Monday, November 8, 2010

School work, school work, & more school work

WOW! The workload is much bigger than I expected. It seems lately, that as soon as we think we've got a good flow of things, something else is added to the list. The kids easily spend 8+ hours a day on schoolwork. We finally get into the flow of the daily class schedules, and then we have live lessons for each of the classes to fit in (each of these last 30 minutes). While attending every live lesson is not a requirement, I do like to see the kids attend as several a week. Then there is the AskAMI live lessons, which is a math tutorial. It's a wonderful tutorial, but lower on our priority list because of all the other demands. Now we have TAKS live lessons as well, these are higher on the priority, because they are meant to help the kids with that test.

I'm a little disappointed too, that we seem to be pushing the kids along in the some of the courses for fear of getting too far behind. While most of the time, there are not (immediate) deadlines to turn in work, there is a deadline for completing each course. I am the sort that likes to stay on top of things, stay the course, and I put a lot of pressure on myself (and the kids) when I think we may fall behind. If we do not get all the work complete on the day it is assigned, not only is there the overdue lesson notice blasting at me from the front page, but we also must fear the smiley face transforming into the ever dreaded frowning face. Ugh!

Specifically, math seems to forge on with new lessons, when I would prefer to see both of the kids spending more time soaking up some of the other math lessons. For example, Drew has moved on to math lessons envolving multiplying 3 numbers (4x7x5=), while I would prefer to see her spend more time on adding and subtracting 3 digit numbers (369-137=) and basic multiplications (4x3= & 12x3=). I just think she needs to dwell on these areas a bit longer until her esteem is comfortable enough with it and then move forward. She tends to get discouraged and upset easily if she is overwhelmed, and Wolfie faces the same dilemma as well.

Note to self: contact the teachers about my concerns.

No comments:

Post a Comment