Day 4

Hope is on it!  WooHoo, you go girl!  It is just after noon and she is just about done with all her assignments for the week.  Roman and Bethany, not so much so!  They are my procrastinators.  Can't imagine where they get THAT from.... uh, yeah!... anyway, Hope and James are off to an eye doctor appointment.  My Thursday morning meeting is complete so I'm on lunch break trying to motivate these 2.  Roman is reading his chapter in KidCoder.  Bethany is STILL working on her copy work and has not touched her reading assignments yet.  Need to figure out how to get that girl moving.  Kathryn is working in a LeapFrog Preschool Skills workbook practing drawing straight and curved lines.  Let's just say, we're gonna need to invest in a whole lotta erasers this year!  The child is obsessing and draws a line, erases, draws again.  I'm pretty sure one of the lines is on it's 17th try, but hey, it's definitely keeping her busy and she is improving! 

Day 3

The kids and James were very receptive to the folders.  We have had much discussion on how we would organize school this year and left a chunk of the logistics up to the kids.  What we agreed on was that I would write up lessons and organize by the week in folders this year.  So each Monday they will receive their folder with all their instructions, the agenda, and any handouts necessary.  The kids don't want to be tied down to daily work, they like having Fridays off and since we their programs this year are written for 5 days a week, our Free Fun Fridays have to go, but this way if they work harder on M-Th to complete their work for the week they can still take off all of most of Friday.  Folders are to be completed and turned in by 5pm Friday but the order of the work completed is up to them.  Bethany and Kathryn of course require more direction and consistency, but it should work very well for Hope and Roman.  I am still working out the specifics on a spreadsheet layout to input and print off each week.  For now I'm just writing it out on a piece of a paper. 

So this morning they each received their folders then sat down to watch a George Washington documentary on Netflix before starting their George Washington projects and tackling the rest of their assignments for the week.  Roman and Hope jumped right in and got things rolling.  Kathryn tackled 3 pages in her workbook.  And then there's B!  One of the assignments each of the big kids has this week is to write the Preamble to the Constitution.  We're using it for handwriting and copy work and the older 2 have to memorize it.  This is not a difficult task and really isn't even that long of a passage, but for a kid with ADD, copy work is a nightmare!!!!!  WOW, Bethany is having a difficult time focusing on anything today.  After lunch with little complete, we are taking a break and will attempt to complete today's reading assignment, but if it's really not going well, the good thing about homeschooling is that it can be put off till tomorrow.... well, within reason at least! 

Day 2

Today I woke up feeling tired and lazy.  I grabbed my laptop and stayed in bed working.  James and the kids got up and got breakfast and the trash to the curb and the morning household stuff and then he came back up and found me still in the bedroom so he laid down and grabbed his MAC and started playing and talking.  By then the neighbor kids were already knocking on the door but our kids knew they hadn't done school yet, so up they all came.  Next thing I know there's a bed full of work and kids spread everywhere.  Roman is laying in the floor working and homeschool and work has taken over the bedroom!  Yes we all got our work completed and in good time too.  I love lazy school/work days.  We can literally school anywhere! 

Because of a project I'm working on for work this week I did not make it out to football practice today.  And since work wasn't cooperating I set to work on planning out the next few weeks.  The last few years we've used Learning Adventures, a unit study by Dorian Holt as the focal of our homeschool.  This year Roman is in 7th grade and we are transitioning to more segregated subjects in preparation for high school.  So for the first time everything is separate.  Who knew how much easier this would make MY life!  I knocked out 3 weeks for each of the girls and 8 weeks for Roman in under an hour!  This is a huge improvement from the 2-4 hours a week I have been spending on planning.  I think I'm gonna like this!  That said, their folders are filed and ready for hand out in the morning. 

The 2012-13 year is upon us!

No promises to keep this thing up this year, as I have failed miserably the last 2 years!  But all the same, it is that time again.  This will be our 4th year homeschooling, and our 3rd full year with all the kids home.  Last year was not so great.  Life definitely got in the way of school and we made a lot of mid-school changes to curriculum that left us in limbo by end of year.  That's okay though, this year we should be better and stronger because of the chaos of last year! 

So when does the 2012-13 school year for the TERDS begin?  Well officially we are starting full school September 17th.  Why so late this year?  We are heading to Florida Sept 8-15th and schools here don't start until the 4th so we really didn't see the point in starting school just to turn around and take a week off just when we're finding out groove.  BUT James and I woke up this morning and said, you know, today's the day!  Since we only half finished several things last year we have carry over work, plenty of busy work, and some fun projects we can start kicking into gear.  So although our first full day is still 5 weeks away, we are diving in head first with some light schooling to turn those brains back on after a long lazy summer! 

So today I placed the last of the orders for the new curriculum and a few things are starting to roll in.  We did a big family scavenger hunt to pull together scattered supplies and roll over curriculum from last year.  Binders and folders are all neatly labeled and ready to go now.  And each kid completed one actual schooling assignment.  Plus James and Roman are starting to look over the pre-req's for KidCoder, the programming elective Roman picked out for this year. 

And the highlight of today's 1st day of 2012-13 school year..... BAND open house!  This year all 3 kids are joining Beginner Band with Powhatan Homeschool Music under the direction of James Robinson.  Today we got to meet Mr. Robinson and see the music studio which is the finished garage in his house.  The made instant friends with his 2 daughters and we got to meet 2 other families as well.  The kids each got to try their new intruments... Roman on Sax, Hope on Flute, and Bethany on Trumpet.  And they did great!  We had hoped to sign them up for this last year, and already bought their instruments, but it was too late by the time we got everything sorted.  But this year, we're a go!  This will also count as Roman's 2nd elective for this year. 

And so, without all our curriculum, and with nothing prepared, we dive in head first and if today is any indication, it's going to be a GREAT year!