We took a break then began a much more relaxed approach. Starting in May our area has loads of activities for kids to do many for free. 

We are running on time!

Well English took longer than i wanted but alhumdulillah we are finished on time! Well we are finishing on time that is. I wanted to be done with English by lunch. Out normal lunch time is in 15 minutes and he is writing a sentence in his journal Then we will do a quick wrap up and have lunch. Then some math and science and if we have time Arabic or IS.

Inshallah I do think next week we will be able to have English and math or science done by lunch each day. This I like.

Working Plan.....for now

So inshallah I think that we will be more efficient with our English curriculum in another week or two. The science used to take a long time until I got a good enough feel for it that I always was ready. The math is in a very regular format so it is easy to be prepared for. None the less I think, inshallah I will write out(copy) the lesson plans for each day in math and English so I can be prepared and because the amoeba that was My Little Man's computer has become a vegetable, lol (the Pentium 4 processor is broken).
The way our day has been going
Wake dress teeth
eat read the Morning Warm Up and start
Break and back to work
Lunch and small break then back to finish up English
break, then math,
long break then science
I am hoping that by next week we will be used to the new curriculum enough to get to math by lunch and may be even finished with it by lunch. 

Time to Rearrange the School Room Furniture

Fact: My son needs me to be in the same room 99% of the time in order for him to focus on required tasks
Fact: I tend to resent this. (I want the freedom of going to the bathroom or unloading the dishwasher while he is working on something)
Fact: If I am doing the same thing he is, his focus is better
Fact: I could benefit from some academic review
Fact: I don't like doing the same thing everyday
Fact: I feel a lot of pressure to show my son is doing as well or better than his peers
Fact: When I feel a lot of pressure I am impatient
Fact: The better my attitude, the better my son's
Fact: This list is getting long LOL
Fact: My son focuses better in a quiet, unstimulating environment
Fact: I have big pimple under my skin on my chin and it hurts
Fact: I am frequently tempted to do laundry when my son is on task, thus creating a noisy environment for my son.

Conclusion: I need to simplify, simplify, simplify. I need to find a way to keep me in the the room, doing the same kind of thing my son is, with out getting bored or multitasking and making sure the environment is quiet, and with out much on the walls.
HMMMM
I could move my computer to the school room but this would be a bit arduous. (I just learned how to spell arduous :) The more i blog the better I spell! )  I could move his desk in to this room but then why do we have a school room? After all having a school room is the main reason we moved homes. I could make this room into the school room/study and use the little room for the TV, we basically never use it anyway. (Again arduous) We could continue to use the little folding table as a desk for him, having him sit next to me while I am at this computer. (Again why do we have a school room then?)

I am out of ideas lol

Meeting Goals

So when you homeschool 2 kids, or at least these 2 you cover a LOT less material in the same amount of time, but I feel like we got a lot done this afternoon none the less.
I decided this week that I would just lay put the whole week for myself as a plan instead of daily plans. Today I kinda wish I had done the daily plan thing instead. On the other hand we covered Math for My Little Man, Science for both. Did some reading/science for B, Arabic for My Little Man, Social Studies for both and a little English for My Little Man. B also corrected has papers that I had checked, this morning.
Ideally we would cover English, Math and Science everyday and Social Studies a few times a week for B and once a week for My Little Man. Also covering Arabic and Islamic Studies daily for My Little Man. Health about once a week and making sure we use the computer each week as well, other than just reading our text books.
We will just have to see what happens tomorrow. Tomorrow is the play group day. At 11 we have the one that is just a few ladies from the neighborhood and at 3 we have the one that is for a homeschool group. Also B celebrates his birthday tomorrow.
B keeps coming a couple hours later than we planned and that bugs me. I talked to his mom about it today and told her it is just not worth it if he doesn't come when planned because it just throws off the whole day. Ideally I would like to start with My Little Man at about 8:30, B at 9:00 take breaks as necessary until 1 for a nice long lunch break and end the day by 4:00. This way we have plenty of time to take breaks, send one kid off with a break if necessary while I work with the other and still have plenty of times to do things together.
At least this afternoon was better than the morning. My school boys were in good moods.

