First weeks of homeschool

We started school last week. Here is our first day of school picture. You can tell we haven't started school work yet as they are all smiling! ;-)

 

 Last week we painted planets & put them together for our solar system project that we didn't get finished in the spring. The kids really enjoyed that which was a good reminder to me that I need to have them do more hands on projects.

 Here Jamie is working on her pre-algebra homework. She is flying through math. It won't be long before she is farther along than I am.

Here Jessica is working on the computer. She loves doing Jump Start First grade along with other computer programs.

Here is David playing Math Blasters.  I love that they have fun games to help them with their math facts. They are playing games & not really realizing they are learning.

Overall school is going pretty good. We have even managed to get school in every day despite the fact that Hubby is home this week. He has been a great help to me by taking over the math teaching. David is actually doing better in math than I planned so I've had to tweak my schedule. Jessica is doing phonics at twice the rate I planned also. I love it when my kids do better than I thought they would.

I'm finding also that I may not have planned enough for my oldest. Although, we haven't kicked in with Science & History yet. I plan on having her write Science & History papers each week so soon she shall have more than enough to do.

We have two obstacles to homeschooling that I'm seeing right now. The first is my health. My fibromyalgia has been flaring a lot recently. I've been very achy & have had a lot of headaches. Most of this is weather related but some is stress related. When I don't feel good, I'm tempted to slack on school. I have to really push myself some days to get school work done & keep a positive attitude.

The second obstacle is with David. He has somehow gotten it in his head that he is stupid. He's first impulse when given any new assignment is to say "I can't do this!" I know he is very smart. I just have to figure out how to convince him of this. He dreads doing school work & sometimes makes me dread it too. I'm trying to make things fun & interactive for him, but somethings you just have to do that aren't exciting & fun.

Glad you stuck with my long tirade on how our first few weeks of school are going. I can't wait to hear how all of you are doing with homeschool!