Reflections at 5:20 a.m. on a Sunday

Well, I came home from teaching the SHAPE class Spiritual Gifts and Personality Type sections up for the Suburban College Leader's Retreat, and I went to watch the introductory lecture for The Iliad with Vandiver, and I fell FAST asleep. George just came in and said, "Why don't you just go to bed?" I planned on waking up again. So, I attempted to watch it again. Well, I don't know what happened but I ended up in bed with the comforter over me. I slept from 7 p.m. on. and woke up bright-eyed and bushy tailed at about 3 a.m. I slept eight hours and felt ready to get up. (Not to mention I had terrible night sweats). So, here I sit.

It think it went well yesterday. It was hard to do two sections in one day. I like doing them one day at a time and let people stew on it for a while, but I guess it worked OK.

Well, we start another week of school. The Biology class is going well. I like the coursework, but we are at her mercy as far as being able to continue, and she has not returned Michael's essay to post on the discussion board. So, we can't really move on until she does that. So, it is hard to meet the deadlines when the teacher is the reason you can't meet the deadlines. This is harder for me. Michael also doesn't like the fact that he has more work this year, but he is doing really well at the work that he is doing. I am really proud of the writing that he is doing. The typing really slows him down, but he insists that he can do it.

In reflection though, I had to admit that the biology class would go so much more quickly if we didn't have to play "email" tag with her and post on the clunky software for the discussion boards. Also, there is nobody on the discussion boards. As far as I can see, Michael is the only current member taking the class. So ,there is no interaction with other students which is something in which we had hoped. So, I am reevaluating this being that I don't have any problem with anything related to biology in terms of the content of the course. So, I may glean the great activities that she has from the second semester of the class and do it on my own with him. I would still require the same amount of reading, writing, and projects, but I could also do some LIVE dissections, etc. As it is, this class relies on all virtual things. So, I am pondering this for next semester.

The k12freehomeschool is going much better this week. I like the World History class. We finally got the CD's, and it appears that they are internet-based linked CD's So, you put it in, and they hook up to websites that have videos that The Grace Academy is licensed to show. Many of them appear to be PBS videos, and we have been using these for education for a while. The only problem is that if there is a huge number of people watching the videos as the same time, you can't "log in." So, I am thinking we may have to have some "Sunday viewing" of the CD's in order to keep up. We didn't get the CD's until 7 days into the class, but we are only about two videos behind in the World History class.

The Art History course is getting better. There is not as much "rambling." So, I like that. :) I may stick with it since it is only three days of the week. Actually, I am waiting until we get to that part in World History before we view the things for that time period. So, it will be really slow going. I may do the music concurrently with the history too. So, that would mean skipping ahead to do the second half of the year. The Sister Wendy videos are also available, and I am going to have the kids watch these with me for art. It will add more hours to their transcript in the art area.

The Classical Literature class just gets more cool all the time. Michael listened to the introductory lecture at the class on Thursday night, and he liked it. He is such a good listener that he really did glean much. Thelma seems engaging and funny. Michael likes that so much. We have The Iliad to pick up from the library, and I really think it would be better for him (and George and me) to listen to it on CD. Homer was meant to be heard.

He will definitely be reading it as he goes through the study guide questions (30 this week of short answers and definitions). So, he will get both. I think I will have us listen to the Fagles translation and read in the Lattimore since this is the translation the teach uses. This will reinforce it.

Math is going swimmingly, but I am willing to switch to Teaching Textbooks next year for Geometry. It might be the best thing for us to do since I will probably have more difficulty helping him with problems he doesn't know about. I think I will do OK in Algebra, but I would switch to Teaching Textbooks for this course too. It would just be more difficult mid-year to do so.

Writing. I LOVE this book. The kids LOVE it. I am so excited that I found this as the store going out of business. It was a good purchase at only 5.00 per book. :)

Michael is also in the Intermediate level of his typing course. I may just start Paul on it now so that he isn't struggling when he gets to high school when he has to type more.

Battery low gotta go!