wow, where do I begin?....

So... we started homeschooling a few weeks ago. What a ride it has been! I am not sure how to begin to catch up over the past few weeks. Let me do one kid at a time. I have seen the most growth with Trinity. She surprises me! Let me paint you a picture. Before: she was so hard to wake up for school. I tried to get her to go to bed early, alarm, warnings, favorite breakfast foods, etc. After: She is Up. 7am, up. When are we starting school? Up. Sometimes before me, up. Little miss who hardly said a word, is miss talkative non-stop. I went shopping with her the other day and she said, "Mom, I am talking a lot, I think I am getting tired of hearing myself talk. Do I ask a lot of questions?" Who is this child? Gideon is next. First day= he was the first one up and ready to start school. Once I told him and showed him the paperwork he was to do. He did one paper, then refused to do any more. Next day= sat at the table and watched the others while doing nothing. Third day= nothing. Fourth day= he found an interest in dry ice. Asking questions, writing down ingredient lists, projects he wants to do with dry ice. It got him reading, writing and watching science videos. I think he is my visual learner. Hands on. He has been asking me every day when we can go buy some dry ice. Today he made pancakes for us all. Aiden, he has been a little tricky. He will do paperwork, and tells me he wants more of a challenge. I am struggling to find something he likes or doesn't know. I may have to step it up a notch and challenge him with high school stuff. I forget he is more advanced and I have to give him more work to do. He wants to be the one done first and will work quickly at his work. He even asked me for math paperwork. So far he has learned how to balance a checkbook, do his own laundry and we are working on parts of speech. We will have fun with madd libs next week. I want him to work with his siblings to help them understand what a noun, verb, adjective is. So this will be a challenge, to get him to work with his siblings instead of teasing them or goofing off with them. Liberty, she is my storm. I realize today I need to have more one on one time with her. She will go crazy and have a tantrum when things don't go her way. We have to start over with her. I know her world is turned upside down. She is used to having lots of mommy time plus baby time. Now she has to share all her time with all her brothers and sisters who are home all the time. She will have a meltdown when daddy is home, then I know she either didn't get enough recess play or alone time. This is all new to her. This next week we will work on the final touches of our schedule. I got sick this week, the only one sick, so I had some grace in there for the teacher who needed a nap or to adjust the schedule to make a sick day. Next week I am sure I will have more adventures to share or stories to learn. Right now we are making a picture of what homeschool looks like for this family.

practice run

Tomorrow I will start the official "first day of school". Today we did a run-through. To get them used to a routine and to iron out some kinks in the schedule. Well, it still needs work, not just one day, but I realize it is an ongoing process. Yesterday the kids were acting bored, or irritable and I knew it was time to start. I could not wait any longer if I am prepared or not, there will always be time to do more planning, there was no point in delaying the excitement of having school at home. I know I was ready. So today, Trinity,(who loves school) was up at 7am. The only kid up at 7. We did have a delay and started our day at 9am. They did chores without complaining and I told them I was going downstairs to do school in 10 min. They were ready to begin. The only kink I realized today was that when it came to computer time, they all wanted to watch each other rather than to just "explore" educational games, it just took too long and they became frustrated. I found a website that I will try tomorrow, http://www.allinonehomeschool.com. It will keep them more on task as well as within their grade level. Today, I noticed Trinity playing games that were too easy for her. Glad that someone has done the work for me. I know I don't want any of their time to be a waste, and it is easy to do when you are on the computer. So many distractions and are you really learning anything or just being entertained? I will have to teach them that there is more to the computer than just games and videos.