Week 4

We just finished week 3 of our new scheduling and planning for the kids school. Can we say "Epic Failing"? Yes? Oh, because if we were failing ANY MORE we'd be at the bottom of a freaking river. *sigh*

Hi, I'm Beth. I'm a failure.

Anyhow, turns out the kids aren't too fond of their spelling, math, art (I may have found a new art curriculum to try..), history, story math problem, geography.. Shall I continue? They are also unfond of cleaning, eating with spoons, asking for things politely, vacuuming, touching meal worms and a variety of other things too. Ironically, if they DID their work, if would take maybe 2-3 hours. The Girl has been dragging 2 pages of math (seriously, I've been giving her evens and odds to do) to take 8 hours BEFORE she gets started on her other subjects. She has now lost all but a half dozen small toys, 5 clothing outfits and her furniture. No, really. It was an ugly day. The child STILL does not care. I keep trying to give her stuff back as a reward for making good choices, she has not actually picked any of them. She just.. Forgets.

How do you forget you have NOTHING in your room???

*sigh*

This week - for The Girl - looks like this (ignore the punctuation issues it's a quick print off):

Week of January 27-31

Monday – January 27, 2014 – Spelling 28 – review lessons 1-5,.  Spanish.  Book report = Please keep reading on your book for your book report.  Math 31 (evens) -32(odds). Math enrichment page 16, English 239-240 reading 88-89, Science,

Tuesday – January 28, 2014 – Spelling 29 - review lessons 1-5. Math 33 (evens), 34 (all) Math Enrichment 17,  Cursive Handwriting 12. English 241-242 . History, Reading 90-91.

Wednesday – January 29, 2014 -  Spanish, Spelling Test lessons 1-5, Math 35 (odd) 36 (all) Enrichment 18,  English 243-244. Geography. Reading 92-93,

Thursday – January 30, 2014 –  Spelling Pretest, Spelling 30-31 , Math 37 (odds) 38 (all)  Enrichment 19,  Cursive handwriting 13, English 245-246. Art. Reading 94-95.

Friday – January 31, 2014 -  Spelling 32-33 (Spelling test Monday) Spanish, Math 39 (all), 40 (all)  Enrichment 20, English 248-249 . Science. Reading 96-97.

The Boy, unfortunately, lied to me on Friday and told me his math had all been completed. Their father is supposed to be checking their work nightly. Guess who isn't doing any checking past the first week (and 3 days at that?)? So I found 3 math pages unfinished from him. When asked if he had double checked if the work was completed the answer had been yes - EVERY single time. So. Monday he has 6 math pages to do. If he does them without complaining, he'll get a long chat, since it should have been caught MUCH sooner (assuming someone else had done their job), if he throws a fit then we'll be having problems.


So, another reason posts aren't too frequent and tend to be somewhat riddled with errors - the day before Thanksgiving  I tore the tendon in my left hand and I also managed to get really bad nerve damage. I am currently waiting for them to schedule surgery, but they are taking their sweet, sweet time. I can't move or use the 2 little fingers on my left hand at all nor can I twist, pull, or lift much with that hand. It's irritating since it's been 2 months. Ok, *irritating* is perhaps the most benign word I have ever used in regards to this. But still.

See, it screams failure.

School Organization..

I'm attempting to organize the work the kids do everyday to help make the work they do be faster, more methodical, more practical, more thorough, and more consistent.

The goals I we are attempting to make this month are as follows:

*Spelling: Complete Unit 1 and be able to spell 85% of the words correctly and know the meaning of them.

*Spanish: Complete a lesson at least 12 lessons successfully.

*Math: Complete and correct errors on units 1 and 2.  

*Math Enrichment: Complete and correct errors on Units 1 and 2.

*Writing: Complete 1 book report on chosen book from list.

*Reading: Complete a reading lesson daily with a 95% success rate.

*Handwriting: Show progress by completing 8 pages in a legible manner.

