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Can we be done now?


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I'm *thisclose* to tears right now. I just want this school year DONE. Please-please-please, pretty please!

 

Oh, and if anyone's interested, it would cost only $11,000 (total) for both kids to go to the private Christian school near us. Unfortunately, we don't have an extra $11,000 in the budget, but maybe DH will get a promotion and a raise. Yeah... that's gonna happen. :tongue_smilie:

 

BTW, Miss "I Hate Reading" 2nd grader read the first chapter of a Magic Tree House book today (her first attempt at a real chapter book). And the K'er rocked through 4 math lessons this morning. They're making good progress. So why do I feel so BLEH????

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I'm *thisclose* to tears right now. I just want this school year DONE. Please-please-please, pretty please!

 

Oh, and if anyone's interested, it would cost only $11,000 (total) for both kids to go to the private Christian school near us. Unfortunately, we don't have an extra $11,000 in the budget, but maybe DH will get a promotion and a raise. Yeah... that's gonna happen. :tongue_smilie:

 

BTW, Miss "I Hate Reading" 2nd grader read the first chapter of a Magic Tree House book today (her first attempt at a real chapter book). And the K'er rocked through 4 math lessons this morning. They're making good progress. So why do I feel so BLEH????

 

Because it's still so close to February?

 

:grouphug:

 

And congratulations to your dc for their math and reading achievements today!

 

I give you permission to be done with the rest of the year. They're young. As long as you are doing something with them, you will all be fine. Continue with math, phonics, and reading aloud to your kids. Dump everything else in favor of whatever suits you. You might want to plan a little ahead on this, but you could rotate several different "Days" so you're not all going stir crazy. Here are just some ideas that someone might like to use as a starting place:

 

Game Day. Play games for a few hours. Let the kids take turns choosing what game to play, and set a limit, i.e., each game can be played three times, and then move onto another game. This could include hopscotch, Go Fish, any board game, card game, anything YOU consider a game.

 

Art Day. Pick up a fun Marianne Kohl-type or craft book from the library or a website. Have fun making messes with glue sticks, and whatever else you decide to use. (Check out makingfriends.com, print out paper doll stuff on white paper, and let the kids go at it.)

 

Park Day.

 

Nature Study Day. Go on a leisurely walk. Let the kids bring notebooks to draw what they see. Lay on the grass; look at the clouds. Enjoy.

 

Gardening Day. Plant whatever suits you, flowers, vegetables, etc. Start with seeds, and make this a regular day so you can maintain your growing things.

 

Science Day. Pick up a Janice Van Cleave book for younger kids at your library. Do fun experiments.

 

Music Day. Listen to silly songs, old songs, a certain composer. See if you can get your hands on something like Beethoven's Wig, or Diana Waring's History Through Music, or Philadelphia Chickens. Learn patriotic songs, America the Beautiful, Yankee Doodle, or The Star Spangled Banner.

 

Cooking Day. Spend the morning making a meal, whether it's lunch, preparing to have friends over, cookies, etc.

 

Math Day. Find Peggy Kaye's Games for Math at your library, or look in the 510-520 section at the library for FUN, living math books.

 

Sports Day. Plan a few active things for the kids to do, and have them try to beat their earlier scores any time you have Sports Day. (Think Presidential Fitness Award activities, or come up with your own.)

 

TV Day. Mom needs downtime. Look for Nick marathons, or PBS, etc. A morning of educational TV won't hurt them.

 

Town/City Day. Do whatever it is you like to do in your town/city. Take the train, sight-see. Be a tourist. Eat ice cream.

 

Sigh. I long for the days when we could put off school work!

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I give you permission to be done with the rest of the year. They're young. As long as you are doing something with them, you will all be fine. Continue with math, phonics, and reading aloud to your kids. Dump everything else in favor of whatever suits you.

...

Sigh. I long for the days when we could put off school work!

 

:iagree::iagree::iagree:

 

Find some fun things to do. Take some breaks. Shorten your school day. Find things to do with friends. Go on a field trip. See a show or put one on for others. Plan a hike with friends. Go to your local homeschool park day.

 

Outside play, every day.

 

If you're reading something, writing something, and doing a bit of math, even if those things aren't coming from a "school-y" activity, then you're good at that age, at this time of year.

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Maybe it's time for a 3 week Spring Break? Then come back to just phonics and math until June.

Still read, cook, play games, go places--redefine "school," so that you don't feel so burdened.

 

Sounds good. :)

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:grouphug:

 

We do Bible, math and phonics/LA daily, consistency with the 3Rs is key for overall progress.

 

When we need to do short days, we do Bible for everyone and phonics for my son and math for my daughter. (My daughter is ahead in Language Arts and my son is ahead in math.)

 

Also, paradoxically, adding in something new can help! I always start something new in January. Last year we started a new science. This year we added Latin. Soon, I will start chemistry and finish up a short chemistry unit with fun chemistry experiments.

 

It does actually get more interesting as they get older, I think! My daughter is starting to turn into her own little person that I can have quasi-intellectual discussions with, she's a big picture person and has some fairly deep thoughts for an 8 year old. I've enjoyed 3rd grade much more than 2nd. 1st and K were easy because I was only teaching one and it didn't take long to do school at that age, especially with all my practice teaching phonics. (I'm also really enjoying MCT. My daughter and I both laugh when we read it together and she often begs to do a bit more to get to the story/find out the next part of the current story.)

 

If you really think you would be happier going the private school route, you might look into opportunities to work part time at the school in some capacity in exchange for tuition.

 

But, I would make sure that things are really what you think they are there. We had friends who went to a good private school in the LA area. The curriculum was good, but my children learned more in about 1/10 the time they spent, classes are very inefficient, even small classes. When you really start looking at the work they do, it is usually enormous amounts of busywork even at a good school with small class sizes.

 

And, at the middle school level, they choose horrible books for science and not much better for some of the other subjects. I was helping their 8th grade daughter with her science homework and complained about the textbook and asked why they used it when they used such good materials for elementary. My friend replied that that is what they had to use to score well on the state tests, they had to choose texts that met the California state standards. She didn't like the textbook either. But, she said that even though most of the teachers and a few of the parents did not like the textbook, the majority of the parents would not look deeply into the matter and only cared about the test scores. (The science book was very broad. There was nothing bad about anything being taught, it was just a scattershot of things being taught without understanding. They were memorizing hundreds of details about things, each chapter could and maybe should have been its own textbook.)

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Time for Spring Break!

 

Seriously, every single school around here is taking a break about now, and I think it's because they need it. My DD's former school is doing "Spirit week" this week-which means no significant learning, but lots of game days, pep rallies, special performances, and the like, and then has Spring Break the following week.

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