Schedule

I have decided to put my son on a time schedule. The schedule we are currently doing isn't satisfying me. In each subject he is assigned certain pages to do each day. He does what is required but nothing else. He has talked about wanting to try unschooling but with him not taking any initiative to do more than what is required each day, I'm not ready to do that. He usually finishes all his work in 1 1/2 to 2 hrs. His father and I don't feel that he is doing enough. My son only wants to do what's in front of him and nothing else. I guess that would take too much effort. So I have decided that I am going to "assign" him a certain amount of time for each subject. He will still be assigned a certain amount of pages a day but if he finishes with that work, then he has to find something else to fill the rest of the time. For instance, he does science and health on the computer using Alpha Omega's SOS program. The lessons are set up for him to do certain ones on certain days. There are days when he has nothing to do in either or only one of those subjects. So what he'll have to start doing, is find some other science thing to do for the rest of the time. I'm not going to be real picky on what that is. It could be cruising the internet looking at different science websites or reading a book on a famous scientist, just as long as he is doing/reading something that has to do with science. He's also going to have to start writing in a journal or even the blog that he started a while back. I'm also going to make him start doing more exercise. I need to doing something more physical because of my heart problems and since walking is suppose to be the best thing for me, I think he and I will start walking. We took the dogs out today but the park we went to wasn't very good. I think next time we will find a better one. I want to try for 3 times a week but may start off at just 2. It will do him good to get out since all he does most of the time is sit in front on the computer and play his games. I'm not going to implement my time schedule until next week. We are finishing up our Presidents study this week and since I am scheduled for about 5hrs of dental work Thursday, it will just be best to wait on my plan. I'll keep things posted here as to how it all works out.

Presidents

We have been studying Presidents in honor of President's Day. I taped the shows on the presidents off of the Discovery channel and the History channel. The Discovery channel has lesson plans that go with the shows. I enjoyed the ones we've watched from the History channel so far. They did a good job on it. I found other lessons plans about the presidents on the internet. I'm having my son do a timeline on the presidents too. He'll be doing a map too. After we get done with this lesson, he's going to put all the information into a folder. I think it'll be interesting for others to look at and also for him to add to later on. We've put off his other history lessons for now. Maybe we'll try this with some other subject? He likes chickens so maybe we can do chickens.

Just a little info

Hi! My name is Terry and I am in my 6th year of homeschooling. I started out homeschooling my daughter and son. My daughter graduated in May 2002. It was a lovely graduation and to me was so much better than the public school one I had so many years ago. I had been wanting to homeschool for several years, ever since we moved to Plano, Texas. My daughter had changed schools a few times during the middle of the year in the past, so I knew she wouldn't have any problem this time. Boy was I wrong. When she transferred from Austin to Plano, she was so far behind that she never did catch up. She went from taking honors classes in Austin to the basic ones at Plano. Her grades went from mostly A's to some B's and C's and a few F's. She lost all interest in school and trying to do better. When my son transferred, he actually did better. He was stuck in a bi-lingual kindergarten class in Austin. We were not "allowed" to transfer him to another classroom that spoke mostly English. When he started kindergarten in Plano, he blossomed. The teachers had no trouble with him at all. Little did I know what was in store for him in 1st grade. He had horrible teachers (yes, that is plural) in 1st grade. His second grade teacher was a little better and his 3rd grade teacher was the best. I was worried about him going into 4th though, so after talking it over with my husband, we decided to try our hand at homeschooling. The first year went pretty well. We used what I call a satellite school. I graded the workbooks and sent the tests to the school for them to grade and to keep all the records. The next year I switched my son to a different company (same type of curriculum though) and kept my daughter with the other "school". That was so that she could participate in their graduation at the end of the year. Well things don't always turn out the way you'd like. My daughter "dropped out" of school. We had some problems at home with her and she ended up moving out for a couple of months. We had already planned on her graduating with the homeschool group we belonged to and had purchased all the items for that graduation. She assumed that she would be able to graduate with them even though she had not completed her school work. We gave her a choice, either finish the books or get your GED. She got her GED. She actually did quite well on the test but then she's always done well on the state required tests. She was just lazy when it came to doing the actual work. I continued to homeschool my son but he kind of got pushed to the background when the problems with my daughter started. Plus we had other problems going on in our life at that moment. But I did the best I could. My son ended up doing 6th grade work twice because of the upheaval going on in our lives most of 2002 until about June 2003. Hubby had lost his job in March 2002 and we sold our house in Dec. 2002. We lived in our RV for a few months and moved from Plano to just south of Ft. Worth. After purchasing some land and buying a new home for it, we finally could get back to normal. Or as normal as possible. By now my son was doing his schoolwork all on the computer. It was great for him and me. I pretty much didn't have to do anything but check over his work and make sure he was on track. Then Dec. 7th, 2003 hit. I had a heartattack and had to have a stent put in. I wasn't up to par after that and was feeling hopeless which is not unusual after a heartattack. I thought things were getting better until my new cardiologist wanted to do another angiogram to check my stent. Come to find out it had closed and the other blockages had gotten worse. I needed by-pass surgery. So on April 13th 2004 I had a triple by-pass. I came through with flying colors and one long scar in the middle of my chest as a reminder of all I went through. My dear son says that he was so concerned about me that he couldn't do his school work (I really want to believe him! ha!). I got him back on track and he finally finished up his 6th grade work while at the same time doing 7th grade. I switched some of his curriculum back to books because I wanted him to write his answers in his own handwriting instead of doing it all on the computer. His handwriting is atrocious, so thankgoodness for computers! We supplement some of his work with videos of shows I've taped and other sources I can find. I'm pretty laid back when it comes to his schoolwork, so I guess I unschool but at the same time use textbooks. He continues to do his work from his textbooks but I'm not as vigilante about making sure that he's doing that days worth of work. After all, we aren't really on a schedule like the public schools. He's learning everyday and that's what really matters. We are all happy with our arrangement and don't ever want to be tied down to the public school schedule. I can't imagine not having my son around all day. I remember when my daughter was little and in public school. I hated seeing her leave everyday. How different things would be now if we had started homeschooling her sooner. At least I had a bigger hand in my sons growing up and can see how different he sees the world. He doesn't have the "you owe me" attitude that the public school instilled in my daughter. So that's about us. Probably more than you wanted to read. I do tend to go on and on about things. lol!