Friday, September 12, 2014

Weekly Wrap-Up: Our First Full Week Done

Weekly Wrap-Up

Today marked our first official full week of our 2014-2015 school year...kind of. What I mean by that is this - over the last 12 years of homeschooling I can't remember the last time we had completed all 175 days of school by the end of June. Typically we had a few more days (or weeks) to finish up throughout the summer. There were even a few years we had to do the dreaded Saturday school to finish everything up. Not this past year though!

A couple years ago I heard about Scholaric on a friend's Facebook page. I checked it out. I loved it immediately. It has saved me countless evening hours scheduling out the next day's workload, creating checklists, and tracking everything. It is not a free program, but it's dirt cheap (I pay a whooping $3 a month - but I was grandfathered. I think the max now is still under $10 a month.) I can track days, hours, and grades. I can bump assignments not completed to the next day. I can block days as "vacation" or "holiday." I can schedule our "Together School" across all the boys without entering it three times. I can schedule out a math book in just a few easy steps. Those are just the highlights. And it prints me a daily checklist which the boys like as much as I do. Checklist is done? School is done.

Since we had finished earlier than normal this year, we have been doing "light school" throughout the summer. I've wanted the boys to continue working on their math, writing, and reading - the three R's basically. So while this marked our first full week of school, it's actually over three weeks done.

We are still doing what I call a "rolling start," however. I just ordered my oldest son's science program and my middle son's writing program this week so we'll be adding that back in once they arrive. I also just received the back ordered history book for my middle son as well. I was pretty excited about that. I wouldn't say he was necessarily excited, though, more like resigned.

We have also been adding in our outside activities. This week it was Spanish class. I came across a young mom who is fluent in Spanish and once taught it at the high school level. Last year my sister and I asked if she'd be willing to tutor all of our boys. She agreed and we began going to her house every other week for sessions. In between the boys use Duolingo and BBC Languages. They also are working on memorizing John 3:16 in Spanish as well as writing out all the books of the Bible in Spanish. Sadly, we only have our tutor for one more year as she and her family will be entering the mission field next year. We have jokingly said we'll have to Skype our lessons after that, but I have a feeling she'll be just a touch too busy.

Overall it's been a great first week. We've stayed on task and accomplished all I have set out for them to do. I'm just praying the rest of the year goes as well. Considering this is my 12th year of homeschooling, I know it won't, but right now I'm still hopeful.

1 comment:

  1. It's great to find something that works and helps our days be more productive and smoother! I have tried a number of things, but keep going back to a simple monthly/weekly calendar and a pen! LOL So, I got one at Dollar Tree! ;)

    ReplyDelete

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