Weekly Wrap-Up...Homeschooling & Home Educating... & Next Week No School!

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It might be a few Fridays before I get this 'home educating' down. Because when you enroll in k12, that's what it is: home educating not homeschooling. Just repeating what I am hearing again and again... 

What is the difference between homeschooling and home educating? Well, honestly not a whole lot. Although I did not get to choose any of the books or subjects that Fox is now enrolled in, I do get to decide what he does and on what days. I can also still mark down a week off from school- any time I want- like next week. I still am his 'teacher' although they use the term Learning Coach. His homeroom teacher really doesn't do much (that I can tell so far) except for math and reading readiness for PAWS testing. She will assign tests usually at the end of the week and then they have Class Connects to work on the weak concepts. Fox isn't weak in the areas being tested yet so he doesn't really have to attend. I made him attend the first few because I thought it would be good for him to see the format. This past week I have had to spend literally 6 hours a day with Fox doing his work (he hates math and he has to do 60 minutes a day- torture I tell you, pure torture).

As for homeschooling, I'm supposedly only doing that with Lee. And sometimes I wonder if I'm doing it very well at all! I worry about her sometimes. It is my own short comings that are allowing her to slip into habits that are not very worthwhile and only will result in more difficulty for her. This past week we've seemed to miss quite a few subjects each day. I've also slipped and let them both have way too much time on the computer. Give an inch they take a mile- or they will if you let them. That's where we are at the moment so I'm going to have to take back my mile. 

We have had a day or two that were good, it's not been all bad- and definitely not horrid. 

Perhaps a reason that I've felt this week has just been um, off is because I've been somewhat sick with a stomach/intestinal thing that I think has been going around (at least in our house). I've also been struggling with bursts of depression. The kind where you wake up and it just hangs on you throughout the day no matter what you do. And then, poof, it's gone! With no evidence that it'd even been there. It's been quite strange and a bit disconcerting really.

So the things we've accomplished in home educating and homeschooling:
Both: Bible readings and verses (Lee: Lamentations 3:22-26, Leviticus 9-11 & Luke 9-10; Fox: Philippians 2:14-16, Leviticus 17-18 & Luke 13-14) and Who Is God? study Lesson 1. (watch for my review of this book mid-March)
Latin: Lesson 14 & Quiz
Art: Self-Portraits (Lee actually said she wouldn't mind if I shared hers so in a post soon, I will :)
Co-Op: Choir and Astronomy.

Lee: 
Math: LoF Lessons 15-21 (we are moving right along and she is doing well)
Writing/Grammar/Lit: No writing lately. Jensen's Lesson 16-19; HoEL chapters 8 & 9 
History/Geography: WS pages 280-301 (I had her skip a section on Australia because she's seemed to have the same info for two years now- moving on..) and chapter 9 Review; IFC chapters 11 & 12; TBV pages 221-226 
Science/Health: Astronomy @ Co-Op, CKEP Unit 3 Wrap-Up; F&WM finally finished chapter 19 (it's a really good book but she seems to dread it...)
Economics/Government/Civics: Constitution @ Co-Op; Ourselves Preface, Introduction and Chapter 1; WHtJ? chapters 2 & 3
PE/Band/Choir: Only Choir this week @ Co-Op
Foreign Language: Latin (see Both)  and Greek to lesson 27, I think...

Fox: Might be a bit more difficult to document...
Math: Unit 1 all Lessons, Unit 2 to Lesson 9 assessments (these are the beginning of the book so we are only doing the assessments not the entire lessons); 2 Class Connects and an assessment from his teacher
Language Skills/Literature/Vocabulary: Parts of a Paragraph, Unit 1 and Unit 2 Lessons 1 & 2 Grammar; read "The Stone" and "The Three Brass Pennies"; Lessons 1-3 Greek & Latin roots vocabulary
Earth Science: Unit 1 Lessons 1-5
US History before 1865: Unit 1 Lessons 1-5
Art: Unit 1 Lessons 1-3 (he's also drawn a self-portrait, a representational drawing and an abstract drawing- this is someone who does not like to draw!)
Music: Music Ace Lessons 1-5 (he loves this one- he's composed a few musical pieces with the program)
Spanish: PowerSpeak. He has done 34 of the 180 lessons already. We received the school books/supplies on Wednesday. He spends majority of his school day doing Spanish and Music.

Now, about the k12 program. They say it is rigorous and that it is challenging. I completely disagree. Totally. The only part that we have found to be rigorous is the fact that in WY we are required to log so many hours a day (which breaks down to x hours per subject). Other than that, the work is easy- almost too easy. I am hoping, so hoping, that it becomes more challenging for Fox (not that he cares). It's new to him and he enjoys it at the moment. He only complains really about doing math and Language Skills.

I had mentioned somewhere that this is the route I was thinking of going with Lee for high school but my oh my, if high school is anything like the k-8, she will be so bored and will not 'do' well. She will get good grades but that's not what I'm looking for. This is the reason I chose Charlotte Mason education.  Homeschooling instead of home educating perhaps.

Sigh, well this week has been draining, I think. I did however receive a book in the mail from WaterBrook Multnomah for reviewing and I am liking it a lot. The book is 31 Days of Drawing Near to God. I have been feeling like I'm not close enough and that is why I get down often. This book came at the perfect time. I hope to have a review of it up within a month (I want to actually go through it completely).

Well, this has been a long post for a long week. Thankfully next week is NO SCHOOL at North Laurel School. Thank Goodness.

Care to see what others have been up to? Check out the Weekly Wrap-Up @ Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.