First week of school

Madison is technically in the sixth grade.
Ella is technically in the fourth grade.

Madison asked for greater structure this year in schoolwork. I don't find this in the least unreasonable, but it does require a bit more preparation for me.

The fact that we're using Time4Learning for the background math, "Language Arts," and science (and history and art if they feel like doing it in T4L) doesn't actually absolve me of the lion's share of preparation. But I've made a commitment to myself to do that on the weekend before -- actually to prepare and print out their daily sheets on Sunday, so that they can work ahead or catch up as they like, and so that they can pace themselves. The trouble, of course, is knowing exactly how to plan. Some things take a predictable amount of time, like listening to an Ancient History lecture or doing a Spanish lesson. But I don't know how difficult they may find a given logic problem, or the writing assignment, or what have you. So things could take 2 hours or they could take all day, and I can't exactly plan for that up front.

Madison is doing 14 subjects -- 8th-grade Time4Learning math, extra move-head math (current topic is probability), English, handwriting, nonfiction/essay writing, fiction writing, logic, Spanish, science, history, memorization, computer programming, art, household/life skills. Not everything is every day, of course. She has 7 extracurriculars: Karate, viola, flute, orchestra, choir, piano, Shakespeare, Odyssey of the Mind prep class, writing, and chess. She'll do some shows, too, plays or musical theater, and a few other odds and ends. Notice only three of those subjects are Time4Learning, so it's not like it really saves me THAT much prep time. Fortunately, almost all of it is done on her own nowadays, I just have to check it out and talk about it and keep track. She wants to do a special year-long project on ancient architecture to go with our Ancient History focus, and who am I to say no. Ambitious, yes, but she's an ambitious kid. And I don't have to do anything except buy supplies when she needs them.

Ella has about the same number of subjects, but not flute or viola or writing, and she's taking two different dance classes. She'll stop karate when she reaches Brown Belt, probably in October. Good thing, too, as karate is getting expensive and I only want them to do it if they love it, which Madison does.

I finished the week's preparation on Monday (Labor Day), which worked well. It was easy, as they only had three days of school this week due to Madison's birthday on Friday, when we took them and their four slumber party friends to the RMSC in the morning. The first day (Tuesday), work took them until 3:30, but they didn't complain; Wednesday they were done by about 1 and Thursday they were done by 12 or so. (I'd given them a light load, as the party started at 4pm and they needed to prepare.)

Today I finally finished organizing all of their papers from last year into the 2009-2010 binders. That felt good.

I still need to submit the IHIPs (Individual Home Instruction Plan) to the school district, but that's almost done and it's just me procrastinating deliberately, my small way of sticking it to The Man. A low-risk proposition, since I know I won't get in trouble for it, the school district knows darned well that I'm educating my kids thoroughly, the administrator is even on my KOA list and so is well aware of the multitude of ways I'm getting my kids educated and out and about in the community.

And I do need to keep myself in the habit of finishing the preparation for the week on Sunday night. If I can keep this up, I can maintain maximum productivity this year. Go, Deb!