I can’t believe we are 3 weeks into January already. This month is going by so incredibly quick. We had a really great week of schooling. Although there was somethings that I realized this week that were kinda heart wrenching and disappointing in a way. As a special needs mom, I want the best for my kids. I also want to set expectations so that they can do the things that they want to do. I also want to prepare them for whatever comes next.

Well this past week my son grumbled again with Math. Yes he has been grumbling for years. So I finally asked him, are you just bored, lazy, and don’t want to do this, or maybe it is because you have a hard time understanding it. He really is doing great with the math. There are a few challenges and the things that he gets stuck with is well, real life math. I want to have him in at least prealgebra by the time we are finished homeschooling. That way he can at least pass the accuplacer for a two year college. Well, I suppose I should go back to what his answer was. His answer to me was that he has a hard time understanding. I get that but really he is doing awesome! So I asked a friend of mine what she was doing with her boys and she said Life Math. I asked is that a curriculum? She was like no it’s real life math. So I thought about it and maybe what I think he is doing fine with and he feels he is really struggling. I kinda felt a little down because I realized maybe I have to high of expectations set for him. Maybe I am pushing him to hard. So Thursday we tried menu math, and I went a little further with it. We were rounding things on the menu to figure out how much money we would need. Well he has trouble figuring out rounding up or down. So I said let me show you what I do when I go shopping with only a set amount of money. I just round up to the next dollar. That way I have things figured a little high for taxes and I won’t go over. When we finished I asked if it was a little easier to understand and he said yes.

I realized that he didn’t grumble or get upset during our Math class. He understood it way better then it was originally being taught to him. So I have decided to make our focus real life math skills. These are the skills he is going to need to be able to do things on his own. We talked today and Friday will be our test run as to doing a little shopping with a set amount of money. In a way I feel like if we don’t move forward in math he may not have that chance to go to the two year college. I want him to do something he wants to do. Yet at the same time he has to be happy doing what he wants. I need to be ok with it whether I like it or not. I won’t lie I feel so torn. Yet I know he needs these skills and maybe just maybe things will move smoother and he won’t hate math so much. I also found a really neat game I want to order next week called Real Life Math, Unexpected Expenses, that I want to incorporate into our math class.

We have been working hard on commas again this week. It is still a struggle but at least I know he is trying as hard as he can. Writing was never his favorite thing. Well I am not very good with punctuation either. We will get there. This upcoming week will be adding in typing, as it is for a review. I think this will also help him type a little more accurately and faster. So I am excited to use it with both of the kids.

My son has been learning about Oceans this week. We started with the Marine Biology but what we were using was a little to hard for him and way above his level of understanding. So once again I switched science curriculums. I really like what I am using. It is a reading and a quiz and an activity. This week we took a look at light at the different depths. When the sun hits the top of the water it allows stuff to grow because it isn’t so dark. As you get deeper and deeper the water gets darker and darker. So it was really neat to be able to see it visually. I forgot to include the other two jars. You are looking at the deepest water with no light.

My daughter has been working on Wild Kratts Season one. This week she Learned about aardvarks. One things we learned was the closest animal to them was actually the elephant. Who would have thought that? My guess would have been more of a pig. Ok they are creepy looking with there long snouts and long sticky tongues, their rabbit ears and Kangaroo tail. One of the assignments my daughter had to do was make an aardvark in it’s habit on minecraft.

My daughter and I also started a nature study on birds. This will take a while to get through. However, I do think we will have a lot of fun with this. This week we learned what made up a bird, and we also learned about American Robins. I had no idea that they migrated in groups. Really I haven’t noticed any robins staying behind. They normally eat the worms and other insects and berries. I don’t know that we have winter berries around here for them or not. We will see them in spring. We did some vocabulary words as well and some note taking. The last thing I had her do was make an American Robin in minecraft.

For history my son has been watching Drive Thru American History. This week we learned about why the Pilgrims came to America and how. This isn’t anything new to us. We know the story. So we will continue on our way through the series. I do plan on adding in some hands on stuff. There isn’t anything extra at the moment that he found interesting that he wanted to spend time learning. That is ok. I know as we get farther along there will be topics that interest him.

My daughter has been watching Where in the World is Carmen SanDiego. This week we talked about the Bermuda Triangle, Scotland Yard, and I can’t remember what else at the moment. It has been a long week. One of her assignments was to create what Scotland Yard looks like. Her version is of the modern day Scotland  Yard.

The week ends with a little fun. Friday was our homeschooling bowling day. the kids bowled two games. My daughter did pretty good the first game. Of course, she had to find that pink ball again. The second game wasn’t as good. The important thing was she had a blast.

Saturday was youth archery. We focused more on her stance and how she was letting go of the bow this week. She is getting better and better. She didn’t get as many bulls eyes as we gave her a little more to focus on. She didn’t get the balloon at the end this time. She missed the first shot, and the second shot it bounced off the balloon. She still had a lot of fun. She is showing a lot of interest in it.

The weather has been so nice the last couple days. We are in the midst of getting rain/freezing rain/snow again. We decided to go down to the beach and take a peek. We noticed that the waves really came up and made things icy. I love when the trees get covered in ice. The piers are a icy mess as well. The ice goes from the shore to the lake quite a ways out. I couldn’t get to many pictures of the edges as I wasn’t going to walk on the icebergs.

The post A Week In Our Homeschool – Week 3 – Too High of Expectations?? appeared first on SUPER MOMMY TO THE RESCUE.