More changes

I'm getting seriously burned out with the way I've been doing the homeschooling thing. I have a newfound respect for teachers who do this every day. Making lesson plans every week, printing out documents needed every day. It's no wonder I can't sleep.

Another homeschooling mom, World of Discovery, suggested doing unit studies and lapbooking. So I did some research. Find the right website, and they have the lesson plan all done out for you, all you need to do is get the book for the unit study and the supplies for the lapbook.

Next week, we start a unit study on America's White Table by Margot Theis Raven. Technically it's for Veteran's Day, but that's all the way in September. So since we have Memorial Day coming up, I thought it would be a good lesson for then, too, with a little tweaking.

I did have to do SOME extra planning additions, but that's okay. It's not ALOT. Next week we start on that book, plus learning about WWII. We'll be doing a lapbook for WWII as well, and I just got back from The Dollar Store with purchases of poster board, scissors, and a few other things. Yesterday we went to the library to get books and videos about WWII. I printed out resources like Germany's flag, Japan's flag, Israeli flag (for the Jewish aspect of it), and America's flag (starting with the original one first, next week sometime we'll do the current American flag), as well as georgaphical information on the primary countries discussed in WWII (mostly Germany, Japan, and the U.S., with a little Russia thrown in).

Yeah, I did some tweaking of it, but I used the base plan for my inspiration on the extras. The great thing about this is that a proper unit study can take at least five weeks to do. I've planned this one out to six (each week studying a different war), with the sixth week being special projects related to the lessons (like interviewing a Vet from WWII or finding an Aushwitz survivor to interview or getting together a care package for our current troops overseas). And once this unit study is done, it will be time for them to take their Summer Vacation with their Dad, which will give me six weeks to get a new unit study chosen and new supplies for a new lapbook.

Hopefully this will alleviate at least SOME of stress over getting things done and ready. We shall see.

Thinking about changing their schedule.

I'm thinking about changing the boys' homeschool schedule up a bit again. We just have to find what works best for us, and so far, multiple subjects in one day is too overwhelming...to both them AND me. lol That's the beauty of homeschooling. It's not "public school at home" unless you want it to be, otherwise you can set your schedule how you want it set. And in our case, one subject per day might be the best. At least until the boys get settled into it better. That way we won't feel rushed, and I won't feel like we're falling behind if they go slower than anticipated.

I don't know. We're going to give it a shot for a while, see if it works. If it doesn't, we'll change the schedule again. I'm actually almost tempted to just let them start a Summer Vacation already, but at the same time I'm afraid they'd forget evrything they've already learned thus far. We'll see. I may end up having to do two different schedules to accommodate each of the boys' needs. Which is fine. As long as I can figure out what each of them needs.

URGENT PRAYER REQUEST

I got this prayer request in my email from one of my homeschooling groups. If you're the praying kind, please keep this one in your prayers.

(BTW, the last time I asked for a prayer request was about a boy who was assaulted at school and had a broken neck. His neck wasn't broken, he was fine, just told to take it easy for a couple of weeks. The perp is being charged with aggravated assault)

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I have an urgent prayer request. My very close friend's nephew was shot in the face this morning. He is currently in the Critical Care Unit. Apparently he was shot in the mouth and has a crack in the skull. Because of the nature of the crime, the hospital is unable to give out much information. My friend's brother just arrived to the hospital (it is his son who was shot) and was in court all day, so he doesn't really know what is going on either. We will find out more in a little bit and I will update you all...Please, please, please keep him in your prayers...

Please pray that he heals and no changes for the worse...

His name is Deshawn Dyre

Struggling

I hope no one is overly interested in my lesson plans, because I can't guarantee they'll be posted any time soon. I've been really slacking in the organization department. And while some of you might try to tell me to just relax and not worry about it, what you don't understand is that I HAVE to be organized in some aspects of my life or I feel like it's falling apart. And this would be one of those areas.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder at it's worst.

The next few weeks will probably be rather slow for this blog. We're coming up on what would be my daughter's six month birthday had she lived, and what is my first Mother's Day without her. And try as I might to not let it get me too down, depression slips in when you least expect it and takes over. Which is probably why my organization is slacking.

I'll be slowly updating the Archive blog to this one, probably doing one subject at a time for each week I'm behind in it. So it'll be a while before it's fully updated, but I'll get there. Slowly. Not like my lesson plans are intensive anyway, lol. You could probably do a better job than me anyway.

