Homeschool Priorities

    How to pick, things with an urgent timeline, or things that are important – how to know what is important?

    I don’t want the books I bought to push me around, they are my "servants" like my dishwasher or laundry machines, sometimes we need to use library books instead of the curriculums to hit the kids interests and questions better, sometimes we need to slog through the text though, because I picked it in the first place to supplement a weakness I have, or because it’s laid out logically, may as well not jettison years of accumulated experience.

    So, do we work on the new bedroom since baby comes in 6 weeks and we need to be ready for our volunteers on the 19th?  Do we do the parts of homeschool that  are most teacher intensive?  Do I address heart issues from the book of Proverbs?  Do I get cracking on co-op charts that have laid fallow since Thanksgiving?

    Today the answer is yes to all.  We are focusing on spelling and math, since spelling takes me, and math is only 2/3 of the way through the first semester’s book, and as Miquon doesn’t teach the traditional long division algorithm, I’d like to get that part in before the end of the year. 
   
My college students who didn’t understand long division but could do it were worse off than my college students (I tutored in the library, I wasn’t an instructor) who did understand it but usually used a calculator.  I have nothing against heavy calculator work, but I know that people with both a grasp of mathfacts and an understanding of the logic behind algorithms are better off at estimating and simplifying long equasions, also at catching on to long proofs, so I want him to get good at BOTH!
  
     Handwriting problems reared their ugly head during spelling lessons.  I prayed for gentleness and kept on making corrections.  DS got more and more frustrated.  We took a break to read some Proverbs about accepting corrections, I shared how I’d blown off my elementary teacher’s attempts to help me with my pencil grip, and how to this day I get ridiculed by people about my handwriting – and that it still hurts even though I made the choice in 3rd grade that this was not one of my life’s goals.  DS seemed more calm after we prayed together.  (DH says my handwriting is getting legible now that I am teaching it myself.)

    And the bedroom – this afternoon, I’m assigning one more trouble spot in his bedroom to B to sort through, and I plan to set both boys down in front of the IKEA web site to see if any of their fabrics or curtains appeal to both of them – if not, when this cold snap breaks, I’m taking them to JoAnne’s to pick curtain fabric, then we’ll go collect paint chips again at Lowe’s.  They have been given a week to pick colors together, if they don’t agree, we are executiving it ourselves.

    And Co-op charts?  UGG.  Well, I plan to try out the program my brilliant teen ager has updated, and if I can’t figure it out, make an appointment with him to talk to me over the phone as I work through it.  Co-op starts just as baby K comes, so I can’ t put it off any more!