Alpha omega Lifepac - week 3

Week 3 is a better place to be at than week 1.

We finished week three with a smile. We are still tweaking our methods. Here are some of the things that are helping us streamline our day.

www.spellingcity.com

Have you heard of it? Ohh, I heard about it but I never spent anytime investigating it. Well, in a thought I realized I might as well pay for something that will prepare my kids for spelling, so I checked it out. it was free!!!!!!
So what I love
1. I put the spelling list in and I name them. So I have been naming them by book and section. List 205-1 is the fifth book for second grade section 1. The nice part is that lifepac gives a spelling list per section. This means as I am planning my schedule out, I know that after a self test it is time for a new list.
2. I can make my list and when Worm is done with it, I can unpublish it and save it until Rooster needs it. I like this, because I can keep just 2 list up to pick from or I could pick more.
3. The games are entertaining enough that my kids do not realize they are working the words over and over again to a point of mastery.
4. All time favorite. It will give them a spelling test. Haha, nothing like free me up from a responsibility. Hehe. I have worm take the test, typing the word on the computer and them writing it in her practice test page in the book. She has been able to ace each practice test, so I skip the actual test.

Now, I love the way lifepac systematically puts the spelling list together for 2nd grade, but 1st seems a bit random. Also, second grade has a page introducing the list and some practice, while in first grade, the spelling list is only in the teacher manual. I decided as we move through the book, we will change spelling list and use them on spellingcity, but I have no intention of testing first grade spelling, so I am not.




Mommy homeschool planner
I have always had a hard time with the homeschool planner.  Mostly, i felt that I was always filling it out and I was never using it.  So my work was going no where.  The hard part is figuring out what I should put in it. Mostly, because I had no idea what I needed.  I was so overwhelmed trying to figure out just what i should do, that I couldn't even get a grasp on what I needed.

• I need to keep dates on when I am starting and stopping our school year. 
• When we are actively working on workbooks.
• Our goals per child and as a family.
• keep grades
• track what we and they are going to cover and when.
• what I expect to cover each week and each day.
• track our reading 
• track our field trips

wow, I guess I now have a sense of what I need to track.  I am working out the kinks. Once I get it put together, I will share all my parts and where I found them to print.

Yearly schedule
So for the past 9 months we have had for a lack of order a very unscheduled schedule.  I would make some great list that we could never keep up with and constantly run with as it accumulated what we still needed to finish.  Now if that is not a recipe for burning out, I am not sure what is.

My initial thought for our new routine with our LifePac books was to do 6 weeks on and 1 week off, with about another 3 weeks off for holidays.  During those 6 week sessions I figured we would do 2 booklets each session with a total of  7 sessions.  Now of course i calculated my daughters entire 12 years of school and thought how awesome, 14 books a year, high school would be done in tenth grade.

Here we are at the end of our three weeks, and I think we could use a break.  We are a bit tired, we need to do some catch up.  As we intentionally did nothing today (week 4 of lifePac), I broke from our routine and let the kids run off the glazed donuts lunch. Don't judge, I ate most of them to limit their sugar intake.

So my head was whirling in guilt for taking the day off and realizing we were really going to take the whole week off. So my head got to calculating.  Each year, we could go 12 - 3 week sessions.

• This is the state required 36 weeks/180 days, compared to the 42 week/210 days I was originally planning.  
• We will still be working year round, because that at the moment feels right.  
• We could possibly accomplish 2 books into the next grade each year.
• At the end of each 3 week session, we should have a book done.  If not, this gives us a week to work on it.
• Gives us a week of down time, to focus on hands on learning and fun. (hmm, this week, not sure.)

image from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brown_Leghorn_rooster_in_Australia.jpg

On a side note, I am so happy to announce!
Rooster's booklets are not as spoon-fed as they go on.  happy Dance.  making it through the booklets, I was not prepared that the booklets will fill the need for his daily reading.  His reading is improving with this camouflaged reading.

Cool tools
I hit the office supply store for a few things and grabbed 3 of these.  I am not sure how well they will work out, but I have a feeling they will be useful.

It fits all 5 Lifepac booklets plus the handwriting workbook.  So now lets see if it gets used.