School

Being honest - I am looking forward to Wednesday. What is Wednesday? The first day of public school. 11yo and 7yo are very social and therefore have a hard time focusing on their school work when they know that their friends are available to play with. Of course, 14yo will have to adjust to having her sisters in the house again. Can't keep everyone happy.

TOG isn't happening. I'm not sure why. I guess I want to do it all but realize there isn't enough time. I'm not giving up, I just need to find an approach/schedule that works for us.

Love, love, love the CM Organizer! Don't get me wrong, I've always enjoyed paper planners. Let's face it though, even the best laid plans are usually derailed within the first few days. I don't have to worry about that anymore. And, I don't have to erase and rewrite. I love the idea of entering resource information once instead of entering it week after week. Take the tour and see if it will make your homeschool day easier.

Summer

Summer and the living is easy...for the kids that is. No school has taken place this week due to attending a family reunion. Probably not much will happen next week either. There's a doctor's appointment, a baby shower, and a birthday. Oh well, such is life.

Too Relaxed?

I don't know what happened, but I have been VERY relaxed about school (specifically TOG and Biology) the past few days. 13yo is way ahead of me in all of her reading. I tell myself every evening to bring out the books and read. Doesn't happen. I'll see what I can get done this weekend.

13yo finished a Garlic Press pre-algebra workbook this week, so I think we're ready to give Teaching Textbooks Algebra 1 another try. TT along with Key to Algebra will hopefully be a winning combination. I've found the Key to Series to be very helpful and I really like their online component - Key to Tracker.

11yo started Rod & Staff Math 5 this week. The first lessons are review which have been very easy for her. She's been relieved (she doesn't love school). We've continued reading about Ancient Egypt though we didn't get as far as I would have liked to this week.

I found some cool Egyptian photos to use for my computer's wallpaper at National Geographic. I love the one with a couple of camels in front of pyramids.

As usual 7yo is getting the short end of the stick. We did math a few times this week and she dawdled even though her friends were waiting to play with her. We haven't done any reading. It's so easy to let her run off and play.

Day Two

LOL! No, I'm not going to do a day four, five, six, etc. I promise I'll give those entries different names.

13yo was very independent today now that she has her TOG reading assignments. She is enjoying Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt better than the more colorful Ancient Egypt. Not what I expected. Could it be that the reading level is easier?

We read through the first lab for BJU Biology. I considered skipping it, but I reminded myself that labs are very important. Doing the labs in high school will help increase dd's confidence during college level labs.

We only had three lessons to finish in 11yo's math book, but I just couldn't do it. I bailed and moved on to the next level. I knew that the first chapter would be mostly review anyway. Here we go again. Another 170 lessons to face.

Today 11 yo and I shared reading from the Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of the Ancient World. It seemed a bit disjointed at first. I guess that is what happens when you jump in the middle of the book and you know your friends are at the park waiting for you to join them.

Monday night I started reading aloud A Place in the Sun. This evening I had 11yo take over and read to 7yo and me. She struggles with reading and was pretty tired at the end of the 2nd chapter. I need to have her eyes checked.

Still waiting for the rest of my TOG shipment. This is like torture. It's only been 3 weeks, only 3 weeks, 3 weeks.....

Learn as you go

Through some magic with a calculator, I figured out that 13yodd needs to read an average of three pages per day, six days a week in order to finish Biology in a year. Not a school year; a year. She is ahead of me in her reading, so tonight I was trying to catch up. While reading, it hit me. I've never taught her to take notes. There is a lot of information to retain "off the top of your head." In order to be prepared for a test, she needs to know what is important for the test. The time has come to teach her how to take notes to study from.

I've never taught high school before. Yes, my oldest was technically a homeschooler during her 11th and 12th grade years. I let her direct her own affairs (she learned percussion in the high school band, learned to play a drum set, and started community college early). This time around I have a direction, and yet I still feel like I'm flying by the seat of my pants. Every day, I see some area that we need to work on or something that I've never thought of before. This is a "learn as you go" adventure.

Fall-on-my-face Tired

It is only 11 p.m. and I'm about to fall on my face I'm so tired. 13yo took a standardized test this morning (required in grades 3,5,8, and 10) which meant we had to be out of the house by 8:30 a.m. I am NOT a morning person. On top of that, I get so paranoid about oversleeping that I constantly wake up to check the clock. I didn't sleep well last night and I'm tired, tired, tired.

I am so happy to have testing out of the way for another year. Bleh! DD spent most of her school time over the past month reviewing math and English. Oh, if I would only learn to review a bit every day throughout the year then we wouldn't have to "cram" for the test. But you know what? I'm not perfect and life happens.