Our Week in Review – September 25, 2009

Wow!  It’s been an interesting couple of weeks around here!  I didn’t post last week because I was in the middle of a run of migraines last weekend so you get a two-for-one post today.

Rosie Girl

Two weeks ago, Rosie Girl had some real trouble with managing her time.  Her schoolwork was due Saturday night.  By 11pm Saturday night, she still had several subjects that had large chunks still not finished, and she went into a meltdown.  She was quite upset because she knew that her grade was going to reflect turning in late work.  She calmed down, went to bed, and finished the work on Sunday.  And we talked on Monday.

On Monday morning, I had her make two significant changes.  First of all, I told her that she needed to finish each day’s work on the day it was assigned (for History, Bible, Literature, Workbooks).  Second, I had her start using a timer and doing a certain timed amount of work on subjects that were assigned by week (Writing, Biology, etc.).  Each day, I asked several times about her progress on each subject.  At the end of each day, I made sure she was finished.  Tonight, at about 8pm, she was completely finished with the entire week’s worth of work.  She has NO work to do on the weekend and she is a happy girl!!  (And she has a happy mama!)  Not only that, but she turned in her writing assignment to WriteAtHome a day early!

Rosie Girl auditioned for and made both Madrigals and Show Choir at the high school, so she has Choir and Art every morning and practices at lunchtime on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  Next week, the Choir will sing at the volleyball game on Tuesday and the Homecoming Football game on Friday.  Rosie Girl and I have already talked about how she is going to work ahead on Monday so that she doesn’t get behind in her schoolwork.

I have decided that the money we pay for WriteAtHome is worth every penny!!  I LOVE not having to assign and grade Rosie Girl’s writing.  I love getting to be her cheerleader, not the coach.  I’m also happy with our grading system.  Rosie Girl has occasionally been unhappy with her grades, but not because she thought they were unfair, but because she wished she did a better job. 

Wild Man

Wild Man is learning to work more on his own this year than ever before.  He is able to read his Sonlight readers quite well.  I have him do his Geography workbook on his own most of the time.  This week, I even had him do his History workbook one day by himself because I had a migraine.  He and I still do Bible, spelling, and Science together.  Because of my headaches, we are behind in Science, but I’m not worried about that.

Wild Man’s issues mainly have to do with attention and work habits.  He is getting better about getting up and getting to his chores and schoolwork.  He is sooooooo incredibly distractible, though!!  I make sure he has a list of his independent work to keep him on task.  Even with that, I’ll find him reading a library book because he got distracted from something else!

I have been quite pleased, though, to see that he is retaining some of what he has learned in Spelling.  He is able to write sentences much more easily than he was in the past.  He doesn’t like to do much that requires handwriting or typing, but he really is getting better.

Wild Man is trying out tomorrow for a community theater play in our area.  We live in a very small town, so I think there’s a good chance that he’ll get a part in the chorus.  The theater is within walking distance of our house (as is just about everything in town!) so rehearsals would be quite convenient.  Wild Man is such a performer and this would be such a great opportunity that I hope he gets a part.

So that’s what’s up in our little part of the educational world.  Homeschooling high school is definitely different even than middle school.  Rosie Girl needs far less direction than  she has in the past.  Wild Man, of course, still needs a good bit of my time and energy.  Rosie Girl needs me now for different things, I’m finding – things like teaching her to put on make-up, someone to talk to about school and friends, someone to watch her new tap combination, etc.  And it’s all good.  Migraines and all.

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