Ironing out Wrinkles

math help

reading a good book

Any solutions for pre-lesson drama causing lack of progress?

Trying to get from Plan A to Plan B?
Video Programing
problem solving

I was sooo stinking frustrated by week three last year because I was struggling through the OLS training and they said not to teach until I had completed each training segment, it was so irritating.

We ended up trailing behind 3% all year and I hated that, I am super nervous to begin with so that didn't help.

BUT

I tracked my progress, I figured out where I needed to be by the end of each week and my son has adjusted to my teaching style, which is much more laid back than the brick and mortar that are spoon feeding all day. now I have my other child home and deprogramming him from the spoon fed education to the here is the topic, here is the direction that I want you to start exploring, and keep me posted as you discover new things and make progress.

We are not in our comfort zone yet, and I still occasionally screech and beller, but over all, we are working out the wrinkles of which direction I want us to be pointing each day so that we make the 3% destination by the end of the week, and they have finally learned that if I am not satisfied with EFFORT not perfection, they can owe me a Saturday school to stay on target.

I did a lot of reading last year and dictation while my reluctant learner listened and dictated his response. It was give and take on my part to guide him down the garden path while he matured into a situation that we had ignorantly put him in.

He is a summer baby, and we pushed him ahead without realizing that while there is a benefit, he is smarter than the average bear, there is a consequence, he was not mature enough to forage for his own dinner so to speak.

I relied on others to do my talking for me:

Youtube is great for lessons, preview them at night after the kids are in bed is good when starting out, and then make a playlist of links in an email to yourself for the next day.

Martin Sheen and DK Eyewitness DVDs has put together EXCELLENT videos for science for various topics.

Netflix has streaming for my social studies taken care of, we have romans, greeks, Pharohs, and vikings all taken care of by history channel

Math is covered by Khan Academy

Here in Texas, the first weeks are land mass's and map reading.

Mountains, valleys, basin, plateau, pennensula, piedmont, and coast, rivers, lakes, oceans, and so forth, all things that you can get from a youtube clip. ;-) save your voice for ordering pizza. ;-)

Last year, was my first year and there were some serious anxiety because just about everything we did was REVIEW and I just knew at some point I would have to start teaching and it would get much harder than it already was.

and then we hit make change for a $5 and that was the first issue

then it was fact families.. 3rd grade, not wholly unexpected..

YIKES.. but okay, I am calm, I can handle it.

I knew last year that I had to reteach the concept of RESEARCH materials. that means the trusty:

Encyclopedia, Atlas, Dictionary, thesaurus and GOOGLE. fine, I am prepared. I can handle this.

After all, subtraction doesn't come up every day... he is only 11, what would he need to know that....

(wait for it)

okay, he scored COMMENDABLE PERFORMANCE on the TAKS.. one would assume that was because he had a COMPLETE education thus far

So this year, we pulled our 5th grader and on week one I discover, no, he is not familiar with pesky things like nouns and Proper Nouns that are CAPITALIZED, but he is not so good at subtraction and skip counting on a number line.

maniacal laughter ensues.