I think my motto for this year is going to be "Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be bent out of shape!"  I call it the missing beatitude and it has worked through so much of my life.  Right now it is Monday morning and we are supposed to be doing "school".  My honey is playing catch up and run around today for work so I suggested that he take our son.  So learning is still happening but not in the traditional sense.  Daddy time is precious so I know they are having fun hanging out.

Our week went well.  I love our new dateless schedule, which I will attempt to explain in another post.  It has freed me to go with the flow more and be a little less impatient. 

In the last week I discovered that my schedule for 4th grade takes longer than 3rd grade.  So we're going to have to tweak and add a lunch break.  I also discovered the only time I saw fussing was when I made him do anything in a workbook.  I did explain that Easy Grammar will get easier.  Abeka math is going to take some tweaking.  He hates doing review and I've already crossed off several of the problems per day.  I may just make him do the new stuff and allow him to chose a certain amount of review.  I do feel I am teaching with him more than teaching at him.  We've had some great discussions already. 

He is using an exercise ball for his chair and it took me a few days to get used to the bouncing.  Although he says it's not bouncing it sure looks like it to me.  He's also discovered that he like to read while laying over the ball and with the book on the floor.  His reading time is just about snack time so for the last two days I served his snack bowl on the floor.  It's really unconventional looking, but his retention has been great and his narrations back have been very detailed.  He's currently reading "Meet Christopher Columbus". 

He has also devoured our art program, which makes me do a little happy dance.  I purchased "Drawing Basics with Thomas Kinkade".  It was my splurge for this year and I had read mixed reviews.  Well my son loves to draw and he watched the entire DVD this week.  Now he didn't do all the lessons, but we are already a few weeks ahead.  Thomas Kinkade is a wonderful teacher, he reminds me of Bob Ross.  I wish he'd do a Advanced Drawing or Painting program.

  One of the things I love about homeschooling is the life lessons you can interject along the way.  My husband and I have been pretty much transparent about some of the mistakes we've made in our lives and we try to show our son how to benefit from our wisdom.  Currently we have only car and I don't like it, but we are saving to pay cash for a 2nd vehicle.  While doing math this week I caught my son erasing a harder problem I circled for him to to do.  He wanted to do an easier one.  He told me what he was doing so it wasn't a big deal except out of my mouth flew the words, "You'll get no where in life if you just do the easy things." He stopped and looked at me with the strangest look.  I ask him if wanted his wife to not have a car at 40 years old.  He said "no."  I then told him that he needed to get used to do some of the hard things to avoid that.  I wasn't harsh and he got the point. 

So our first week was great.  I am hoping that it continues to flow well.  Sounds like the boys just got home, so gotta go.