Friday, June 08, 2007

One more week of work left!

Not that my kids and the 12yo (woops! 13yo! he hasn't been 13 a week yet, so I forget ;) )have done much in terms of work this week, but hey...

The 16yo has still been working on studying. I haven't figured out yet if it's a matter of her not having learned how to study or a lack of motivation on her part or what. There is a ridiculous amount of information to know for Science 10 and together, we've not even gone back over half of it. She's hoping to do her exams next week, but unless she spends considerable time on the weekend studying, I don't see how she'll be ready enough to pass. And we've barely touched on math. She doesn't seem to have any particular aim in mind other than "study science right now". I think I need to have her narrow her focus a bit on Monday. Tell her to take 30 minutes to focus on one area--and she has to be very specific about the area she's going to focus on--then switch to math for 30 minutes--with a specific goal in mind of what she wants to go over--then a short break, followed by another 30 minutes of focused studying. In a way, those registered as teacher-directed have it a bit better because they were required to submit all kinds of assignments and do regular quizzes and tests. We didn't do that. I think she has to do that next year. It'd help so much. I had wanted to do it, but she got so behind it seemed more important to just get through the material as quickly as possible then go back and do some of the assignments as part of her review.

I prepared some math sheets and some funnish language arts sheets today for dd and the 132yo. Dd actually asked me to photocopy a sheet from this gr. 3 phonics workbook I have--she picked something on compound words. It was easy for her, but I think that's what she wanted. ;) The 13yo did nothing. The oldest had brought report cards for her coaching job and had to work on those, so I read to them while she did that. The 13yo curled up on the couch while I read; dd did some worksheets. We're almost done The Thief Lord. It's been quite good. Some great parts to make us laugh. lol. Another 30 pages to go out of 345. We'll finish next week.

So, my plans for next week:

  • provide more worksheets and activities for dd and the 13yo to choose from (or require, as the case may be; the 13yo hasn't finished his math yet for this year and wants to use The Learning Equation (TLE) which is a CD-ROM set--he's going to have some troubles if he hasn't covered everything first!)
  • have the 16yo set up a schedule and use a timer to keep her focused and motivated
  • get assignments from the 16yo that she's got on her computer so I can mark them and have her assessments sent off to our facilitator
  • can't remember what else. Maybe there is nothing else.

I've already begun planning a lot of next year's stuff. Since I'm guessing we'll be doing the FSL instead of the FLA, I've begun some initial planning on that. I don't want to do too much until we hear back from this one school; the 16yo said that if they say they are willing, she might go for the FLA after all. I'm almost tempted to purposefully sway her to do the FSL--less work, less stress. She's got more than a full course load already for next year, since she's got 2 semesters of French to do, with a semester each of math, physics, bio, chem, social studies and language arts. That's a full course load right there. But she's also going to be working on CALM (career and life management) throughout the year. Not to mention she could probably go for Phys. Ed. 20, if she so chose, given all her diving (although she is supposed to be having knee surgery sometime--no idea when yet). I've started fleshing out things for the 13yo, too. And trying to get myself back into the habit of using Homeschool Tracker. I was doing well for a while and stopped. I want to get into the habit of using it daily this summer, even if there's only the tiniest thing to put in, so that I'm all set for fall.

I feel I'm beginning to babble incoherently. I think I'll do something else! lol

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