Well we started school today. Everything went well until I started with Owen. He jumps around, laughs uncontrollably, claims he doesn't know when he really does, and everything is a distraction right down to the wind blowing in the window. What should have taken an hour tops took 2 1/2 hours. He is ten. My highschoolers are upset I started them today. They keep reminding me PS has not started. I told them we are not in public school and we take breaks when they don't. I want to work up some extra days towards that. So when we all burn out we can have that time we need. They are acting like they have burnt out all ready and it is the FIRST day! On a good note Trevor who is 7 is loving the first grade and did everything he was asked to do. In fact at the pace he is working he may be able to move on to second grade before the end of the year. That is if I can get him reading well. Hannah and Tyler worked really well. They like to work as a team on the really hard stuff. I like that.
Your older ones sounds much like mine today! I am glad that the rest of you "klan" had a great frist day!
It really helped my boys to see the attendance days. Since that is really the only paperwork requirement...I have a piece of paper on the wall with 180 squares in it. If we do school then I put the date in the square. So they can already see that we had 10 days done before ps started. We are talking about a ski trip this winter...so that is the motivation. I also count Saturdays if we do something even slightly educational...like they guy with hawks at the park plus maybe a mushroom field trip and reading a Ranger Rick article about both...that counts. even if we don't do it on the same day...I will save up educational stuff and make it a "day" (my other requirement for a day is math gets done...but it can be oral or a math game or something like that...cooking.) I plan on letting the boys have sick days (but I haven't mentioned it to them) I figure they get 18 days a year at ps...so if one of them is sick but the other has school...I will count it as a day. (although last year I did not have many sick days...because we could usually fit in a math game (Uno anyone) and reading (lots) with a sneaky discussion about stuff.)
Well Now Hannah and Tyler are dragging. Owen did well, but he is having a real problem spelling anything.He forgot how to write a sentence, Then when I explained it to him he couldn't spell anything except sight words like "the" .It is like he has retained so little over time. Unless he is just having a hard time switching from summer vacation to school. I think such a big break for him was a big mistake. I did forget to mention all my kids have special needs Most have ADHD and a few have Bipolar. So that in it self makes things a little harder.
