Up to this point we have been sailing along with this new homeschool adventure, but this week real life set in, and we had a few problems with behavior. I guess the novelty has finally worn off a little. Both Hyrum and Andrew had a rough day this week and didn’t want to finish their work. I was expecting this to happen at some point, but it was still difficult being both the mom and the teacher and having to try to deal with the meltdowns. I’m sure we will have more tough days ahead, but I am hopeful that I can come up with some techniques to help defuse the situations in the future.
One thing I think will be the most helpful is to allow Hyrum more breaks. 7 year old boys just can’t be expected to focus for long stretches at a time, so I think I have been asking too much of him. I am going to try to have him focus for 20 minutes and then allow him a break to play. It will take longer to finish everything, but I think he will be much happier. The older boys can go longer stretches without breaks, so we will just have to play it by ear for them.
Christian: The 9th grade Spark curriculum has 2 P.E. classes that Christian is working on. One is more of a health class and the other is a fitness for life class. They have several overlapping activities/assignments, so it is nice that he can do them at the same time. One assignment is to exercise daily and submit a weekly log. I am so glad that exercise is a requirement because Christian (and all of us!) can really use the exercise. He and Jonathon do 3 days a week of running or biking and 3 days of lifting weights at the Rec Center. He has been very diligent, and I hope that it helps him to gain some confidence.
For his Tech allowance, Christian decided to purchase a LEGO Mindstorm. Andrew got one for his Tech Class, so I didn’t think we should buy two. Christian really wanted his own though, so I agreed. We bought them both on Ebay, so we paid significantly less than a new one would cost. So far, they have loved them so much. Christian created an awesome scorpion that shoots balls at a target. He spent hours building and programming it. I am so glad I let him buy it because he is really enjoying it.
He also finished his first semester of Geography this week. It only took him 2 weeks because he already knew so much of the material. He was thrilled, and it gave him a lot of motivation to work hard on his other classes!
Andrew: For Language Arts, Andrew has been reading a story called “Carlotta” about an immigrant girl from Italy. Along with the story, he has also learned about Italian geography and culture. For one of the assignments this week, he made homemade gnocchi for us. He did a great job following all the directions. Dinner was delicious! All of the boys agreed that we need to add gnocchi to our regular dinner rotation.
Andrew also made a cool creation with his Mindstorm. It was a huge snake. He told me that it was programmed to slither forward and attack, but it still caught me by surprise when he made it attack me while I was filming. Haha! These Mindstorms have been a huge hit so far!
One other thing to note… When I asked Andrew his 3 favorite things about homeschool, he said “Beast Math, Beast Math, Beast Math.” What??? Can you believe that a math program would be his favorite thing?” That makes me so happy!
Hyrum: In complete contrast, Hyrum is not a fan of Beast Academy Math. It was becoming quite a point of contention, so we switched curriculum for him. It is so interesting to see the different learning styles of my kids in a school setting. Hyrum doesn’t thrive on puzzles and challenges like Andrew does and instead likes to do small chunks of work that he feels he can accomplish. We switched to the math program that he did last year in public school (EnVision), and he is already much happier.
Hyrum is making huge strides in his swimming lessons too. He asked if we could go practice two times this week. We are happy to oblige because the lessons will be much more worthwhile if he is doing practice on the side.
For Cooking with Grandma class this week, they used their box ovens that they made last week to bake pizzas and chocolate chip cookies. They brought home three big trays of cookies, and we enjoyed their hard work for dessert.
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