Homeschooling update

Our hs schedule seems to be falling into a nice routine, one that I can live with. After a lot of trials and errors, we seem to be doing fairly well. I won't kid you, the first month was hard, crazy hard. I thought I had lost my mind but with lots of prayer and encouragement, I think we're going to make it.

I try to start school by 9am, sometimes it just doesn't happen with 3 other kids in the house but that's okay because homeschooling is flexible. Cade has his morning chores and I try to get breakfast ready. I am NOT a morning person anymore so I have found the very best thing for me is to take a shower in the morning. That really wakes me up and gets the cobwebs out of the head, even better than my morning coffee. When school starts we will all say the Pledge of Allegiance (I have a little flag that Jeff hung up for me) and a prayer. Then the little girls play for a few minutes while I go over Cade's daily to-do school list. At this point he then takes his independent work to his room (bed or desk, doesn't matter to me). I then work with Jenna and Miss K for about 30 minutes on pre-school stuff and that's it for them for the day. They do other things throughout the day - puzzles, cutting, gluing, play dough, dress up - you name it they've done it!

Now for Cloee - this girl sleeps late! A lot of times I will go wake her up at 10am! She is our official night owl. She goes to bed at 7:30 but sometimes, okay most nights, she wakes up and plays in her crib. It's crazy. She will also take an afternoon nap for a couple of hours.

Cade is free to come ask me questions during independent work time unless I am working in that 30 minute slot with the girls. If that's the case he will then move to something else and come back to the trouble area. Once he is done with independent work he is free until we sit down to work together. It's usually Spelling and Grammar that we do together everyday. Sometimes Science, history, if there is a lot of reading required and we'll take turns reading. This usually happens during quiet time so we can work together without interruptions. He also does his silent read during quiet time. Unfortunately, my read-aloud has fallen off the wagon. Hopefully I will get that back into full swing soon.

Overall I think we're doing just fine. I do think we are too "school" regimented. Next year I know I will change things but for now this is working and Cade likes the workbooks. He is doing better at thinking independently. At first this was a HUGE problem and he wouldn't do any of his classes on his own. Now he can with confidence and come to me when he has problems.