First week of home school

Welp, our first week of home school has come and gone.  

Yes, we only have school 4 days a week.  Why, you ask?  It is because normally Friday is my hubby's day off, and we like to do family stuff on that day.  If we have school, then we have to put off family fun until we're done.  This is another reason why we are annoyed with the traditional school hooplah.  We wanna do what we wanna do, darn it!

Enough of that!  I want to share how well our first week went.  Albeit, we did not have our curriculum to work with.  It hasn't arrived just yet, so I had to take it upon myself to find free curriculum and worksheets on the internet and use those instead.  My hubby told me last night that he thinks that I am awesome because I am doing this.  That alone give me motivation to push onward with home school.

The most difficult part this week was trying to balance teaching different grades.  This week was just a review of what they've previously learned, but finding that balance so that they could focus was a tad hard. I had to set my daughter up with independent work so that I could work with my son on the harder things.  Then I had to do the same thing for my daughter.  Sometimes my son would take longer to finish his work and we had to wait to move on to the next phase of learning.  It was a little frustrating, but that IS one of the things that we love about homeschooling.  My son can pace himself if he needs to without getting frustrated by the need to "hurry up".  My daughter loved it!  She would wake up every morning begging to get started.  Love it!!!

Then there was the struggle of home school rules.  

I have only 3 rules:  Listen to Mom, Don't fight or argue, and above all else, Don't cry!!! 

 I set up a star system.  They both have 3 stars up on the board.  I will take one away if they break the rules.  They can earn their stars back if they are loving and encouraging.  

I also have a goody jar and if they are able to keep all of their stars on the board then they will get a goody at the end of the day.  If they are able to keep all of their stars on the board for an entire month, then they get to have a very special "Daddy Date" with their...Daddy.  My hubby quite likes being the ultimate prize.  So far, they've messed up enough to loose their Daddy Date prize :-(  They were able to keep their stars up there for a few days and get something from the goody jar.  

What's funny is that the moment that they argue/fight, cry, or don't listen, I'll take a star down and then my son/daughter will immediately compliment each other in an effort to gain a star back. 

Ahhh, I love my kids!   

I am really getting a lot out of teaching them.  I honestly thought that I would feel more frustration than fulfillment.  It's been the opposite which is awesome. I love spending time with them and being able to witness their educational growth.  I gotta say, it makes me feel kind of like Super Mom.  

Here's a picture of what our classroom looks like:

Can you guess which State we are learning about this week?  If you get it right, then you'll get something special out of the goody jar :-)