Tuesday, February 9, 2010

More Coffee? Probably not.

As you know, each week has been a struggle for us, and as we embrace week 22, I can tell you that I am beyond exhausted. We get up and we start school at 8 am and sometimes it is with resignation and sometimes it is with recalcitrant indignation. I would just love to have a vacation from the stress and anxiety of unmotivated reluctant learning. that being said, Dad did affirm that if we do not see some improvement that the boy would be 'one the bus to a brick and mortar' in the fall last night. I would have to say that the stress of pushing and pushing and pushing on a daily basis is very debilitating.

Yesterday I made a decision to focus on forcing our way through writing in action. It is a painful painful process but like eating liver and broccoli, we are just going to have to get through it with as little bloodshed as possible. THAT still remains to be seen of what qualifies as LITTLE in this situation. For some reason my voice becomes much more harsh and grating, loud and to the point of cruel screaming as we work through each page at a painstakingly slow process. yesterday we survived from page 12 through page 17. 5 pages in 5 hours is not how I would choose to spend my day. But we have procrastinated as long as humanly possible I do believe.

that being said, we changed gears at some point this morning before I had to give up entirely and we went to STUDY ISLAND to work on our 'averages' we discovered some fun and sneaky activities that are fun. Timbertoes was good for working on reading and comprehension skills. Social studies reinforced our social studies that we have been struggling through. Not that social studies is difficult, by any means, but that there is just not enough hours in the week when you are desperate to get the bare minimum done on math / literature / language done.

One of the ideas that came to me that would help with the TAKS prep is a 'trial run' through the testing environment outside of the home school habitat and in the 'location setting' I wonder if it is possible to have a TXVA meeting at the location before the actual test to practice test taking? It would also be good to plan to arrive a little early with some snacks to help with the jitters on the DAY of the real exam? just a couple of ideas that I thought would help.

I always feel better after a dry run and find that food is a great encouragement to get the kids motivated to get out the door in the morning.

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