Day Off

Well, it was supposed to be!

This afternoon, my son saw that he was all caught up on Reading for Week 1. "I've reached Stop 1 already?" he asked not believing his eyes. (Remember the kids complete three stops and they can get a "prize" worth less than $10.00)

And I said, "No. See you are supposed to do a book report. Shall I show you what to do?" So, he sat down and did it.

Then, later on today, he wanted some computer time. I'd just finished writing up his "assigned" reading for this week and noticed two items outstanding from last week. He could go on the computer, I told him, when he'd finished reading at least one. So, he did. (Chapter 2 of The Ottoman Empire by Adriane Ruggeiero).

Then, this evening, while my daughter was waiting for Dad to take her to bed, I gave her a copywork sheet of "a" to do from The Learning Page. When she finished that, I suggested she do her book report. At first she said, "no," but then she said, "well, show me it."

I had to run an errand and when I got home I found it perfectly filled out on the kitchen table. Well, not perfectly. The Book report form instructs her to write two sentences about her book. She wrote:

My Book is oBout tow popel how get married.

(Dad must have helped with "married" don't you think? And that's not the word "how" it's "who" with the letters flipped.)

I think it's wonderful.
(Next time I'll tell her that spelling counts!)

I am greatly relieved to have those book reports done! We are to do one a week and I just didn't know how we'd fit them in.

On the First Day

Last night I apologised to my son for having yelled "all day."
Tender hearted kid that he is, he said, "It's understandable."

I told him I would try better tomorrow.

He replied, "Today wasn't as hard as yesterday."

"What do you mean? I asked him. "Was yesterday harder academically or do you mean attitude?"

His reply was, "Yesterday I didn't know what was going on all day. My brain wasn't caught up. Today, I knew more about what I was doing. It's just because we hadn't done it in so long. But it's like this," and he gestured to the book in front of him, meaning reading, "well, now."

Why would it have NOT occurred to me that the kids might have trouble "switching on their brains" to start school? It's tough for me: having to keep them on track and not be distracted--I expected that! But, I saw it as an obedience issue--not an issue of adjustment to get their heads back in the game.

We both agreed that today should be "even easier."

It does get easier the longer we do it, but again, I'd thought it was an obedience issue, getting used to having limits and boundaries and so on. I thought it was a relationship issue. And, here, at least for my son, it's just a matter of being familiar with the material.

It isn't personal.
Whew.

I think I can breathe now.

(And that confession is highly motivating to remain consistent, too.)

Starting School Tomorrow

"You can't watch TV anymore, it's time to go to bed."

"But, why? You always let us watch TV."

"Not tonight, tomorrow we're starting school."

"Oh no we aren't."

"Yes we are. I'm going to get you up bright and early so we can start."

"I'm going to sleep in."

Vocabulary Lesson

My daughter is reading a scrap of a comic she's picked up from her father's lunchroom.
She turns to her brother and asks, "What's an anvil?"
He says, "It's a really, really heavy thing they use in cartoons."

So, do you think he's moving into the Logic Stage?

My son and his father are watching cartoons together.
The boy turns to his Dad and says, "Where are these mice getting all these illegal explosive devices?"

On Reading and Taste.

I'm a snob.

I admit it.

I think I'm even a wee bit proud of it, too.

But, as in so many other areas of my life my ideas and ideals exist over here--and over there? Well, that's reality: and it doesn't quite match up.

My son's tastes in entertainment are monstrous. Well, to me, anyway. I suppose they are normal for any 10 year old guy. The action boy-mutant-hero Ben-10. Transforming, maurading Bionicles. The mutant X-men. Graphic novels. Batman. Marvel comics. Garfield. Calvin and Hobbes. The Adventures of Bone by Jeff Smith. Bad kids' movies.

Fortunately, he also loves playmobil and stories about Ancient Rome. And he does read: even if it is something filled with drawings. (Sometimes known as graphic novels. Pah. Novels. A marketing term, no more.)

We got into this mess because, I, his mother, and teacher, did not take enough care in selecting what he was to be exposed to. Totally my fault. Good gracious that my son should be bored! Because, well, if he was, then he'd ask me to entertain him. I had a terrible attitude towards my children when they were younger and so the harvest is grim.

But all may not be lost. He is, after all, only ten and he still loves and trusts his mother. He doesn't know how much I've failed him. So, tonight, I've been combing the web and Homeschool catalogues to find stuff for him to read which he will enjoy and which will stretch his brain just enough not to discourage him, but to make it grow--in a direction that will make reality closer to my ideals.

It's been a tough slog. But today, I did check out Andrew Lang's The Arabian Nights Entertainments and, at my request, he read anything he wanted out of it. He chose Sinbad's third voyage--featuring--wait for it--a great one-eyed hairy beast:

I don't think it's an alien one eyed hairy beast.

So that's all right.

Weekly Report #1

Sometimes, you just don't have a good week. Sometimes, even though you plan and get excited about it all, things just don't work out.

