Do any of you with kids in the lower grades test your kids? I wasn’t going to when I started, but I am testing Tim all week anyway. I wanted to have something besides his work, to have in one place, that gave a sample of all our state requires him to know. He took the language arts test today, he’s doing math tomorrow, science on Wednesday, and social studies on Thursday. He only missed two answers out of 77 on the language arts, I was so jazzed! That’s the subject that he’s come the farthest in this year. When we started he didn’t even know all the names of the letters, much less the sounds they made. I had planned on reviewing for the rest of the year, but he really can’t stand repeating things, and I knew he had retained most of what we taught, so why drag it out? This way, if there’s some things that he doesn’t really remember, we can work on those for the last few weeks.

I also revised our school calendar. I originally had his last day of school in the middle of July, with only about two weeks off before starting 1st grade. But I decided to end on May 30, and then we’ll just use T4L and some of the other online sites we like to keep him on a schedule. It just won’t be anything I have to record or worry about, which will give me time to write up the lesson plan for next year. If I have something down on paper, I am terrible about thinking that I have to stick to it. So, changing our last day of school will take pressure off of both of us!

Are all of you aware of the Time4Learning forum?  Do you ever read it?  Impressions & reactions?  What other forums and newsgroups do you read/participate in?

Tomorrow(Monday 4/21) will be our second full week back to school.

It has been such a trying time. You may recall that on Easter Sunday, my husband broke his ankle in 2 places. It has been a LOOOONG journey. I guess we all have our struggles and heartaches that we deal with.

The neighbor who joins us for school seems to have a new lease on school. I am pleased the break suited him so well. I had already decided that I would not press him to answer (or make his answer better) when he has to type out a response. Also, I feel that he has gotten as much as he can from reviewing addition, subtraction, and phonics on the second grade level. He has not completely mastered those subjects as you would imagine a “normal” 12 year old would, but I don’t know that he will ever completely master them, so I figure just let him move up w/ the mastery he has achieved so I don’t frustrate him.

He seems happier and more relaxed so do I.

I am here with Cade, a local first grader.  He has agreed to answer a few questions about Time4Learning.

Lisa:  Hi, Cade.  Did you have a happy birthday yesterday?

Cade:  Of course!

L: Great! I have some questions to ask you about T4L.  First question…. What do you like most about T4L?

C: That writing corner thing.  You know, where you put the stickers in the story and where you get to write you own stories in the different rooms?  I like making my own stories.

L:  Yes, that’s a great feature.  It actually gives you one more chance to see pieces of the lesson and recreate a story on your own.  Very nice….  Question #2….  What do you like the least on T4L?

C: I don’t like it when I click and click on something again and again and it doesn’t work.  That makes me mad!

L: Yes, that is frustrating.  We’ve had problems with the story-links and all of the extra links in the Science lessons.  Maybe we can get that fixed.  Okay, Question #3…. Who is your favorite character and why?

C:  My favorite character was the cook guy.  I liked it when he made all the food.  I love that guy!!!

L:  Yes, I remember him.  He was in the Kindergarten math section.  Okay, and the last question…. What is your favorite subject on T4L?

C:  SCIENCE!!!  This is awesome!!  I like everything I learned about in Science.  It’s very fun.

L:  Thank you very much for telling me about your T4L experience, Cade.

C:  You’re welcome.

Do your kids have problems with repetition? Tim cannot stand to repeat a lesson, or even an idea. We studied about seasons at the beginning of the month. This last quarter I’m reviewing everything he learned through the year, and this week for science it’s seasons. I had him watch a video on seasons, and the first thing out of his mouth was, ‘why do we have to do this, we already learned about it’. UGH! Even after several months he remembered going over it, and he was grumpy through the whole thing. He doesn’t understand why he has to practice adding and subtracting every day, or why he has to write/read every day. To him, he knows it, so let’s move on!

We’re having to revise our schedule once again. I normally have him start school whenever we get up and really moving, which is around 10am, then we go for a walk outside before the schooled kids get off the bus. But lately, he’s been starting later and taking longer, so he’s having to miss out on the walks, which he really loves. So, we’re now going to try doing chores first, then the walk, and then start school. It really depends on if he fights me to do school after he’s had fun, whether or not this is how we’ll keep it.