*Science: Will pick one specific scientific item (fossils, minerals, bones, leaves, lions, skin,..) and successfully create a presentation on this item.

*Art: Complete a weekly art project to reflect different art styles and techniques.

*Language Arts/English: Complete the current book in 2 months. (The end of February.)

*History: Complete at least 4 lessons this month.

* Geography: Complete at least 4 lessons this month. 

These seem a little lofty compared to the entire last year when we had NO goals what so ever. The kids are very capable of this though. Then I took these goals and broke it into weekly/daily goals that look like this:

Monday – January 6, 2014 –  Spanish, Spelling Pretest, Spelling pg 6-9, English 208 read 210 do 211.  Math 1,2 Enrichment 1, Reading 92,93. Pick book for Book report. I will give you a choice of books.

Tuesday – January 7, 2014 – History, Spelling 10,11 English 212,213, Cursive handwriting 4-5. Math 3,4 Enrichment 2 reading 94,95

Wednesday – January 8, 2014- Geography, Spanish,  English 214, 215,  Math 5,6 Enrichment 3 Reading 96,97,

Thursday – January 9, 2014 – Art , Spelling test.  English 216,217, Cursive handwriting  6-7.  Math 7,8 Enrichment 4, Reading 98, 99

Friday – January 10, 2014 –  Science, Spanish,  spelling pretest, Spelling 12,13.  English 218,219. Math 9, 10 Enrichment 5, Reading 100, 101

I'll have these printed out for each kid so they can get to it easily and see it and hopefully learn to self-manage time. Right now they both need a lot of prompting to get things done in a timely manner.  I'm debating whether or not I should do the entire month or do it week by week to allow for variances that may occur. Whether or not to build in breaks for illnesses or play-days is a big question too.

I'm sure I'll find out after this week! Eeeek :)

Change!

So, ever since we moved in the middle of January (yes, I'm slow) our homeschooling has been progressing - albeit slowly - but needing a new routine and *some* kind of change. The Girl is no longer needing to go to therapy for 2 hours a week but we've added things like weekly swimming so our whole schedule has rearranged but we've never really evolved formally WITH it especially with the addition of the Farm. This week is going to be ugly, I admit it, but I'm going to attempt to introduce a more firm schedule. I *think* it will ease 2 wee people's antsy-ness as well as make us all more productive than "gee, what should be we doing".  I've left ample playtime in, as well as scheduled time in there for errands and doctor appointments and the extra travel time to and from these things. I hope anyhow. We'll see. I've got a few slightly larger projects that the kids want to do - but we keep not getting to - that hopefully we will get to this way.

The tentative basic daily schedule looks like this:

6:00-7:45  wake, breakfast, dress, meds (you know all that morning stuff)
7:45 - 8:30 Animal feeding and cage clean outs. I'm going to attempt to come up with a rotating mucking schedule for this too so we aren't cleaning all the rabbits, goats, ducks etc on the same day.
8:45 - 11:00 School. (With play breaks built in.)
11:00 - 12:00 Lunch
12:00 - 2:00 Errands or School Project. A baking project, building the educational K'nex, a geography project, a trip to Target or Sams.. Whatever.
2:00 - 4:00 Errands, School, Projects, Cleaning (like if company is coming the next day), free play is everything is already done, cooking projects, ect.
4:00 - 5:00 Bath, room clean time, play.
5:00 - 5:15 Animal feeding
5:30  (ish) Dinner
6:45 Meds, get ready for bed
7:00 Snuggles and bedtime (which usually doesn't actually start until 7:15 after they negotiate for being "good", but still).

I'm also starting printing off a school list for them so they can try to organize their own school better and not say "But I don't know what to dooooo". Cause they do. They just have to think about it and they get lazy.

So, we'll see this week how that works out. It could fail epically. Or it could work splendidly. Or it could fall somewhere in between. I never know.