Thursday, February 20, 2014

Crazy Week

I have been quiet for the last week or so for two reasons.  The first of which was that last week we had some crazy weather, ice storms closing everything up, lost power for 12 hours, and the online school was all messed up from it.  So we had a weird school week where we kind of muddled through the offline stuff on our own. (Actually pretty fun - lots of literature and arts.)

The second reason is that I feel too darn complainy.  I don't want this blog to shed a negative light on our homeschooling experience, and I don't want to turn to it every time I just need to get something off my chest.

That said, I also am not going to lie and say everything is coming up roses.

This week has been really good.  We had Monday off for President's Day, and that made me worry about Tuesday, but we had a great day and got our work done really quickly. Then yesterday was, for whatever reason, totally difficult and it took us forever to get through our work.  Today everything went smoothly, we had fun, and we even took a break to do some pictures of the kids when the light was just oh-so-perfect.  Go figure!  There seems to be little rhyme or reason to K's moods and my own.  I have to say, I definitely prefer these fun days (obviously har har).

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Another One Bites the Dust

I can not believe it's been another week.  I knew signing up for homeschool that my days would be busier...I mean, that just makes sense, right??  But since we did the online school, I definitely underestimated how much busier I would be.  My poor house has been in shambles.  But learning is progressing, and we are definitely adjusting and figuring out to overcome our teaching/learning hurdles.

The school space is up and running, although still far from fully functional, and farther still from Pinterest-worthy, haha.  But K loves having an area to herself to work, and she works 1912048 billion times better away from the TV.  I know, shocking right??

Man, I just realized exactly how ghetto we look with that busted lamp.  Listen, since the move we can't find the shade, ok?  Stop judging me.

The hub had to refurb that computer, and it is hilarious to me that we have a working desktop again.  Hello early-2000's.  But, again, it's important to have a computer that K always knows she can to to and work at.  And since the hub's laptop died and we only had mine to use, I was just waiting for the death knell of this poor old laptop now that we were 100% dependent on it for school.  A back-up computer, no matter how old, is much appreciated.

Regarding our overcome hurdles: This week in math we moved on from comparing numbers using >, <, and = and in to telling time on an analog clock.  K has a basic knowledge of this, so I thought it would be a breeze.  It was not.  Things were not clicking for her the first day, and we both got upset.  So we worked on it, and then stopped.  No need to freak out.  We're doing this so we can go by our own pace, right?  The next day it was like she always understood it.  It just worked itself into her mind overnight.  And I've noticed that with other things.  If she doesn't get it right away, some time away from it to let it soak in really seems to help.

That and Brain Pop, Jr. videos. Man!  How did people teach before technology!?