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)

A Brand New School Year

This is it!  This year am going to be brilliant, inspirational, organised!  School year is mostly planned out, and have got most of the supplies and even though school is going to have to begin whilst still abroad (long story), am going to be the picture of calm gentle teacher whose students never tire of learning.  Will have beautiful moments huddled together with my children reading great literature and having deep meaningful discussions that will provide solutions to all the worlds problems and result in family winning Nobel peace prize!  Will make DVD’s and write books about perfect family and will be asked to be on all major talk shows across the world to talk about how came up with a solution that solved worldwide economic crisis!  Movie rights will be discussed and will become household name, will rub shoulders with A list celebrities and be photographed on red carpets all over the world.

Have until Monday morning, 5 minutes into the first lesson to be precise,  to enjoy delusions of perfection!!

As with every year have set myself up to fail spectacularly.  Will fail at being calm (probably first thing to go), will fail at being organised (will be a close second), will fail at persuading kids that reading together is better than playing Minecraft with their friends, will fail at coming up with convincing (at least for 11 year old) argument as to why fractions are useful part of life, or that anything on the core list is of any interest or use to them!

So how to get through the year without becoming addicted to xanex or turn into sad alcoholic.  Chosen method this year is going to be to rely heavily on friendship and support of other non-fictional (and other non-functional) home school parents and start over every day.  Is so simple, no idea why didn’t think of it before.  Will wipe the slate clean every night and begin again each day.  This year will connect the dots, dots being the moments (even brief and fleeting ones) where ideal, perfect homeschooling moment occurs!  Will write them down, must create wonderful record of beautiful memories, skim over the imperfections and just note the brilliant moments.  Of course if there aren’t many will just have to write about the ones that went wrong, then others can read and think to selves ‘well at least am not that bad’ and can be inspired.  This years ups will be my inspiration and years downs can make others feel better about their own efforts, like reality tv!!