First day of school was great!

[greensummervillian]

In the past, I have always done year round schooling with breaks thrown in whenever it works out that we need one. This year my children both requested a real summer break like their friends. We've been lounging around doing whatever we feel like and spending a lot of time at the pool over the last couple months. There was no official schoolwork unless you count keeping up with read-alouds, but that requires little effort on their part. It was nice, but I was very ready to get started again.

 

I've implemented a loop schedule with 4 days of work to be completed over 5 days. We finished everything but the art project, so that's what we start with tomorrow. The kids liked the pretty typed up schedules I made, and they took pride in completing their tasks. They both worked diligently and without complaining.

 

I have a couple happy/hooray moments to share. First, my daughter's handwriting was atrocious last year. I told her we were going to make a serious effort to get her handwriting to an acceptable level. At this point I wasn't going to aim for beautiful calligraphy. I just wanted her to be able to write something legible without having to be embarrassed about it looking like it was written by a five year old. So the first thing she writes is her narration for history. It was neat! I could hardly believe it was her writing. How did that happen? I don't think she was being lazy last year because she used to really struggle. Something clicked for her. I hope this is a sign of more good things to come.

 

The other thing that impressed me was my son's willingness to go above the minimum requirements. We had a talk a couple weeks ago about the difference between people who do the bare minimum to scrape by and people who do their very best. It seems like that talk lit a fire under him because he is much more diligent that he used to be. One example among many relates to his history assignment. He had to read a two page spread from Kingfisher and write 4-8 facts. He chose to write 8. Each fact was neat and well written, and it was clear to me that he put some thought into which facts he would like to include. He also labeled extra countries on his map that were not related to the week's history reading.

 

So everybody do the happy dance with me!

Edited August 10, 2010 by greensummervillian

[Nakia]

:party: Good for you all! We started today too, and we also had a great day! We are only doing history, bible, and science this week. We will add in a couple of things each week for a couple of weeks, and then by September, we will be doing our full schedule.

[5LittleMonkeys]

WOOHOO!! Now, print out your post and hang it on the fridge! You painted a very pretty picture...good for all of you!

[missmoe]

Sounds like a great first day!:hurray: Isn't wonderful to feel that your parenting is making a difference.

 

I hope I have a report like this one in the three weeks.

[Mommee & Baba]

How exciting for all of you!!

 

My kids too asked for a summer break...but 3wks into it were ready to start again...but I had planning & filing still to do so the break continued. We just started back yesterday too & it was a success!!

 

I've only planned about 18 days off this entire year plus weekends of course and then 5wks for summer, knowing 3wks I'll be planning and filing :p

 

I too was impressed with how much both my dd had grown from what they learned last year over the summer break. Plus I also realized how easily my oldest gets distracted :p and how my middler is a sponge :D and how my little dude is my reminder of what patience is :lol:

[JudoMom]

In the past, I have always done year round schooling with breaks thrown in whenever it works out that we need one. This year my children both requested a real summer break like their friends. We've been lounging around doing whatever we feel like and spending a lot of time at the pool over the last couple months. There was no official schoolwork unless you count keeping up with read-alouds, but that requires little effort on their part. It was nice, but I was very ready to get started again.

 

I've implemented a loop schedule with 4 days of work to be completed over 5 days. We finished everything but the art project, so that's what we start with tomorrow. The kids liked the pretty typed up schedules I made, and they took pride in completing their tasks. They both worked diligently and without complaining.

 

I have a couple happy/hooray moments to share. First, my daughter's handwriting was atrocious last year. I told her we were going to make a serious effort to get her handwriting to an acceptable level. At this point I wasn't going to aim for beautiful calligraphy. I just wanted her to be able to write something legible without having to be embarrassed about it looking like it was written by a five year old. So the first thing she writes is her narration for history. It was neat! I could hardly believe it was her writing. How did that happen? I don't think she was being lazy last year because she used to really struggle. Something clicked for her. I hope this is a sign of more good things to come.

 

The other thing that impressed me was my son's willingness to go above the minimum requirements. We had a talk a couple weeks ago about the difference between people who do the bare minimum to scrape by and people who do their very best. It seems like that talk lit a fire under him because he is much more diligent that he used to be. One example among many relates to his history assignment. He had to read a two page spread from Kingfisher and write 4-8 facts. He chose to write 8. Each fact was neat and well written, and it was clear to me that he put some thought into which facts he would like to include. He also labeled extra countries on his map that were not related to the week's history reading.

 

So everybody do the happy dance with me!

 

 

:party:

 

That's interesting about the handwriting. My second son really struggled with penmanship (I would be near tears when grading his work because I just couldn't read it), but near the end of last year he started making improvements. When he tries, his handwriting is neater than his older brother's (and he was born with good penmanship). Anyway, I though it was interesting because he's 9 (10 next month) as well.

[greensummervillian]

Thanks everybody!