Homeschool! The good, the bad and the ugly..

Today is day 3 of my son being homeschooled. We are still in the learning and adjusting phase of doing school work at home. Things do not flow smoothly yet but I have high hopes that they will.

Today started off so well! Caleb wanted to do Science first and then we moved on to Social Studies.  We learned about personal and civic life and what goes on with each. He wanted to write a letter to the Mayor about how terrible school lunches and how they can make them better. He may not be in the public school system anymore but  he’s advocating for all the other kids who are, including his sister. I asked him what was wrong with the lunches and as he told me he wrote it down. Then I asked him what he would suggest to make it better. He thought about it and as he told me he wrote it down as a solution as well.

We really hope it makes its way to the Mayor.

Now here’s the bad part, the really bad part !

My son HATES math with a passion! A part of it is that he doesn’t understand and the other part is that he doesn’t pay attention. He spent 25 minutes on this sheet dividing his multiplication problems. I even helped with the first problem knowing it was wrong just to see how long it would go on.  TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES! He learned a big lesson today. Don’t get so caught up in hating something so much that you don’t realize it’s not even what you are supposed to be doing. And pay attention!!

Ok, are you guys still with me? Because now here comes the ugly part!

He had to practice two digit divisors after his multiplication. You know, the stuff he was complaining about doing when he was supposed to be multiplication!  We grabbed his laptop (and a snack) and opened up Kahn Academy. He reviewed how to do a few problems and he realized that sometimes you have to estimate and do a bit of work to get the problem solved. After that, he was ready to go and got his work done pretty quickly.

In total, math took us 2 hours today. When we were done I said “Geez, Caleb! Math took two hours today.”  What came out of his mouth next was a total shock but so amazing. He said “Yeah, but at least I’m learning.”

What a day!!