The past month has been quite interesting! I have not had a second to myself.
For program background- This isn't the traditional homeschool program yet that we are doing. I wanted to have some structure and some guidance, and also an idea that this would work, before we set off on our own. Our school district has a deal with a public homeschool, Calvert Academy. I had asked the kids initially how they would feel about virtual school, but Emily wanted books. Calvert's curriculum includes books as well as some online content, and teacher support for those of us that weren't really sure what to do at first. I have actually done better than I thought I would. I was never very organized, but I am learning quickly! :)
There are down points to using Calvert's district curriculum as opposed to traditional homeschooling. For starters, our program is based on our district's school calendar, so when their supplies weren't here when school started, we were already off-track. There is a scheduler, which is amazing to use for knowing what you need and when, but if you are starting late, that means that you have extra assignments until you are caught up. This means a math session on Saturday and an hour of reading and writing on Sunday.
Zachary's supplies got to us at the end of our first week. Emily's books didn't reach us until the end of the second week! The first week or so Zach was very unfocused, and I wasn't sure how I was going to swing this with one child- never mind two! However, every day he got a bit more into the swing of it, and now he does pretty well. He isn't always focused, and I see how he tries to get out of things, but I have to say that I love being able to lay down on the couch with him for his science class!
Emily wasn't able to really start on any of her work until last Friday. We have a LOT of catching up to do, but it's one day at a time. She is doing much better than I had hoped for, but it hasn't been easy. Trying to get her started while helping him the first day was a nightmare. It's getting easier day by day. I discovered that I really need to get everything set up the day before. It can take two hours to get their books out and see what we need to do in a day. She still has a lot of work; currently, there are several days that she has history and geography and science, while it looks like normally she would have either history or geography, and science only 3 days per week. I think another two weeks and she should be back to normal. We shall see.
My biggest fear with all of this was math. I'm good, but both of my kids struggle in math. Here's what I figured out: Yes, Emily missed a LOT of school last year, meaning that she missed a lot of math. She caught up with her class despite missing some whole lessons, but it made her feel like she didn't know what she was doing. Math began to cause her huge anxiety back when she first started missing school, but over the summer her fear just grew and grew. I would try to explain that she won't have to worry about missing anymore, but she just got more upset. Our first day of math was NOT good. Easy stuff she had absolutely no confidence for. I knew that she knew, but her mind was blowing everything out of proportion. I began to arrange for Behavioral Therapy sessions. We have a consulatation with an ABA counselor this coming Tuesday. This should help with her anxieties not only for math, but also for medical testing.
The past two days she did such an amazing job on her math! Yesterday I ran out to a learning store to grab an aid for decimal points, and I grabbed a microscope. I'm pretty excited about that! We played around with it last night. It seems as though every science chapter has an experiment in it that requires a microscope, so it should get quite a bit of use!
The greatest theme in our lives through the month of August, and now into September, has been science. I hated my science classes as a kid, but now I look and it's all around me! We ordered caterpillars through the mail, and we watched them form their chrysallis, emerge, and finally head out into the wild. We still see them flying around the house. What a blessing! The other awesome science has been our butterfly garden. Thanks to the gardening obsessions of a good friend, we now have a garden filled with butterfly-friendly plants. It's so cool to go outside and look for baby caterpillars, and later Monarch butterflies.
So far, our experience has been good. Every day it gets a little easier. We are using alarms to signify the end of each class period, which helps my son to keep focused. We spend much less time studying when we have the alarms set! I have to say, it has been so cool to see different sides of them, be able to encourage them in different ways, and get to see how they think more. Emily is very driven. Yesterday she took her whole day into her own hands and basically did everything without guidance- just asking me to double-check her work. I have said for a while that I think my son is brilliant. Well, perhaps he isn't a genius, but he is pretty darn smart. Yes, he lacks focus and he is lazy, but when he wants to he is pretty amazing. If he wants to hurry... well, he'll get everything wrong, but if he feels like working, everything will be perfect. He picked up a few of my math tricks; next thing I know, he is doing math in his head. I've had to correct some of his habits, but he's doing extremely well. Overall, this has been an amazing experience so far!
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