Our First Week.... Complete!

So our week is now complete and how exciting it was.  So much happened this week I'm sure I'll forget to write some of it down.  Moving forward I will do my best to record our adventures daily.  Let me start by saying Tommy LOVES home schooling.  There has been a dramatic change in him already.  He laughed more this week and was more relaxed than I've seen him in ages.  He even told me this week that he was so happy that I was taking the time to home school him.  He has been so sweet that it has brought tears to my eyes several times.  Despite improvements attitude wise, I have seen dramatic improvements in his school work.  I can tell that Tommy has developed many bad habits in public school over the years, but we worked hard on breaking those this week.  For instance, Tommy struggled with hand writing.  Often times you couldn't read what he wrote and he often misspelled words in his work.  He would also have poor sentence structure, not because he doesn't know how to write, but because before this week he always hated writing.  Now, handwriting STILL is NOT his favorite subject, but he enjoys it more as a one on one lesson rather than sharing his teacher with 20 other students.  Here is a couple of examples of text he wrote this week about folk tale's we read.  One is about "Salt and Bread" and the other is a letter he had to write to the poor man in "The Magic Stew". 

On top of the improvements we made in handwriting we were able to cover 10 sections of math because math is something Tommy is accelerated in.  We had fun with hands on learning with math and not only doing physical math on paper, but also learning about mental math - or doing math in our head.  Tommy is like a sponge and he is absorbing the world so quickly around him and it is so exciting to me.  We also are working on the ecosystem study in science and learning about the green house effect and how to build a compost pile.  If it wasn't freezing outside we would have started our own compost pile, but instead we decided we would set aside this project for the summer time.  In history we broke out the globe and maps and learned how to properly read maps to navigate and about the different types of maps.  Next week we will move on to the Industrial Revolution.  We also had fun with words in vocabulary and spelling and I'm finding the ways that Tommy learns best and realizing that he has a remarkable memory.  In Language arts we learned how to properly use commas, periods and how to properly document titles and references.  In almost every subject Tommy would remark, yes we went over some of this, but they left out this and this.  He was very excited to be learning each subject in more detail. 

Also this week, Tommy was able to participate in a world wide cooking club.  Tommy loves to cook and was very excited to participate in this group.  He will be making about six different recipes with bananas this month.  We'll be using our math and science skills in those projects as well.  Its wonderful to be able to integrated real world activities into my son's education.

In our bible study we are studying about the apostles and the many wonderful things the did with Jesus and also after Jesus' death.  And why it is important that we as Christians are fishermen for men and why it is important for us to be fed daily by the word.  Tommy LOVES his bible lesson and usually wants to do a couple a day instead of one... but I hold the little man back....lol.

Last but not least there was Art.  Tommy LOVES Art.  I love the fact that this art lesson is not only drawing and art activities, but it also teaches the student about different types of art and art history.  This week he learned about the different types of art such as paint, sculpture, landscape, pastels, still life, ect.  His favorite painting we studied this week was a Monet.  His project was a self portrait.  I stepped back on his art project and didn't give him any guidance and this is what he came up with. 

So, my over all thoughts.  Home schooling would not be for every parent.  It takes time and lots of it.  The majority of my days this week were spent directly with Tommy and Connor.  I had to sacrifice some of my normal daily life to be able to spend quality time with him especially in Language Arts.  After seeing his achievements and the glow he had about his work the sacrifice is will worth it.  I was tired at the end of the week and it was work, but in just these few short days I saw a change in my son that was priceless.  In just a few short days we grew closer.  I can't wait to see what the future holds for us. 

COMING UP THIS WEEK:  Science projects, More Art, More Writing and of course Bananas!