Week one complete...

Week one complete and week 2 starting tomorrow... phew I forgot how fast time flies when I am homeschooling.  It is much like having a job, but I get to rest and I can do cooking and computer stuff while I am keeping an eye on the kids.

Physically I had a rough week, I was very tired up until Friday, then I think I rested enough to get caught back up.  I am also retrying a new prescription of Limbrel which is a natural anti-inflammatory supplement.  I think it might be helping.

So the challenges I had this week weren't too bad.  The kids want to play flex time on me, starting and stopping when they want and trying to wiggle out of as much school time as they can.  I fixed this by giving them a firm schedule.  They will start school at 10:00 am - if they are late 2 days in a row, this will revert to 10:30.  Lunch is 1-1:30, if they choose to read on lunch - that is reading on their own time as does not count as school work.  School is over at 3:30 and if we need to go somewhere during the day they will com back and finish out their time.  On the upside I explained the benefits to them like this:  They will never ever have to do schoolwork after school is done, no homework, ever - unless it is a fun field trip etc.  They also never have to do school on weekends.  Oh and when they go on their vacation at the end of this month, they do not come home to makeup work, we just pick up where we left off.  Not to mention that they do 2 hours less school a day than their friends.  So all in all they are winning, that helped Willow a little when she wanted to know why I don't give her breaks and recess like public school did.  I explained that I would be happy to give her breaks and recess but then she would have to go to school for and extra hour to hour and a half, she decided to forgo the breaks other than lunch.  Pierce is REALLY happy with homeschooling and doing very well.  Willow is not so happy with it but she is adjusting and doing well anyway!

One thing I am encountering with Willow is an inability to spell.  She misspells the same easy works over and over.  I did notice last year that when they corrected her writing they did not also correct her spelling.  She is very unhappy with the fact that I expect her to write AND spell well.  I don't expect her to enter a spelling bee but in 4th grade she should be able to spell Which, Where and Enough.  She is improving, mostly I think it is because now she knows she has to actually pay attention to how things are spelled.

Over all it was a good starter week for all of us.