Homeschool Week 1

Last week was first week of school and had triumphant start to the week when we recreated a map of the world in the street, working on a map lesson and drawing to scale. An ant crawling across work in progress was immediately named Columbus even though was travelling east, did point that out and they said he was returning from America. Apparently Columbus suffered terribly strong winds on said return journey as ant wiggled around taking long route across Atlantic Ocean. Also much more acurately positioned tinier ant was named Marco Polo so some retention from last year. Am brilliant homeschool Mum who got three votes for fun way to start the year!

Olivia laughed through Chemistry, am thrilled! New course (www.thinkwell.com) and am so happy it working for her. She liked it so much that went ahead of schedule and did a few extra days work, incredible! Beatrice has new book syndrome, loving the start of a new course, just like her Mum likes it to look pretty, spent ages writing neatly in her book and getting organised. We both are confirmed stationary-aholics! It’s a difficult condition to manage but we struggle on. Things like dog eared corner of a page likely to cause very extreme reaction in either one of us. It’s a condition we battle every day!

Best option at this point is stop writing! Maintain brilliant status. But in the spirit of full disclosure am going to continue to write.

The rest of the day not quite as perfect. My darling boy was shall we say a reluctant participant in the learning. Reluctant is really an understatement. Am lovely teacher but he not feeling it at the moment. He had a tantrum then I had one as don’t want to be left out, then he had one then me again but thought at least he is learning about taking turns. Glass half full again! By Wednesday reluctant boy has realized “resistance is futile” and has at least accepted that we are back into “school first, play after” mode. He may not be overjoyed but progress has been made.

So girls doing great, my lovely boy somewhat reluctant, but no-one loves him like I do so will continue to hang in there and throw knowledge at the boy in the hopes something will stick.

Summary of the week is “could have been better, could have been worse”. And that is not a bad place to start. :0)