More to blog about than I thought

Wednesday and Thursday disappeared into a fog of grumpiness.  We have trouble with the focus.  Not news.
I'm considering what it takes to get things moving on a bad day. 
Incentives like more computer privileges can only take us so far.  They're great motivators, but I don't like them spending too much time in the computers/video games.  They will choose those over friends and playing outside.  And I really don't want them missing these beautiful fall days. 
Little gifts are nice, but I don't want to be encouraging materialism.  They already get plenty of allowance-earning opportunities.  Maybe earning points towards a purchase they'll greatly value?  Like points towards a 3DS or board game they've been wanting. 
Trips to the library are good breaks in a bad day.

I still need to reconcile the difference between productive and educational activities and the pressures of a very full curriculum.  I really hate skipping lessons.  I want them to benefit from the material.  Certain subjects are "more important" than others.  Math and Language arts really need focus.  But social studies and art are particularly important to me, as a liberal arts major in college and a working artist.  Science goes without saying, they all love it, it's important for any possible career they've ever expressed interest in. 

Face it, I've always bought into the idea that all these subjects are very very important.  I grew up in a family that valued education.  I've seen how much of an advantage it gives economically.  I love seeing the things I've learned as they apply to the real world.  Any time somebody says "When will I ever use this in my real life?" I've always thought, ummm ok, math is good in cooking, when analyzing information to make decisions, grocery shopping, keeping your bank stuff straight, planning a home or yard project...  Or listening to current events, the history I know is always coming back and helping me understand...  I can see science in every little technological innovation, in cooking, everywhere...  And you can't communicate anything at all without vocabulary, grammar, paragraph organization and composition skills.

How could any of it be useless?

So far we're doing ok.  Not ahead, not behind, on track.  And that's more than good enough.
"But wouldn't it be nice to be a little ahead?"  The nagging little voice says in my head.
I tell it to stop.  We'll do what we do and enjoy ourselves.

Yes, we can!

Here I am, watching the Three finish up the last lesson of the last subject.
No, I'm not so wedded to the curriculum that I won't be flexible. Yes, I believe we can do one suggested day on an average day.
It feels a little bit like victory.
Havoc still needs to be reminded to look at "Don't Panic" written in friendly red letters under the calendar.
Hawthorne still puts his head in my lap to "think" whenever he has less than total structure placed before him on a writing assignment.
But we made it through a day.

Yes we can.

School only goes as well as Mom does

Long weekend, slept late, school got started late.
Not a good recipe.
Our deal, made on Saturday, for a better school day overall in exchange for more computer gaming time, is a bust today.  We'll try the same deal tomorrow when I think it will work.

Today we took some time to work on handwriting and spelling and math in the morning and then the lesson plan after lunch.  Definitely a good building up to the school week.  But not quite the plan.
One day we'll have a rhythm.

Motivation, that's all we need.

Today all three children completed a "full day" of the lesson plan.
All three of them.
It just required a little motivation.  In other words, I promised them they could take Friday off if they did.
Ta Da!

Things I learned today.

Writing is still a bit of a struggle for Hawthorne.  Second grade writing expectations are a bit higher than the level he's at.  He'll catch up, but some subjects are getting writing help from the mom. 

Persephone is self motivated, but we knew that.  She has off days (yesterday) but usually she really enjoys working through and completing lessons.  She was done an hour early and not only got to read for an hour, but she's going to do an extra science activity this afternoon.

Havoc is beginning to see the source of his overwhelmed feelings.  The idea of a "complete lesson" when one lesson is meant to be covered in 2 days is hard to let go.  We've worked out a system of notation so he knows there's a plan.  11 is a great age for him.  He's starting to see big pictures sometimes.  I'm greatly relieved and so is he.

Crabby

Havoc wants to post this link for you:
The Life Cycle of a Crab
Today he had to wear a tube of cardboard around his elbow and arm for 10 minutes to see how annoying it would be to not have a joint and to have a hard shell.  I made him fill the dishwasher because I'm mean mommy.  It was a pretty good test.

Win day

Internet win of the day
The History of English in 10 Minutes (10 episodes played in a row)


Also in winning news of the day:
I've been sweating about Havoc's lessons and not completing one for each of the major subjects (English and Math) and it turns out that ALL the lessons are meant to take two days!  (2 hours per lesson)
This makes perfect sense.  They're looooong and writing intensive.
And now my stress levels go way way down.

The Family that Reads Together...

Booklist Part the First Currently we are reading:
Havoc- The Diamond Age: The Young Ladies Illustrated Primer, by Neal Stephenson. This one's on my all time favorites list. I'm going to have to re-read it when he's done. He just picked up the Crow Comic over breakfast. We were talking about watching the movie tonight.

Persephone-Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, by JK Rowling. She's re-reading the series.

Hawthorne- Dinosaurs Before Dark, by Mary Pope Osbourne. This is his book for school right now but he's really enjoying it. He stops to read the other books on our big old bookshelf all the time. Picture books, story books, books about science and animals.

Me- The Knife of Dreams, by Robert Jordan. The last book he published, Book 11 in the series the Wheel of Time. Another re-reading of a series. I'm hoping to finish the next two (authored from Jordan's notes by Brandon Sanderson and done really well) before the last in the series comes out next year.

Adam- he reads so fast and in e-book form, so I really don't know what he's reading right now. Last I looked it was Neal Stephenson books, but he reads very fast.

All together- Adam is reading Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchet. And I'm reading them the Wheel of Time series. We're up to The Great Hunt.

That's a lot of books.
What are you reading?

Ahhhhhhhhh.......

