Last in Line...

Homeschooling of Late.

I’ve come to find that homeschooling can be done in yet another environment that our family had previously not tried;
In the confines of a very busy sales oriented office while the business is being wound down and then all the stuff moved to a new location ~ fun. 

So this last 6 wks we’ve been practising the art of HS while marmee puts on an extra hat, as a temp office admin and here’s how we’ve managed.
(Thankfully this is not to be our regular, ongoing or permanent lifestyle – being away from home just makes the week seem twice as long.)

It's amazing what regular *encouraging* emails, calls and support from my sister & bro.in law,

sis.in law, nieces, nana, and friends does to bolster
one along -  Thanks folks!!!  It's helped me to remember that kind and encouraging words go a long way further than the giver may think.

We set up a schedule for my own piece of mind on HStracker, assigning only the most necessary subjects – math, L/A’s and reading, and, science.
No history.
The children's folders were set up so that they could work more independently  doing just the preset pages we’d slipped in behind each tab, a weeks worth of pages at a time.
We went through any ‘help needed with mum’ each day at work before I started concentrating on what I was needing to do.

We loaded up our trusty Sonlight tote with books, C/D’s, DvDs and misc items, and carried our cane basket weighted down with a ton of other necessary things, including the children's work folders and pencil tins, out the door.
Bobbi and Daisy sorted out the board games they’d need and off we went.

To make it easier for the children to work more independently  (-:   I employed some of these measures:

  For math;
We jumped back some steps and did a review cycle – the DC loved it!
And the added bonus is Daisy is enjoying and able to master, what used to be for her, those *tricky* and abstract Miquon concepts. 
So the good news is I'll be mixing and matching MMM and Miquon when we get back to our regular life.
Bobbi also immersed himself totally into L.O.F and was sure he hadn't really done much math.
And on Fun Fridays it was board games.

  For language arts;
I dropped the pace right back to ½ speed, still using   CWP - Autumn,   and WT for writing /grammar, picked up   Queen’s copy work for spelling   again for Bobbi and ETC for Daisy, employed extra other copywork for handwriting practice and for Fun Fridays they happily played regular games of beat the bag scrabble (a scrabble dictionary is allowed).
Now that we're back home I'm going to change how we use WT's ... more on that in another post, sometime.
An hours reading every day was the required minimum – Daisy just kept right on reading after the hour, while Bobbi was off to work through the logic puzzles we’d packed into our SL bag while he listened to G.A Henty’s - For the Temple, read by Jim Weiss.
MP3’s and IPOD’s became a sanity saver at times.

  Their work for Science;
Delight led..... and they chose to enjoy the   KCC magazines,   other science chapter books and relevant DVD’s.

  For P.E;
Even though it’s chilly winter here, some of the days have been fine enough (that means no sleety, icy rain) that Bobbi & Daisy could practice their skating outside on the tarmac area.  The bonus - their skating skills have really improved and they would hop into bed physically tuckered out.
Once we got home in the evenings we’d do SL bible and our R/A at IG speed :-D  (slow for us).
The R/A has been The White Stallions of Lipizza.

It's so nice to be back home!

For mums/moms that have to live and work like this all the time I take my hat off to you - you're amazing!

Time for a small breather and then I'm aiming to finish off Core 2, we're nearly there...... and then it's time for Core 3/4.