Week in review

Being a "back to school" week for everyone else, we decided to have an "unback to school" party at Monkey Joe's ( a child's bounce house/slide dream). The kids were begging to go during the break and I dreaded it knowing tons of kids would be there. But we went on Monday and the kids loved it. I asked if they give any kinds of awards to the schools and they do--free admittance for achievements. Great! Can I have some for reading incentive? They gave me some! I realized I have to start asking for more stuff like that...so much to learn.

Despite our unback to school party, we still did our lessons, of course. We actually never stopped. I was a little bit lighter on them, but we tried to do reading and math most days over the break. It worked pretty well. I don't think the kids even realized it. One day kind of blends into another. But this week was pretty tough. I think just getting back to not having a holiday is hard for everyone. Monday was tough, Tues and Wed were good and Thur was horrible. Today was great. But even on a horrible day, (as I was going through what we actually did do before mom checked out), we still had 5 hours worth of learning.

I've perhaps been over analyzing everything I do. You don't want your children to miss anything or get behind, at the same time, there's only so much a person can do and then you're done for the day, I mean, your brain just won't work anymore. I read some more on TJed and applied some of the things today. They worked great! I guess I just need a schedule, and then written down so I can see it or I forget it. I put the computer away and was just me and the kids and our new schedule. We started with a song, pray, pledge of allegiance, scripture memorization, reading our scriptures, poem memorization, latin, abc song, and dressing "Froggy" (Savannah checks the weather and dresses the Frog on posterboard). Then we split up. Becca and Jon did phonics, Savannah did playhouse Disney. Then we did seat work of grammar, spelling and writing. Then we read some stories (Today was "William Tell" and "Goldilocks"). Then it was time for lunch and I remembered we hadn't done Math yet! Geez! There's always something else! Before I started homeschooling people told me they'd have their studies done in 2-3 hours. Whatever. I'm coming to accept the fact that it's an ongoing, all day long process. After lunch we went roller skating. When we got back we finished Math. We didn't get to History. Oh well. I guess you can't do everything every day, so I'm still working on what will work for me. I have confidence I'll figure it out eventually, trial and error.

Today I talked to some other homeschooler moms and they mentioned "explode the code" as a great phonics program starting with learning the alphabet. I thought it sounded great for Savannah. They also mentioned the Rod and Staff grammer program is great, that by the time they are in 8th grade they will know more then some in college. That sounds good because I'm a bit frustrated with my grammer program right now. I like Math U See but some of the ways he explains things is confusing. I may have to check into Saxon, Singapore and Rod and Staff. I've heard good things about them all. I was glad to find out that I'm not the only one who rolls their eyes at A Beka curriculum. I think it's ok, but kind of confuses me in teaching, and the curriculum actually seems very basic. I've also heard great things about Apologia Science.

Yesterday I read a lot of negative about TJed on a message board by mormons for and against it, as well as from people from other faiths. I was pretty frustrated but then I thought, I think there is some really good stuff and ideas in it. Why not incorporate what I think is good? And that's one of the great things about homeschooling. You can do it how you want and add when and what you want. It's really hard to not think and feel like you need to do things the public school way. After talking to a TJed follower I understand a bit better how it works. The inspire part is more like setting an example for your children in education. If they need to learn algebra and you don't understand it then you learn it so you can help them. I also talked to a friend in my area of another homeschool group, then I found out a TJed group is developing there also. So I'm really excited to get home and get involved.

I went back to my Well-Trained mind schedule incorporated some TJed and we'll see how that works. I guess I'm going to be an eclectic homeschool mom.

We are all feeling a longing for home. We miss our friends and home and cat. Ed's ready to get back to the civilian world. Not much longer.