Wednesday I had my 3rd grader and 4th grader work from their Sonlight language arts and then do the other subjects on t4l. The newly revamped Sonlight LA program focuses on being a good writer. My special needs son prefers t4l learning LA because he doesn’t have to come up w/ the answer on his own, he gets to choose the answer. And he doesn’t have to write! He feels the same way about math!

I would like to have them do some Sonlight LA more regularly, but I love though that if things get hectic, I can depend again on t4l LA.

Also, I signed up for a free month of Pokemon learning league for my neighbor’s grandson(age 11, almost 12). My kids never watched the show, but this kid loves it. Everyday I let him do one lesson of t4l and then the other subjects on the Pokemon site. Anything to help the medicine go down, I say. He has some learning differences, too. I just love hearing the Pokemon characters teach what he has already been taught on t4l w/ a “Pokemon” spin to it. I hope it really reinforces the lessons for him.

My daughter who is a first grader is doing awesome. I tended to let her just listen in to lessons as she wanted to, many times skipping activities I had planned just for her. Sometimes she would just play in her room or maybe watch a movie or play on the computer while I tended to the other kids. Now she gets on t4l and does the most lessons and the most subjects of all my kids!  We were all telling my husband Wednesday night what a hard worker she is. I am so glad; and she is very proud of herself.

So this question was posed to me tonight by Tracy: “Are you letting Bailey take next week off from school?”

Can you believe that I had not thought about it? Not even once! I was shocked. I know I have mentioned time and time again that T4L has saved our family from summer schooling because in the past, we took from Thanksgiving to New Year’s off because I just didn’t have time to prepare lesson plans and such. Then we would have to work well into the summer to make up for it.

Well we have been doing our T4L without stopping so far this school year. I mean…sure, we take an extra day or two off here and there, but it’s been wonderful not having that stress of “how far behind have we gotten this season?

I’m still floored that I have not thought about a holiday break. What shocks me even more, is the fact that my son is not counting down the days until he has a break! :o)

Since we are doing our traveling this weekend, instead of after Christmas, I think we will play next week by ear. I mean, we know Monday and Tuesday are out of the picture, but if I ask Bailey if he wants to log on later in the week and he does, there’s no harm in that, right?

How is everyone else handling their holiday breaks? For the moms with public schoolers, are you going to let your children take a break from their supplemental T4L while they are on school break?

Well we are back from Vacation.  What was sort of a small vacation even though it was a great deal of work it was nice to be away from home and in the warmth for a week.  The boys managed a couple days of school work but the dial-up was not always friendly and I did not really push it because we were laying a floor.

I did notice a couple things though I thought was interesting.  The first was with my youngest son.  By the end of the week of being out of his routine of school work his mind was going a million miles a minute.  He was not at all relaxed and his hyper-ness was strong.  It occurred to me about the 4th day and when I asked both boys to do their work I noticed that he jumped right in and wanted to do his and extra; that night he was calmer and more in control.  Not that he is overly hyper, don’t get me wrong but for a 6 year old he tends to repeat himself and not able to sit for more than a little bit when he has not been able to “think” hard.. If you know what I mean…..

The next pleasant surprise came yesterday when we were back at home and they both jumped right on line to do some lessons.  I was surprised that there was no griping when I asked them to do extra because of the few days they missed and this morning even before breakfast my 6 year old was on line doing lessons.  In the past it has taken us days to get back into the swing of things and my two just did their work, did extra and never said a word about it.

We miss Florida but are happy to be home and I am thrilled that the transition back to full time school has gone so smoothly.  They both are doing well and still call out when they finish a test or a quiz how many they got right.  Someone asked me today how this year is going and I was thrilled that I was able to brag about T4L and how great the program is.

Well we made in through the Thanksgiving weekend. Yay! :o) We have had a very busy week this week, and things are just going to get more hectic and crazy as Christmas approaches. We always enjoy the holiday season though, so that’s good. :o)

I know I have stated in the past that the last couple of years we take Thanksgiving through New Years off, and work longer in the summer to make up for it. I am pleased to announce that Bailey has been logging on to T4L almost (yes almost…lol) every day with no complaints. We are still struggling with the resource worksheets, but that is s l o w l y getting a little better. :o) It is a wonderful feeling to know that as a family we can accomplish everything we want to accomplish during the holidays, without making school take a backseat until later in the year. It’s really great! :o)

When Bailey logged on this morning, he proudly announced that he was almost done with Language Arts. My husband said “you just logged in, how can you be almost done with it?” Bailey said “no..with all of the language arts lessons.” This prompted a “wha huh?!” look between my husband and myself. After looking at it, sure enough he is almost done with the LA lessons, but he still has the LA extensions to do.

I do have a question if anyone can chime in…did we do things incorrectly? I mean…should he have been doing the extensions at the same time as he did the regular lessons, or is it ok that he is going to complete the lessons then go and do all of the extensions?

Thanks for any input and I hope you all are having a fantastic start to the Christmas and Holiday season! :o)

We are on sort of a working vacation in Florida.  My mom and I are installing a tile floor in my grandparents Florida home.  My dad got a new laptop and I brought it with me so that I could do some work, keep up on whats going on and for the boys to do their school work. 

A very nice thing about on-line school is that as long as there is some type of online service (dial FTW… lol) the boys can just sign on and do work…

Things are going well..  The boys each did a few lessons today with out any major complaining.  I snapped a few shots while I was taking a break from grouting. 

Of course when I went back to working on the floor the boys started taking photos and Z got one of Q “Sleeping” while doing work……