Homeschooling: Day 1: We Survived

Let me start of by saying that I always thought I would homeschool my kids like my mom did me and brothers.

Then I thought hell no.

Then I thought, sure, I could homeschool.  I would be great. 

Then I thought hell no.

Then I thought, well, Marie's new school blows so I guess I could try it for a semester...

And then I thought, what the hell did I do?

My morning started off with Marie's IEP meeting via telephone conference.  You know how when you watch the news and the news peeps are talking to each across the country and it's awkward because there is a delay somewhere in the mix?  Well that's what phone conversations are like for me these days.  It makes things like IEP conferences very awkward.  Hopefully we can get faster internet at some point or maybe should think about a land line.  Who knows.

Marie and I almost had a rough start.  I'm not even sure why.  Oh yeah.  We were dealing with how to tell truths again.  This time it was about a napkin.  What a difficult life I lead.

Overall: Day 1 went very well.

But boy am I exhausted.

Our morning session together was smooth and even relaxing while Denai slept peacefully upstairs.  Then she woke up.  Denai, of course, wanted most of my attention.  Marie, on the other hand, NEEDED my attention.

See, Marie's first lesson was pretty quick.  Too quick.  She failed it.  I started to have her do it again but realized she would do much better simply because she had memorized the information instead of having actually learned it.

Her second lesson, math, I feel much more proud about.  We spent FOREVER on her math lesson and we didn't even finish it which means we get to start over tomorrow because the lessons apparantly don't save.  That's totally fine for me because Marie needs the practice.  Thus, we spent most of our school day on one section of her math lesson.

I feel confident that we will get in the swing of things.  I already have a nice routine thought up for our day.  I'm particularly interested, possibly even excited, about learning where Marie is actually at in her schooling.

I think today she was doing 4th grade work and sadly, I think it was too advanced for her.  But the beauty of homeschool is I can be at her level with her lessons even if her lessons aren't.  If I need to dumb them down to a first grade level for a week then I can do that.

I will be spending a lot of time talking to Marie's team about these things and I have high hopes for the rest of the semester.

But boy is it a lot of work!

Someone buy me a beer!

Part of our daily routine is going for a walk.
Top right: A small part of my driveway.
Middle right: Hoof print.  Too cool right?
Bottom right: Our mouser cats are already leaving presents.