We're still enjoying our new found freedom in homeschooling!  Today, while I admit the children's attitudes needed a LOT of adjustments, we still had a pretty good day.  Because I wasn't feeling the pressure that I couldn't take time to deal with those attitudes effectively.  So the biggest theme of today was what I've started calling "Behavioral Management Training"!  I'm sure I'm not the only one to have coined that title.  But, anyways it deserves a spot on my children's record keepers just as much as math does!

I stated in a previous post that this new focus in homeschooling was freeing up more time to do things we've always wanted to spend more time on.  I say "we've" because funny thing is that I've wanted this as much as the kids.  And on top of that, my husband announced last night that our new focus is VERY exciting to him as well.

I've actually been taking the time again to read aloud enjoyable chapter books on a frequent basis.  No kidding,  only on a rare occasion were we finding time for that before.  Since the movie will be coming out soon, we've begun reading The Spiderwick Chronicles, and my daughter won't hardly let me stop reading for the excitement, and I have to agree with her.  We've already finished Book 1 and will be starting Book 2 tomorrow.  It has been such pleasure to see her eyes light up  (and my son's too) when I'm reading.  And today I made a list of unfamiliar words as we read and then had my daughter use those to look up them up in the dictionary and use them in sentences.

Of course I had to have the discussion with them that although we're loving the way Mom is doing things now, we still have to do some things that they may find unenjoyable, life is just like that, sometimes we have to do things we don't enjoy or like.  And of course as I said that my daughter grunted out "Math, yuck" and my son followed with "Writing, yuck".  Oh well, definitely can't make it all fun all the time, no matter what you do!  Although my daughter definitely likes that I'm doing more "Living Math" and not worrying about finishing all of the Saxon textbook!

Because of this new focus, I have updated my record keeper into a more "journal-like" form, calling it "Education Journal".  It's where I'm writing down in as much detail as time will allow, almost everything educational the kids are doing.  In case your interested I've posted this file in my "Files to Share" list.  The "blank" file is just that, a mostly blank place to either hand-write to type out all their doings.

I've also posted the education journals that I kept for my children for this week to give an idea of how I'm keeping it.  Both of their journals are in one file, but under seperate spreadsheets (tabs) within the file.  I'm choosing to keep everything typed right now because I'm near my computer during the day and keep the file on the desktop for easy access.

So far I'm loving this method of keeping track; no check boxes, no expectations, just a place for me to journal what we do.  I'm training my eyes and ears to stay open to noticing when my children are engaging in something/anything educational, such as when my daughter takes her camera out on the deck to take pictures of birds, or my son pretends to be a firefighter and installs and elaborate paper fire alarm system in the house!

The only problem with this paper fire alarm system is it's very touchy.  Every time I cook in the kitchen, it's goes off!   Hmm, reminds me of our old house.