Schedules and Motivation

We are still plugging along on all our curriculum choices and having the kids keep up with their schoolwork. It is a struggle everyday especially with my 9 yob. He just doesn't want to put forth the effort it takes to use his little brain and make it grow. He wants everything to be easy and when it's not he wants to give up. He usually pushes through to finish at the end so that he earns his minutes for finishing his work, plus he knows he can't do anything else fun until it's all done- but it is extremely emotionally draining for me and he definitely isn't making as much progress as he could if he would just concentrate. I think I'm going to have to make him do extra work each day so that he builds better habits instead of giving him Friday, Saturday and Sunday off. We'll see if that helps. He is a delightful child otherwise, willing to help with the twins, willing to run whatever errand I need him to- taking care of the goats and chickens. He will miss the goats more than anybody ( the story there is on my other blog www.todoron.blogspot.com. He likes to read especially because he gets an hour of screen time for every book he finishes.

We have been traveling a ton, but since we haven't had vision therapy in a while, and soccer is starting and we've been doing Destination Imagination, we decided to quit our Friday co-op. It was just too much! Being gone so much makes it hard to get the house clean, the piano practicing done and the schooling done. With this pregnancy I didn't have the energy to keep everything up on schedule so we really slacked with the schedule, not starting on school until 11 am and working until 6, 7 or 8 p.m. with plenty of breaks in between. Now that my energy has returned we getting back on a better schedule where the kids start around 9 am and are done by 4 or 5 p.m. depending on how focused they are. I'm glad that they really didn't get behind because of this pregnancy-- just the house and the car did. but we are catching back up on that and the kids are helping more than before-- I just have to be on top of it all.

I love spring. I think that is helping us get on a better schedule too. Can't wait to move and have more time at home!!! I love where we're headed. The girls will be studying formal Logic, algebra, hopefully geometry and Latin this coming school year. Then they'll get to move into formal Rhetoric and continue with the Latin and then the sky's the limit-- whatever they decide to study-- they'll have a great foundation and be able to do whatever they desire. I just have to keep them motivated and on task!! No small feat indeed-- but we are finally witnessing the benefits!!! yay!!