Yesterday, Sunday, was school. We took a day off in the middle of the week. When we were all tired and needed the rest. When we all needed the break. And yesterday, when we had Adam to help us out and we all felt pretty good and productive. There was school. And it worked. My relief is enormous. It was less stressful to begin than our Mondays have been. Havoc's dread of hump day seems to have vanished. It's a little step towards breaking out of the rigidity of school. Adam and I had a bit of trouble working together. Sometimes it's difficult for him to let me be in charge when he thinks something's going wrong that he can fix. But by lunchtime we were more of a team. It was big.

Quick post

Today's writing prompt:

The crowd is asking a million more questions and exploring the map avidly.

total win

Yesterday was hopeless.  Today they were on task and they took DORA and DOMA tests.  All in all not much education happening this week.  No, that's not true, they're reading and all sorts of exciting things.  Just only a half a day worth of the formal. 
Sigh.

Is this what momentum looks like?

I've got stickers (yes, I'm cheesy like that)
Yesterday, One little student got a sticker.  Because she finished one entire day of school subjects.
Today I gave out two stickers.

I'm honestly surprised.
The holdout is both still sick and has a 4 paragraph essay to write. 
Never his strong suit.  However, a couple of days ago, he looked at me with the light of delight in his eyes and said "mom!  Writing this essay is going to be easy!  With all the work I've done already it's practically written!"  to whit I looked him in the eye and said "Yes!"  He gets it.  Maybe sixth grade will be ok after all.

He's promised to work on it over the weekend and not to complain when gently remind him of his promise. I don't expect any miracles.  Yet, I have hope.

I'm glad I'm keeping this record.  It will encourage and remind me what's working as I'm doing this. 
Things I love today.  The Rubber Band- I woke to the kids playing together making music with rubber bands, tupperwares and chairs.  They even made a band logo. 
All of us listening to 1776 (Brent Spiner as John Adams) and we had a wonderful time talking about salt peter and the triangle trade.  I play these things because they were essential to my own remembering details of the revolution.  I'm kind of horrible with names and dates, but the humor and romance of the play made it a lot of fun.

And..Today....We work our little buns off

Go figure.  Start on time, have a plan, execute the plan.
There is the point that my kids just listen better when they're sick.
Why?  I don't know, and it makes me feel really bad for taking advantage. 
I let them take lot of little breaks and was ready to let anybody cut loose if they were really feeling poorly.
But we hammered through.
We didn't get to art.  That's the goal tomorrow.
Still, wow, what a difference.
I'm off to bed to get plenty of sleep and see if we can't do it again tomorrow.

We have some testing to take care of.  DORA/DOMA tests?  We have to experience them to really see how they are, but they don't sound bad.  I'll talk about those when I have a good idea.

G'night!

In which Cathy crawls into a little hole.

That good, eh?
I would say that today I gave up, but I didn't.  We had a really really long talk, the 4 of us.
I did realize that the difference between the first week, when I was feeling hopeful, and this week which has been a total disaster, is the "lesson planning".  Not that there's any functional difference.  This week I relied on the plans as they are.  And the week before I didn't change anything.  I just went with it.  But I copied down a list of subjects for each day.

Possessing that list is the difference.
Apparently it's magic in my hands. 

Not for me, but for the kids.  Knowing that I know what's coming?  That is what keeps the little brains going.

I give up.
I am unstructured girl
I want to go with the flow
I want to explore.
I do not want a rigid plan and getting up by 8am or we all die.
I want a family that can go with the flow.

And that's not the family I have.

Blahg

When Monday happens on Tuesday, you know it can't be good...
We'll learn to rise above such things.  Eventually.

I was thrown off as the dance of keeping up with three different little schedules interacted with very minor technical difficulties and three little people who had a looong day yesterday.  As I've said before, it's ok.  We're "ahead"  I just want to stay that way.

Persephone declared (while studying cultures in social studies) that she wants to do more pagan stuff^tm along with school.  Sweet.  We have a little calendar section of the morning work to get warmed up for the day.  Excellent time to talk a little about phases of the moon and the Celtic wheel of the year. 

Poor Mr. Havoc is quite adamant that he is an athiest, but I told him he can reflect on the wonder of having plenty of food and toys and a safe neighborhood.  If not blessings, these are the product of good luck and hard work and we can look to keep that going.

They have a little homework today, reading the chapter on Mabon in Circle Round by Starhawk. 

For tommorrow we will school

Our last day to be a little ahead....
Tuesday (Day after Labor Day) is the first official day of school. That just means logging in is more important because that's how they count attendance.  No real change.

The day was half good and half bad.  Our hearts were not in it, planning the weekend in our heads, thinking about birthday parties and camping trips.
Hopefully Tuesday we'll be rested and ready.  We are used to the schedule, we know how we deal with disorder and all the books and subjects. 
We're ready.

There's that success again.

Lunch on time? I guess that is a key factor. Even if we wake late and have breakfast late? Ok, now that's unfair!

*Whine mode off*

Today worked out pretty well. I'm sensing that my young wants-to-be-an-engineer has been skating on 'optional' work in class for his formal school career. I warned those teachers. But, once again, as he wasn't performing poorly (most of the time) he didn't get a lot of extra nudging towards performing better. And he's got standardized test skillz from both parents. Yay for under the radar!

Not any more though.
He's coming around though. My strategy of starting each day with a little writing- a writing prompt and a 5 minute timer, share if you want to- seems to loosen him up a little.

Tomorrow morning I'm setting the kids an alarm. We'll all be up and reasonable.
Maybe we can do it two days in a row!