Homeschooling Progress Report

This is a definite benefit of k12.  I love these dang things.

Course Name	% Progress to Date	% Expected Progress
Math Plus Blue Language Arts K Phonics K History K Social Studies - Grade K	70 64 53 48 100	52 51 50 39 52

Not bad, huh?  It seems like we should be more complete with math, because we only have two units left - but we should probably finish those up this week. 

Today, we made room in our playroom for a desk for Ethan to complete schoolwork during quiet time/movie time.  Because we watch a movie at nap time, its not really feasible to expect his concentration if he's in the same room as the TV. 

I would love to devote more of our space to homeschooling & learning, but its just not possible right now.  So, hopefully that will work out well for us.

K12 Progress Report

Not from the school, just my estimations...

Course Name	Progress to Date	Expected Progress
Math Language Arts/Language Skills Literature/Phonics History Social Studies Physical Education	62% 43% 36% 32% 100% 100%	40% 40% 40% 40% 40% 40%

                             

We're supposed to be at 40% complete by January 1st.  We're working hard to get caught up in those subjects and we'll be there. 

Right now, we are doing Language Arts and History as a group with the daycare.  That usually just includes reading books, using K12's reading room, coloring and talking about the books. 

For phonics, we are still watching Leap Frog about once a week.  Ethan and I are reading together 2-3 times a day for about 15-20 minutes.  He's reading simple sentences such as:  "Pam ran to a mat."  Those are the types of books he's reading.  Santa is bringing him some "I can read" books about Transformers for Christmas.

For math, usually we do a unit at a time.  I'm hoping now that I'm out of school for a few weeks myself, that we'll finish that fairly quickly.  Its clearly his strong suit and what he's interested in, so we're just going with it.

Another Progress Report

Falling behind in some subjects. Oh well. I think we are doing GREAT!

Course Name	Progress to Date	Expected Progress
Math Language Arts/Language Skills Literature/Phonics History	50% 43% 32% 25%	35% 36% 36% 28%

                              

                                                                                                                                                       We are experimenting with a new schedule.  In December we are doing Math & Phonics after daycare, Language Arts during the day with the daycare kids and then History on the weekend, or occasionally in the evening.   We'll see how this works out.                                                         

Another K12 Progress Report

Nice, huh?

Course Name	Progress to Date	Expected Progress
Math Language Arts/Language Skills Literature/Phonics History	40% 35% 26% 20%	24% 19% 24% 19%

Some new thoughts on our homeschooling

When I started k12 with Ethan, I imagined us working as a group through the curriculum with the older daycare kids.  For the first month or so, that worked out pretty well. 

Then when Ethan started to struggle in Phonics, I made a stronger effort to create one on one time with him for Phonics.

Fast forward a few more weeks and I start noticing that none of the daycare kids are: 1.) interested in learning, 2.) getting up with Ethan or 3.) developmentally ready for what we are learning

So I realized I was pushing to hard.  Why was I trying to teach 6 kids from k12, when the purpose was to teach Ethan.

I took a step back, looked at my current options and made some new decisions.  Now, during quiet time Ethan and I go into Ian's office and work for 1-1.5 hours without distraction.  We still work in some of the curriculum into our daycare day - like story time for the Lang. Arts activities. (And then we read the book at night before bed most nights too)  But mostly, its a one-on-one thing for Ethan and I. 

And its working much better. 

Homeschooling Progress

I posted last week about how Ethan's progress in Phonics and Language Arts were below the expected progress. I received that email on October 1st.  K12 is going to continue to send those actual vs. expected progress emails every 2 weeks.

So we just received one.  Here are the results from the 10/15 email:

Course Name	Progress to Date	Expected Progress
Math Language Arts Phonics History Social Studies Physical Education	35% 23% 22% 17% 40%  100%	19% 20% 19% 14% 14%  20%

We are going to continue with our pace.  Phonics have generally clicked for Ethan, and so moving through those lessons is easy for him.  If we finish any subject before December, then we'll move on to next year's (1st grade) level work.  This is our goal for Math, History and Social Studies. 

So.. what's working?

• Leapfrog Letter Factory
• Rewarding finishing a unit with watching Transformer cartoons on Netflix
• Doing School with the daycare kids
• Increasing our reading time to 30 minutes most days - everyone seems to be loving this.

What's not working?

• The Language Arts is really quite boring, so I'm basically creating my own projects to supplement the reading. 
• Ethan yawns through the entire lesson.  Its crazy frustrating.  I just read an article that its because his brain gets too hot.  So I think I'll be working on teaching him some breathing techniques to help with it.

Homeschooling 101... for Mom

We started homeschooling Ethan formally this year.  We are working with a curriculum from k12 through a public charter school called Utah Virtual Academy.  UTVA has progress guidelines to make sure that students are progressing through the material.  The goal is to complete the material before the end of the school year.  Thus the "public schooling at home" description.

Monday we found out that Ethan is very seriously behind in progress two of his k12 classes.  Its not necessarily  that he doesn't understand the material, its that we aren't doing enough school work to complete the lessons on their timetable. Part of the problem is that Ethan doesn't quite get the material, specifically in phonics.  The material isn't very much fun and we've been having a hard time getting him to focus.  It usually ends in frustration on everyone's part.  So we're behind and we've got to catch up. 

Here's our plan for the coming weeks for Ethan's schooling:

• Leap Frog Letter Factory Daily
• Play StarFall.com or Oobi's Letters on NickJr.com
• Power through 2 lessons per day of Phonics
• Up our nightly reading time to 30 minutes (from 15-20)

Rosen-Weird Musuem + Ice Cream

For Ethan's School orientation during the summer, K12 held an assembly at the Rosenbrush Wildlife Museum.  Weirdest place ever.

Taxidermy gone bad.

Here's some pics. Because its too weird to look away.

And ice cream after at Jack in the Box.  Because I'm *that* mother.