We’ve been sick for a week – so the school work has been little to nil. This week – with a week of rain in the forecast – I was sure we could get a solid week going – discipline – moving forward.
Yesterday didn’t start off too great on the discipline level after an accident with a bean bag turned into an all morning indoor snow festival. It took til noon to clean it up – and then til 3 to get our schoolwork finished.
Today – Tuesday – We were going to start off first thing – fresh –
Our Core Schedule:
| Core Courses | Jon | Nate |
| AWANA | TNT Book 1
We are not a part of a group right now so the use it as their daily devotional. They spend about 3-4 days on a page until they have the verse memorized and they can explain what the page means to Dad or me. |
TNT Book 2 |
| Math | Math Essentials – Fractions Jon is having a hard time understanding what the fractions are doing. We are using plastic pie pieces, cooking, water, sand, graphs, white board etc. He gets the “math” part of 6/5 = 1 and 1/5, but he can not use it in a sentence or understand what it is. We’re working on it. | ALEKS – Nate is taking a break from Math Essentials to see if he’d like to pursue an online option for Math. The learning curve to get logged in, figure out what we are supposed to do – what he is supposed to do – and how they are supposed to do it – is – exhausting. He likes it. I’m Tired. |
| Grammar | Daily Grams 3 – Simple Enough, but Jon wants his read out loud. He needs alot of help learning it for the first time – then he does well when they have the concept again. | Daily Grams 7 – Nate is doing great using this as a daily review for what he has learned. |
| Spelling | Spelling Zoo – Jon made it through Challenge One today – he is Estatic that he aced the challenge after several attempts. | Nate is on Challenge Two – and he easily writes the words. He might have needed to be on the second level – but I think the foundation will be good. |
| English | Copy Work – Reading – Art – Story Writing – Definately Jon’s strong suit. He wrote a 5-6 page short story about a turkey while waiting for lunch and has written two songs today. Joy. | Nathan is working on The Write Foundation. Each lesson is new and challenging. There is a part where we have to figure out together what they want us to do. Once on track of Doing – it goes quickly |
I posed the question to the Hip Homeschool Moms on Facebook today – What to do when you have Brain Pain. Somewhere between chores, sweeping floors, planning hubby’s birthday dinner, answering the phone, healing from a cold, and then swapping from Fraction Introduction to adding LY Adverb Words to a sentence – my brain just sort of goes . . . . off. I want to look at my son and say – we’ll do the LY sentences tomorrow. But, I know we won’t, if we don’t today. Geography? We’re supposed to be studying Sounds. We’ve played a Europe game a couple of times. Nature? I don’t even know what this week’s challenge is. We have been watching the new birds gather in the lake trying to identify them, beyond the word Duck. Laundry? Foh-get-a-bout-it. I’m glad we are at a point in Lego League where the kids need to just take the skills they have and run with it. I’m vowing to quit my Lego League Blog Search. 🙂
You know when you are set to do a long walk or jog? And you get the pain just a bit, but if you walk on – the adrenaline kicks in? And you realize that this was exactly what you needed to do? Does learning work that way for older kids? Get past the Brain Pain and get the Challenged Learned? Jon was so excited today when we forced him to do his spelling words one more time and he got 100%. Nate was excited when he pushed on to try to figure out angles today and it finally clicked what Acute, Obtuse and Right means. I don’t think he’ll forget this time.
But what about mom? When my brain hurts. I just want a nap.
At least in Public School – I could just zone out of a class and read the text later and get by. Or I could ask to volunteer in the Library. At least every 45 minutes we had to run back to the lockers, swap books, hook up to friends with casual conversation and be to the next building in our seats in 7 minutes. Maybe I should ask my neighbors if I could store some of our school supplies in their boat house and barn next door. MATH – Run to the boat house and back. ENGLISH – run to the neighbor’s barn. PE – to the KOA and Back!
Problem is – once they run to the neighbor’s house – we never get back on track. 🙂
Any helpful hints on how you combine relaxed learning – which is actual learning – with discipline – with needing to get through the Brain Pain????? Unit Studies, More Creative – Take a break – and lighten up are not working – they – we – I need to push through this!
Our house looks like this:
Snow. Male Merganser? He’s the only one if so. Canvas back?
Jon takes a break to try to capture the White Egret and the Blue Heron on the same dock. Then comes back to make a Strawberry, Orange, Banana, Grape, Blueberry Blackberry Fraction Pie. 
We refocus to 1/4 banana pie only. After our worksheet we move on to the Daily Grams.
Meanwhile Nate is plowing through this items on the other side of the table. Mom reads her cup every time she takes a sip of her vanilla latte. 🙂
+Angie Wright
Pebblekeeper 
My only advise is to not lose sight of the forest by focusing on the trees. Decide what your primary goal is and that is what you fall back on in times when we feel overwhelmed. Mine primary goal is that they love learning and that I teach them the basic tools to learn more. With this in mind, one day or even one week of lost work in any subject can be put aside as long as I have nurtured the main goal. I am not saying that this should be YOUR main goal. You just must decide what it is. I have seen some perfectly good homeschools in which the main goal is to get through certain curriculum every day. That is their main goal. What is your primary goal?
I hear you, Brain Pain.
Some days I start by (the night before) writing up a loose schedule. Usually it looks like 15 min intervals, with exceptions of L.A. and Math. Ie:
Pray
15 m. Penmanship
20 m. Memory Work
40 m Math
15 m. Snack & Devotions
15 m. Poetry Memory Work
Lunch Break & I read a chapter of Story of the World
60 m. L.A. (this is broken up into 15 m. sections (grammar, spelling, writing, reading with littles, etc) Then the boys work independantly for bits of time while i do one on one with the others.)
But the deal is, generally, we work for this long on each subject and then quit when the time is up.
Some days we just do Math and Penmanship….oh, I don’t think I’m of any help. But sometimes short intervals of working on a little of this and that keep our brains busy and alert. The boys do really well when I read aloud a little here and there. Seems to give their hands a rest and (though they’re building while I read) then get them fresh for the next subject.
Miss you—
Homeschool Notebook had this basic same question today I think I will take some of their advice and get our Nature or Geography in first in the morning.
http://www.familyclassroom.net/Articles20104/20101115.html