Homeschooling So Far...

Well, it's been 2 days and so far, so good!!
I haven't seen my son this happy in a LONG time, and that's just another confirmation that we are doing the right thing. We are done with our work well before my kindergartner gets home, and still with enough time to squeeze in jobs, have food breaks, watch an educational movie, play a computer game, have some therapeutic drawing time, and all the other fun stuff that goes with learning!

When I first met with our homeschooling counselor, I had SO many questions, like how much work do we do each day, and how do I know if we are doing enough, how do I keep track of everything and how can I be sure that we stay on track?? I don't know if our homeschooling journey will be temporary but I'd hate to send him back to school behind just because I didn't know better!! So I was excited when she sent me a 3 week plan for us to accomplish and was able to break those into weeks, and then days. I prefer ripping out his worksheet pages and stapling them by day, then I place them into this file folder with our schedule stapled on the front and back covers. I love these pages by Passion Planner. I also have a master sheet to give to her that she will sign off once a month but I like this weekly organization system. I think it'll work well!

DAY 1:

My son smiled ALL day. While he was doing his worksheets, while he was reading, while he was drawing... he was like giddy to be doing "School" work in the playroom! We got a fair amount of work done, although I did notice that he takes a long time to get work done. Drags it on a bit, stops to chat about random facts, re-starts his sketches more often than I'd like, BUT this truly is one of the luxuries that comes with independent study!

Here's what we accomplished on our first day-

LANGUAGE ARTS: Learned about Fables, Read 5 fables, created his own fable & illustrated the picture (This took about 2 hours in all!)
Learned vocabulary words, wrote them on word strips, took a pre-test, hung up words on window in groupings of "wh" "ch" "sh" "th" I love doing things like this where he can hold the words and manipulate them on the board (window). I want to get some window markers since we don't have the wall space anywhere for a real board.
MATH: Took a math online placement test (this took about an hour, and he didn't like it because it was a lot of stuff he hasn't learned yet so he felt bad about it. I kept reminding him that it's ok, you haven't learned that yet, just guess, but it was hard not to want to explain it all to him!)
SCIENCE: Learned about Pompeii, watched part of the discovery movie (He will be going to the Pompeii museum this week!)
P.E: 20 minutes cardio (scooter riding to park!)

DAY 2:

We had a little resistance this morning. Not sure why, but it was raining, and I know he was tired. I do wish we had the luxury most homeschooling families have to sleep in a bit, but my 5 year old is still in school, so up at 6:45 we are!
We pushed through it though, and he changed his attitude once we finished the morning story & worksheet and I let him have some free reading time. A good book about Tigers always does the trick ;)
LANGUAGE ARTS: Read China Town and did 2 corresponding worksheets, alphabetizing worksheet, definition/matching worksheet.
MATH: addition & subtraction using the number line. He struggled a bit because he's used to his "Mad Minute" timed test, so he rushed through and didn't check his work. We'll have to work on taking his time and double checking answers.
RELIGION: read 2 chapters of the children's Book of Mormon
SCIENCE: planted seeds in an egg crate, Bearded Dragon report & drawing