Ah, the second week of school, time to tweak already.
No sense in trying to make something work. I don't like the science book we bought. I actually bought two. They're integrated science books by Glencoe. Last year Thomas read Life Science and most of Earth Science by Glencoe on his own. So I figured that this would be a hit, too.
It may be with him, but it's not with me. I find them choppy, light, and dull. I think they'll be great for him to sit and read on his own, but I wanted something more this year.
Bob and I sat down and had a teacher/principal conference. Or perhaps it was a parent-teacher conference. Whatever. We discussed what we wanted to accomplish in high school and worked back.
10th grade: biology
11th grade: chemistry
12th grade: physics
So, Bob came up with the brilliant plan to do that same order starting in 7th grade. So I'm stuck trying to find a middle school biology program.
I didn't look too hard. We're ordering Power Basics Biology. That was fairly easy.
Another GREAT tweak? ROSETTA STONE!!!!!!! A good friend sold me hers for a good price. It arrived this weekend, and I sat and did the first lesson. Six times. Ahem.
I love it. It is the way to teach me a language. The older I get, the harder it is for me to learn a language, as our dismal attempt last year proved. This is right up my alley.
So yesterday Thomas had his first lesson. He liked it. At first he got frustrated because he didn't know what the words meant, but as he went through it he realized he would have to use his brain to figure things out.
As I suspected, he's doing better than I am. I am trying to stay a lesson ahead of him so I get that extra needed practice.
It's a BIG hit, though. I am so thankful to my friend!!
Other tweaking I have to figure out: scheduling. As usual, I have too much on our plates and not enough time. We have not started Lightning Literature, keyboarding or computer studies. I haven't thrown art in, either.
I'm going to have to play with our schedule a bit to make everything fit without being overwhelming.
We are loving our spelling program still.
Tonight I'm going to spend an hour studying and trying to get a final tweak completed. A final tweak for now, at least.
9 comments:
It's not our curriculum that needs tweaking. What I'd like to tweak is T's snot-ass little attitude.
Ya know... I had a sweet boy just a couple of months ago. I wonder where he went? Maybe I should go check and see if he got stuck behind the couch or something.
;-)
Hey Frankie,
I'm still waiting on two shipments of books, so we haven't started everything yet, either. The kids and I sat down today and spent three hours organizing workbooks and binders. K's math is well under way. Science arrived today and is ready to start. Our language stuff - French and English - is all laid out as well. Still waiting on our latest SOTW and R's math.
Great score on Rosetta! Nothing better, imo. I'm on to tweaking our schedule as well. That's this week's project as the shelf and this year's books are just about as done as I can get them.
And just because we've been so in-synch this last couple of weeks, I'm going to go and schedule a parent-teacher conference. I'm sure we'll find something to talk about....
I wold give my left bosom to have a Rosetta Stone program. We want Spanish. Living in Floroda it's a plus ans with that being the second most popular language, it definitely would not hurt us.
So we hope to have a progrom some time this year.
rofl at the Cooking Lady's comment -- good luck and I hope you find the program soon :).
Frankie, I wouldn't know what to do if I couldn't tweak!
I'm with Becky, if I couldn't constantly adjust what I needed, changing things here and there as we went, our homeschooling attempts would have failed as soon as they started. And most of it is me, trying to combine what works for them as well as me. It's a very winding road, and that's ok with me.
Good thing you can recognize when something needs tweaking and adjust it right away. Usually, I'm well into a nervous breakdown before I realize the whole thing was a train-wreck from the beginning.
I'm considering making some changes to our schedule, but we'll see... We just got through our first week of the year, after all. I'm giving us the month of September to get accustomed to being back in the routine. If I need to tweak, I'll tweak. That's the lovely thing about homeschooling, eh?
Tweaking is one of the positive things about homeschooling. If something is not working, tweak until it does. We just tweaked the schedule to. Sam was in tears almost every day. Not with the new way though so it is great. Now if I can just get him to speed up. That would be good. ;) Lol
We are waiting for our Rosetta Stone to get here! I hope it comes soon.
We are still working on some type of routine! Maybe by the end of the year we will have one that works.
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