First Day Done

I'm going to have to say the first day of our homeschool was a success.

SJ sauntered out around 8 a.m. and took his time having breakfast. I wondered how he would react when the bus stopped (right in front of our house) to pick up a former schoolmate. I needn't have worried. Rather than feeling left out, he felt lucky to be home.

After getting dressed and feeding the neighbor's cat, we got started. It was 10:00 a.m. Nice. We talked for a few minutes about how this would work and then reviewed what I think we might be able to accomplish this week.

Here is what we did:

• Vision therapy. We plan to start each day with a few exercises we learned during his VT program. I can see I need a refresher on some of them.
• Math. The challenge here was to figure out where he left off in school and then find the similar section in the book we chose for home. I think we landed in the right spot but it will continue to be a searchy, learny thing to discover what he "got" and what he didn't. 
• Computer. Crash course on internet browsers and how to organize bookmarks and files. I let him choose his "headings" and we loaded them with several fun-looking (but educational) sites. We played around on a few of them, such as PBS' Nova site that has endless videos, podcasts, and activities.
• Lunch. Gotta eat.
• Reading comprehension disguised as Bible devotions. It occurred to me that SJ knows how to "look up" verses but doesn't really know how to "use" his bible. There are all kinds of great little resources in his NIV Adventure Bible so we started at the front where we looked at each icon, read what it represented, then looked for examples within the text. 
• PE. An hour and a half of no school bell telling him to stop playing. He loved this.
• Facebook set-up with Dad. Halfway done. (Don't friend him yet!)
• Reading. He will read tonight. I told him he can read anything that has real text (as in, not Calvin and Hobbes).
• Writing. Low-key end of day exercise where I asked him to write what he liked and what he did not like about his day. Here is what he said: "I enjoyed today because it was easier than school because it only took two hours instead of 6 (sic). Everything was easy and so that is why I enjoyed it so much." (Disclaimer for the sake of his teacher: It took about three hours. :-) ) 

It looks like alot of work and it looks like not enough at the same time but I'm happy with what we did. When he worked, he was engaged and what he didn't understand, I explained. So he thought it was easy, isn't that the objective? Does learning have to be hard to be good? What do you think?

A few challenges:

• S was bored by 3:00 p.m. No homework. Done with school. He was a little adrift.
• Hubbie and I have to change our Monday "dates" for awhile. That one is harder to swallow because we enjoy our bike rides and lunches but both of us realize we need to be a little more "present" for awhile before we let SJ work independently. I need to remember to schedule "our" time to make sure we get it.
• Tomorrow I have bible study which is a non-negotiable time for me. How will he do for two and half hours? How will I feel, knowing I have another responsibility while trying to enjoy my own social life?