Quick Takes: Volume 76

~1~

We're getting read for back to school around here.  Ellie's room assignment arrived in the mail yesterday.  She has the same teacher Madeline had for third grade.  We liked her so I have every expectation that this will be a good year for Ellie.

~2~

We're plunging into the world of homeschooling for Madeline.  We registered her with Seton on Monday and all of her materials were here on Tuesday.  I figured it would be at least a few days or a week before we saw her books.

~3~

Since Tuesday afternoon I have been spending a lot of time going over the lesson plans and the books for Madeline.  I have moments where I feel like this is going to great and other moments where I start to feel overwhelmed.  Someone please tell me this is normal.

~4~

Thanks to our decision to homeschool, I don't have to set Madeline up with six or seven binders all equipped with a fully stocked pencil case and other assorted nonsense.  Not having to adhere to the middle school's supply list is definitely one of the perks of homeschooling.  I can't tell you how much I enjoyed being able to go to the store and buy just the supplies we really need.

~5~

I have every expectation that this time around our foray into homeschooling will work.  In fact, I'm determined to make it work.  We tried to homeschool back in January for three whole days and it was a flaming disaster.  We didn't have all of her curriculum, I had less than two days to prepare for the switch, and I think we were simply destined to crash and burn.  This time I'm prepared.  We have all of our materials, I have a plan and we're starting at the beginning of the school year.  I think starting at the beginning is crucial.

~6~

Bryan just let me know of this resource he thought might be helpful for the kids.  It's called Khan Academy.  They have math practice and video explanations of different concepts as well as practice exercises.  They have a whole host of other topics up there, too.

~7~

When I was reading through the English lesson plans for Madeline I discovered that there is more than one way to diagram a sentence. I apparently need to learn how to diagram a sentence differently from the way I learned during my middle school years.  THAT is going to be an adventure.  My strategy as of right now is to diagram them the way I learned and then translate it based off of that.  I was just going to teach Madeline the way that I know until I realized that she has two tests I have to send into Seton for grading where she has to diagram the sentence.  Sigh.  It's going to be so hard to unlearn what my grammar teacher taught.  When she taught us it was for life.  We were all warned that if she encountered us as adults we would be expected to recite certain things to her on command, like the verb to be.  I'm going to looking over my shoulder hoping Mrs. Byrnes isn't frowning at me as I approach teaching grammar from a different viewpoint.