I was mistaken!

As I was pondering on the last post I did, I bumped into some information on the latest physics find on the Higgs boson particle.  I like physics.  My minor in university was physics.  That thought of physics reminded me about a picture that my husband took of me during our 10th anniversary trip to Wales.  We were walking around an old castle and I sat down in the middle of the courtyard, under, yes you guessed it, an apple tree!  The funny thing is that as I sat down, waiting for my husband to take the picture, an apple fell down.  Yes, Newton’s law of gravity works even in Wales!  So, yes, I have sat under an apple tree before and pondered and yes, another picture had to be taken with the said apple, and yes, it was delicious. 😀

On another note, I’m very actively working on next year’s stuff.  For some boys, I have basically all the materials, for another, I have decided that I need to do an interim year before he is ready to move up.  And for another, I have come to the conclusion that even though he will have just turned 3, he needs to have his “schooling” as well (whatever that means, and most likely it means more Mommy-Son time, reading a story here, playing a puzzle there – and calling it “school”.)

As I look back on the previous year and see what worked and what did not, the main thing that stuck out that REALLY helped was a schedule that was written down.  Having it memorized did not cut i; we had to have it in front of us so we could see it.  The only problem with that is all the papers!  I had printed off a schedule for each of the 3 older boys, and one main one for me, but the boys never knew where their schedule was, and the main one was sometimes very hard to find as well.  (I found it today cleaning – lost it the last 2 months of school, but it was right there where we usually kept it!)

I got an idea from a post that I read recently, that I had seen before, but it never clicked really well for it entailed printing out a whole year’s worth of stuff – and hoping I would not lose the binder in the meantime!  However, I finally figured out how to make it work.

I just ordered 4 – 11×14 white boards – one for each boy.  The idea is that I will write the schedule in permanent marker for each boy on their board and then post them on the living room wall.  Then, each boy can check off what they have accomplished as it happens or at the end of the day.  On Friday, if there is anything we missed, they can finish it for we do mainly a 4 day weekly schedule.  Afterwards, they can erase the board and it is ready for the next week.

I have also realized that I am the kind of person that needs to have everything ready at the beginning of the year.  None of this “I’ll print off 2-3 months’ worth of work at a time,” for after the 2-3 months I never seem to find the time to print it off, and we are always trying to work around that,  and printing it off is many times cheaper than buying a used book. (Note: We use books that are out of copyright and are usually available for free on the internet.)  I have also found out that many times (not always, just many,) I can print 2 pages on one page, double-sided, therefore saving some ink (for the font and pictures are then shrunk) and half the paper!  Most of the time I just use our b/w printer, however, if things are easy, I might print a picture or two from the book in color to spice it up a bit and make boys happy.   *Note: Make sure you test out a page first before doing a whole book.  You don’t want to find after printing it all out that the print is almost too small to be read, even by you.

I am very happy with how things are going.  I have had to rearrange some of my thinking a little bit.  For example, I know that I will probably have to purchase more ink before the summer is over, but I also know that the new ink will last me the entire year.  I also have other ideas on how to rearrange our school cabinet to make things better and easier for all of us.  I think these few changes will make the difference for next year.  I guess I will just have to wait and see.  Next summer I will assess it and go from there.