We had a terrific day on Monday. We started late, but kept on track all day. Tuesday was a wash. Completely. I didn't even read out loud to them. (Well, maybe I did, I don't remember!) We took Dad to work at 6:30 am, came home, crated the dog, made up the grocery list and then purchased a month's worth of groceries. And then it was veg-ville until my son't Tae Kwon Do class at 1:30.

I think we'd each had about four hours of sleep.

Well, Wednesday went well. (How's that for alliteration?) We were tired, but I was very proud of them. They worked hard.

It caught up with us Thursday, though. The kids could not settle at all Wednesday night (up until midnight)and last night was the same.
So, we only did about 4 1/2 hours of school on Thursday--and I'm panicking.

I decided to write up the weekly report for 2 reasons, though.
1) I want to focus on what we did accomplish, not what we didn't.
2) I want other homeschoolers to be reassured by our struggle. Of course, we're not out the "other side" of this yet, and you can't really make this bad week encouraging until that's done, but I have faith we will turn this around!

Copywork:
I shifted this to first thing in the morning and found a new cursive font for the oldest. He likes it. He calls it "robot writing."

Recitations:
The boy is still struggling to learn his poem, but it is going well. He likes to stand at attention and do actions while he's reciting and it's perfect. He only glances at the poem for cues--and he's too funny!

My girl amazes me with the speed at which she memorizes. She's got the first two stanzas down.

Latin is proceeding well. And they nearly have all their words memorized. It really tickles me to see kids aged 10 and 7 using words like magisterial!
Here's my son, practicing his latin vocabulary:
I thought it was a highly imaginative way to review his Latin. There were four more pages!

Canadian History: Whew, we finished up our extremely brief introduction to Native people in Canada and moved on to the Vikings today. Vikings really capture the imagination of children, don't they! I told my daughter she'd done a wonderful job on copying her narration and deemed it "blog-worthy" so, here it is:
As for Story of the World, we finished up Chapters six and seven. That was a relief! I feel so behind schedule with this!

Grammar continues.

As for Bible study and writing and science--I'm still struggling to fit them into our day. But this is about what we DID get done, not what we didn't. So, that's it, folks. I am utterly amazed at how smoothly the day has gone today. I wish I knew why.

update: Good Golly, Miss Molly, the girl finished her math in less than 1/2 hour and got 100% I looked for a calculator...but, no, she just DID it! (Yesterday, I was in despair. It took over an hour.)

A Good Day.

I was up about an hour before the kids. That's always a good way for me to start my day.

When they finally wakened, we started gently. I had their Bible verses written out in Startwrite for them to copy. I made them say the verse first, then count the commas. There were three. I asked: "How many sentences is it?" They both answered three. "What ends a sentence?" I asked. "A period" they told me. "So how many periods are there?"

"One."

The seven year old was astonished. She honestly had not noticed it was one sentence.

So, that was interesting to me. Normally, I just give them their copywork and treat it more as a penmanship excercise than a teaching tool.

Then, I had my daughter say her poem to me three times. She has the first stanza memorized already. It's amazing what a sponge a seven year old brain really is. I can't remember if my boy did his poem or not.

Then, Latin. We did the vocabulary review together, very quickly, and then turned to our lesson. Today was the story of Romulus and Remus and when my son saw that, he was about to close his book and wander off, saying "I know all about that." But, I made him stay and we learned something new: Their father was Mars and their mother Sylva. The lesson included a picture by Reubens with some questions for a picture study. When we were done, my daughter says, "What, that was latin? We're done?"

Lively Latin is a fantastic program!

Then I gave my son his math. We almost had an argument about it, but when I showed him what he needed to do, he was OK with it. My daughter ran around looking for this and that to do her piano. She finally finished her theory work and her practicing. I confess, I didn't keep as close an eye on her as I should have.

I'm not exactly sure how this happened, but my daughter missed her math. When it was time to do it, she elected to clean her room instead. That was OK. She'll do it later, after she comes home from her piano leassons tonight.

Oh yes, now I remember: I reminded my son his book report was due tomorrow. We were working on that and I didn't really have time for her math right then. That was it.

We had lunch and a small break: then it was time to review the spelling words and do the spelling test. (Something we really should have done on Friday, but oh well). Then we had another small 15 minute break. (The puppy ensures we take a lot of breaks! I've started using the timer to make sure we come back from them!)

Story of the World was next. We're continuing our introduction to Islam. Today was all about the fight Muhammad led aginst the people of Mecca. Never knew any of that before. The kids are just writing up their narrations now. (They both dictate them to me and then re-copy it into their own hand writing. I'm supposed to have my son write more of his on his own by now, but I'm not quite sure how that goes.)

Let's see, we have Grammar and typing each, Bible Study and a writing excercise to start with the ten year old that will last us the week.

Not bad, folks, not bad. The school day has only been in action for 4 1/2 hours so far. Not bad at all.

*Image from this site