Motivation, Supervision and curriculum tweaking.

Today has been a bit frustrating for me- I have a bunch of stuff to get done curriculum wise and I have discovered that this is one of those days I cannot leave the room or my kids do nothing.  Partly it is because we are swapping some things around and partly it is they just like to test and see how little they can get away with doing each day.  We found that doing 2 hours of math, 1 hour of writing and 2 solid hours of reading was a bit tedious for the kids when I put it in that order so I have changed it up a bit.  They are still doing the 5 hours but I have broken it up so they feel like they are doing a bunch of shorter subjects (sneaky I know but hey I have to be creative).  We have yet to tap into something that motivates them to actually want to learn and do their school.  It may never happen though so I will be their motivation!  I am going to add in some Latin in somewhere since they have both requested to learn Latin.

The new schedule looks like this:
10-11 Math - they must do at least one whole lesson in math per day if they run over they just do less of the next subject.
11-12 - History (aka the first hour of reading LOL)  I do make them write a few sentences after each chapter about what they read.
12-12:30 - Writing (Penmanship practice from A2 'The Palmer method")
12:30-1 - Spelling and vocabulary
1-1:30 Lunch
1:30-2 - Writing (copy work and creative writing)
2-2:30 - Science/Latin (?)
2:30-3:30 - *fun* type readin using A2 books for their grade level.

I got my curriculum disk for A2 (accelerated acheivement) curriculum yesterday, which is when I decided to alter the schedule to actually divide it up into subjects..  It is very similar to the Robinson Curriculum that we have been following, but I find it to be more detailed and with a much better planner for each grade level.  Also there is a HUGE bonus, every one of the full books on their CD is easily transferable for them to read on their Sony Readers (although the curriculum is designed for you to print out each book as needed, we have the readers and it is a good way to save paper and money in the long run).  A lot of them are the same books from the RC but I find they added in some more fun books and they make better use of separating books out for reading, history, Civics etc.  They also have a list of the appropriate grade level science subjects to cover and some suggetions as where to get information for the subjects.

A2 does have their own separate math section but I am really happy with the Saxon Math book so I am sticking to those as suggested by RC.  I like the idea of breaking the day up into smaller segments, but yet the kids are still doing pretty much the same thing they were doing before.  I  did cut the math down to about one hour to make room for Science and Spelling/vocabulary.  If they have trouble with getting the math books completed on time I will move it back up to an hour and a half and alternate History and Penmanship daily.

I am also going to use the A2 weekly planner to help them know what they have to do next and keep track of when they have done something.  That is one of those things I will do when they are done with school and I can use my main computer, not the mini laptop I am using now.  Plus I need to reorganize their history reading to fit in all the stuff they didn't learn for the past 2.5 years.

Pierce had his first Trombone lesson yesterday and so far he loves it, plus he seems to pick it up pretty fast.  He has pledged to practice 10-15 minutes a day.  And he says he really likes it.  So that worked out well and I am not worried about wasting the 30 dollars a month for rent to own!  Ok back to real work now....