I'm still rearranging the schedule. I've already changed the schedule from doing History and Science every other day, to doing History for two weeks then Science for two weeks. But in doing Ancient Egypt, I came to realize that two weeks just isn't long enough for some topics. My boys were very interested in the pyramids, and two weeks didn't give us near enough time to cover all they wanted to know. So I may just relax on that part of the schedule and instead of setting a length of time limit, I'll just let the topic take us where it wants to go. If that means going a full month or month and a half on one topic in the same subject, then so be it. Whatever it takes for my boys to enjoy learning.

So far, so good.

Now we're doing Science. Earthquakes, to be more specific. I'm struggling to find GOOD quality information on Earthquakes that will interest them enough to pay attention. We got some books from the library today, but I question how interesting they really are. And my boys seem to learn better by having visual AND audio combined, which means videos. And the DVD's at the library I wanted to get were either grabbed before we got to them, or are located at another library in the county. I put in requests for them, but sometimes they can take as long as 10 days or more to get to my library. We'll just have to wait and see, I guess. In the meantime, there's always YouTube.

How do you do it?

How do you keep from stringing them up by their toenails? Or taping them to the wall with duct tape?

How do you keep from banging your own head against the wall day after day?

I know they're boys. I know they're kids. I get that. And young boys have the nature of ADHD, whether they HAVE ADHD or not.

Some days I can handle this. Other days (like today), not so much.

And this time it's not just Micheal. This time it's Christopher, too.

Neither one of them is concentrating on themselves. When one of them needs help with a problem, the other one has to sit there and watch. As if that weren't bad enough, the one doing the watching chuckles at the one needing the help if the question is something the one doing the watching already knows and apparently thinks that everyone should know it.

And then there's the ever present "I don't understand the question" (the question being [fill in the missing number] 1500-____=500)...FROM MY 4TH/5TH GRADER....after having done these sorts of equations for AT LEAST the last three weeks and could do them practically with his eyes shut from the start.

And it seems we have all of a sudden forgotten how to do basic addition. 2+2 is confounding today and in order to solve that problem one absolutely MUST use a calculator.

Does sunshine cause the brain to malfunction? Something like....Sunshine Alzheimers? Because that's what it looks like is going on here. The sun comes out and all of a sudden everything is forgotten.

And it doesn't help them any that Mommy is having an especially OCD sort of day and everything must be done precisely as planned in exactly the manner planned. Yes, I have OCD. Sometimes it's a problem, sometimes it's not. Some days I'm normal (ha ha) and spontaneous and fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, but some days (like today) I'm very by-the-book scheduled. When it comes to housecleaning, it's great. When it comes to homeschooling...not so much.

Oh dear. **EDIT**

Well, I think it's safe to say the novelty has already worn off. I'm not being nearly as organized this week as I was (or as I should be). And I am highly unmotivated. Do you ever go through feelings like that while homeschooling?

Maybe it's because of the sun shining outside and the warmth. Yesterday we only did a couple hours of classes. Today we got three classes done in less than two hours. And we're done. We're not done because we got it all done, we're done because I neglected to create lesson plans for this week for a couple of classes and therefore I have no idea what to do beyond what we've already done for those classes.

Serious laziness has abounded this week.

Maybe it's because I am Mommy, and being a Mommy also means I am female. And we all know what THAT means.

But *shrugs* At least we got the most important subjects done...Bible, Math, and English/Grammar.

I sent the kids outside at 9am and told them to play outside while the temperature is still acceptable. Christopher came in 20 minutes later, washes up, and comes to sit down in his desk chair and tells me he is ready to learn some more. And while there is no more learning planned for today, it warms my heart that he WANTS to learn, as opposed to the way he was before when he couldn't get far enough away from a textbook.

This is our third week of homeschooling, and I would already call it a brilliant success.

**EDIT**
Me: Since we've got so much done today and still have lots of time, why don't we do tomorrow's work today so we can have a free day tomorrow.

Chris: No, that's okay. I kinda like doing the work.

Mikey: Christopher likes to do the work.

Me: Since when?

Chris: Since homeschooling.

Me: Ok, who are YOU, and what have you done with MY children?

Rough Week

Had a bit of a rough week getting everything ready. I'll update the lesson plans and links when I get a chance.