Thursday, August 16, 2007

School

Well, after a lot of stress, yelling, headaches, thought and agony, we have decided to send the kids to public school. We have tried for three weeks to work but I have not been able to pull together enough structure and the kids are unwilling to sit and work without a lot of pushing and yelling. So, yesterday, after the kids have been saying all along, we don't want to go to school, I get first from Nathan, I want to go to public school and then 30 minutes later from Amilia, I want to go to school, so, I am going to get everything filled out and they start on the 28th. Amilia started on a new medication for her ADHD that is different from what she was taking, so hopefully will work better for her.
They are excited that they now have the rest of the summer to play, no work on school work.

Saturday, August 4, 2007

New Job

Jim starts a new driving job on Wednesday. He will be on a dedicated route, same amount of miles (same amount of Money), every week. The route will vary each week but will repeat every couple of months (I think...). It is for a better company, better benefits, paid holiday and paid vacation. And a lot less stress trying to balance being out at work and being home. He will be home every weekend from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon and most week home one or two times for a few hours during the week which will be nice. Having the kids homeschool means he will be able to spend more time with them when he is home. These next couple of months will be an adjustment but hopefully when all is said and done, I will be able to reduce my hours so that I can be home more with the kids...well, I am home more...I will be awake more!

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Day two

What a challenge! Getting the kids to sit and stay focused is a lot of work. But, we made it through most of what was planned. Amilia is surprising me...she knows a lot more than she lets on. But, she is still struggling with reading fluently. That is my goal for this month, to help her read better. Nathan has complained of a headache both days, shortly after sitting down and starting work. I think I need to give him less challenging stuff to start with and increase the difficulty. But I still do not know all that they don't know so it is another challenge. This afternoon we are going to the science museum in Raleigh to learn some while having fun.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

School

Well, today was the first day of school for the kids. We started homeschooling now to get a jump on figuring out how we are going to do it. Amilia needs to read better so we have been working on phonics with her and Nathan wants to do more math, so he did math. Then we read some about Jamestown and then the kids drew pictures and wrote sentences about the story. They are asking about "recess" and "going to lunch"...I have to break them of the public school mind set. Though they are excited about our field trip tomorrow. We have to get new tires on the van and they think that will be fun...
They "went to school" this morning in their pj's...they thought that was fun. We only spent two hours working, but that was enough. My biggest challenge right now is going to be getting Amilia to sit still and Nathan to be able to work when I am teaching Amilia. Nathan found the noise "distracting", so Amilia and I went to another room but he "can still hear you!". Nathan has been able to work by himself once I start him but he does not alway stay on task. We have to work on some insentives to get him to work. Until Amilia can read I have to really work with her.
Tomorrow we work on cursive writing (they both can do together), more of Jamestown and some worksheets I picked up today. Eventually I will be ordering a curriculum but right now we do not have the money to do it so we are working with what we have and what I find on line.
They both continuously ask questions...many that I do not have the answers for but we are learning places on line that we can look things up. All kinds of fun!