busy day!

today was my first day of class on campus this summer, and i honestly didn't expect to get much done at home, what with the general craziness of a new schedule.  i prepared to chalk today up to be one of those homeschool skip days.

but.  i got home from school and found that all i had to do was *mention* lessonpathways and beau was in.

so, we finished up the king tut unit, which turned out to be extremely interesting.  we shied around the mummies, since beau didn't really want to go there (he doesn't like to think about death in general), but we learned about the nile river and we even found a transformers reference when we started talking about pyramids!  planning to watch that movie later so we can talk about the different kinds of pyramids they show in the movie.  (i didn't know there were different kinds and that the step pyramids predate the smoother ones!  i'm learning, too!)

then he worked on a handwriting worksheet for a little while, and already we're seeing a huge improvement.  i suppose we have to give credit to all those fine motor skills it takes to play video games...beau is better at video games than most adults i know!  i don't object as long as they're age-appropriate or lego-based because the ones we have foster problem-solving skills and critical thinking. 

i'm going to order a handwriting without tears workbook; we downloaded a few sample pages and it was really fun to watch beau's reaction go from, "but mommm, i don't *want* to do worksheets!" to "hey, this is pretty fun!"

and that is why we homeschool.  'cause i get to see those moments.  and i wouldn't trade that for quiet midmornings, uninterrupted showers, or even an afternoon spent reading a good book.  how is any of that worth missing my son's big ah-ha moments?

Decoding the program

Today we're having a bit of trouble with Beau's online program...well, actually, we're having several problems. :)

First, our LessonPathway's subscription has supposedly run out, when it was supposed to be good for five more months. I need to get that straightened out, because we all love that program.

Second, Time4Learning is proving to be a bit more complicated than we originally suspected, haha. The "games," as we call them (always games, never lessons...I always want the kids to be having fun, not "working," so they will always have positive associations when it comes to learning), the games are great, lots of fun and great quality. That isn't the problem.

This morning, I switched Beau temporarily to the first grade program, just to see if it would be better for him. He's doing better with the first grade things...they're more challenging and he isn't bogging down in boredom because he already knew the material the way he was with the kingergarten program.

However, the overall structure of the system is something I'm having to get used to. I think that after a bit, we'll figure it out. :) It's just a tad bit confusing right now.

The Time4Learning system offers Language Arts (Phonics, for Beau), Language Arts Extensions (which we haven't explored yet, but I imagine will be something along the lines of Reading after the phonics section turns into English), Math, and Science. I feel that until this school semester is over, this is the best way for us to school.

As of right now, I'm taking the spring semester off from college. It's just proving to be too much. I might still take one or two classes a semester like I was before, but I don't imagine I'll be trying to take a full load again anytime soon.

Gettin' back in there...

Wow. So it's been EXTREMELY difficult getting back into a routine since everything was turned upside down in our lives. It certainly didn't help that midterms were last week for me, either. But we've been trying to ease back into some sort of schedule, and today is looking bright!

We did our calendar with breakfast this morning, instead of the afternoon like we had been doing the past couple of weeks. It really helped because everyone was sitting still so they could pay attention.

Then I set Beau up with his website time, doing a few phonics activities, which, to be perfectly honest, bored him to tears. He's having to wade through the things he already knows, like the letters and their sounds. I'm honestly thinking of upping him to the first grade program if things don't get better after this week. He's just more advanced than what they're giving him right now.

He did three of the activities in about fifteen minutes, basically just breezing through them. I'm going to give the kindergarten program until Friday and then switch him to first grade Language Arts unless the kindergarten program picks up pretty quickly.