Week Two Homeschool Report

This report is for the week of September 8-12.

On Monday, the children seemingly conspired to make my head explode. My head barely stayed intact, but my chest did hurt by the end of the day. Ugggghhhh!

It began when a certain child, who shall remain nameless, spent a half hour looking for his math CD. I didn't catch on to the search right away, but I detested that much wasted time.

Later in the day, I was impressed when a different child asked if he could put his math materials in the van an hour ahead of when we needed to take Sophie to cello lessons. "Such responsibility!" I thought-- until we were in the van ready to leave and said child could not find his math CD. Hence the namelessness. He ran inside to find where he dropped the CD as each minute painfully slipped away. I tapped the horn but got no response. I ran inside to round up the child and different schoolwork to occupy him. I despised being late!

On the way home from the cello lesson, the kids and I stopped at the grocery store to purchase the weekly groceries. Check! When we got home, we unloaded the school books, cello, and groceries, but a certain child could not find his literature book that he brought in the van. For the next half an hour, the children searched for the missing math CD and book while visions of the book lying in the store parking lot flashed before my eyes. I should have known, from past experience, that we should have all prayed together about the missing items before searching and freaking out, but being an adult doesn't always mean that I am the mature one. Sigh. Thankfully, both the disk and the book were found, and we didn't have to search the grocery store parking lot or order new materials online! Oh me of little faith!

The second week was definitely and literally a step backwards on the preparation front. By mid-week, the kids were only two steps up their stairway to computer privileges by Saturday to their chagrin.



My lack of sleep and feeling ill added to my frustration this week. During the first week of school, we benefited from starting our school day off with a group time in God's Word. During the second week, my lack of sleep and energy made it difficult for me to get up before the children in order to have time for my own personal devotions. My spirit was willing, but my flesh was weak. We also got going a half hour later on our school day part of the week and our morning Bible study went by the wayside.

To combat the problem I just described, I need to do my personal Bible study the night before in order to ensure that I am prepared to lead our group Bible study in the morning. My morning devotions can be more contemplative.

On a more positive note, Evan and Sophie not only accomplished their schoolwork during the second week, but they also did substantial additional reading. Evan got hooked by the book Hittite Warrior which is historical fiction based on an earlier time period than what we are currently covering with Tapestry of Grace. I had begun it as a read aloud this past summer (it pains me to call it "past summer"), but did not finish it. Sophie also read the book Adara which was not assigned to her, but she read it for fun in two days! (It is a dialectic level book for Tapestry of Grace and she is considered upper grammar level.) I let her read the book, because I know she will enjoy reading it again when she is older. She even asked me if she could read it again right away!

For history and Bible via Tapestry of Grace, the boys once again ignored my repeated instructions to pre-read their Accountability Questions and to fill-in their timelines and answer their questions while they did their reading. Consequently they had to do some re-reading in order to do their written work. I wouldn't have minded that process, except that school took too long when they read and re-read. Hopefully they learned for the future the benefit in following my instructions!

During the second week of school, I sat down with our daily schedule to try and tweak it to make it work any better, but after rearranging it several times, I realized that what I set down in the beginning was best.

We have made a good start to our school year and just need to shore up some weaknesses in order to keep on keeping on!


Sophie working on grammar


Evan practicing and typing in backyard along with a cute distraction