. We’re using it somewhat unconventionally though. She is reading the Teacher’s Guide herself and doing the corresponding notebook pages. She’s also going to be using several of the NaturExplorers units..
Reading for my 3rd grade son. I don’t know if things have just finally clicked, or if the Brain Therapy sessions are already helping, but his reading is showing real improvement. He’s finally able to read other things like directions in his workbooks and the chore chart. He does have an evaluation for his learning issues this week. Hopefully, that will provide some more answers.
What needs improvement:
My time management and focus: It’s just hard. I feel pulled in so many directions at once. I think I’m going to make a schedule to see if I can come up with what an “ideal” day would look like. At this point, I don’t even know.
Kindergarten with my daughter: I haven’t been spending enough time with my daughter. That’s not too much of a problem because she is pretty good at working independently. (It’s so funny how different my girls are from my boys…) But, I do need to make sure she’s going things correctly.
What else is keeping me busy:
The 2 older kids had their first cross country meet this week. My daughter actually placed 3rd overall!!! (This was against girls in 6th-12th grades from our homeschool team and 2 area private schools.) I was so proud over her. It was over 90 degrees and she ran a 5K in 26:28. My son is more affected by heat and he only beat her by 30 seconds. He better watch out if he doesn’t want his little sister beating him.
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By Kristen H.
Sounds like a great week. It is nice when kids can work more independently. I do hope you get things figured out for you. It’s never nice feeling pulled in different directions all the time. Once and a while is ok, but not all the time. 🙂
My kids, high school, still need me to monitor them because they get so focused on one thing and will forget every other subject, instead of balancing their time and moving on.
Don’t let TOG overwhelm you. You should be in charge of it. You have a lot of dear ones to manage and the learning delays. These things definitely throw in speed bumps. This year we have lots of medical appointments for the first time in years. Before I had a 5-20 minute drive to the hospital. Now, it’s over an hour one way. We’re just going to have to take it as it comes and be flexible.
I hope you can figure out the best schedule for you!
Blessings,
Laurie