Plans for a week with B

So My Little Man is at his dad's house for the week. He will be home for a couple hours monday-friday in the mornings so we can do our Arabic and Islamic studies together. Other than that it will just be B and me.

So I am trying to figure out where he is academically. I know that his reading level is about the same as My Little Man's and that his vocabulary is a little low as well, probably as a result of the low reading level. His strongest subject is math right now, but from the assessment i gave him he is not at the same level as his peers. He seems to be behind generally in all subjects although he has nice handwriting and is certainly more mature than My Little Man. He is clearly light years ahead of My Little Man when it comes to writing.

I think B is just a bit of a late bloomer. He has a fair amount of life skills, now we just need to beef him up in academics so he will be ready for the world.

I am thinking this week he may act out a bit given it will be our second week together. Thats ok, he will probably just need to test the ground to see where he and I stand. Therefore I think i need to have a behavior plan.
If I really focus on reading, math, and writing with him I think that might be best. He said he wanted to learn about bugs so maybe having him do a lap book about bugs might be a good starting place. hmmmmm

What a week!

So we had a less than stellar day. It ended pretty good though. I wasn't actually planning on having school today but think about how little academically work we had done this week I decided that we would do a little.
While My Little Man was ok with updating his calendar he really didn't want to do anything else. ARG! We did science together which he did like but when it came time to doing a couple worksheets, in order to practice spelling, he decided he was done.
We had a long talk about choices to no end. Then I decided to pare everything down to the bare essentials and ask him how he wanted to accomplish those. That did the trick. I told him you HAVE to practice Arabic daily. You HAVE to learn something new in science each week. I and you need to show me that you have learned something new. I went down my list of 5 or 6 essentials and it clicked for him. He understood that they were essential.
I asked him how could he learn new things in science because I don't care how he does it as long as he can show me he has made some progress. He suggested playing web games for science and reading his favorite comic for English.
I told him I could work on the games thing but the comics would take a lot longer to happen. I also explained that he would HAVE to do some work alone, with out me. "I can not poop for you and I can not learn for you." He finally understood that he was going to have to do some stuff sitting down with a pencil in hand.
My point of view is, in the end he is going to have to do some writing by hand in order to be a better writer. He is going to have to practice spelling in order to be a better speller. I know he doesn't quite understand why he needs to know how to spell, despite my efforts to explain. On the other hand, frankly he hated the first lessons we had in reading but now he is the biggest book worm I know.
I am hoping he will do the same with writing. Maybe he will hate it now but in a month or 2 he will not be able to get enough of it.
I asked if he wanted to continue how we had school during Ramadan. Some lessons together them him alone doing work boxes. He said he did.
I would love to have lessons outside sometimes but i have the feeling that he would be overwhelmed by outside noises. Then again i don't know. Either way soon it will be cold and I do not want to go out in the cold. YES, I am a wimp. Hot, up to the mid 90's and I am fine. The cold, after 72 I start to complain.
LOL I am cold 3/4 of the year.
Anyway, Eid was nice, a bit quiet but nice. The past day or 2 the large family from down the block has been over to play. They are sweet little boys, wild but sweet. There is 1 child on the block that I no longer allow in my house or back yard due his discourteous and destructive behavior so i am glad my son has new little friends.
Today my Little Man was grounded due to poor choices the night before. I hated that he was grounded, especially the 10th time the kids came by, alhumdulillah I locked the front door so despite their trying they could not get in. I wanted to unground him so badly, but he had run off down to the end of the block around Isha with his little friend to his yard. He had been warned several time to stay in the back or in the house. So not only did he disobey by going out front again but he left the yard without asking and down to the end of the block where I can't see him even standing in the front yard but he did this after dark!
So Mom had to be strong and say no. When the neighbor kids came by the many many times they did I had to tell them over and over he was grounded. Actually I think by the end of the day My Little Man didn't mind as much as I did, lol. 

So Where are We? Choice curriculum/Getting back into the routine.

Well it looks like we have the Arabic picked out, Math, Science, and English picked out. This leaves handwriting, Islamic Studies, Social Studies, Arts and Health.
I have all but decided that we will learn Spencerian Penmanship because it will be an art as well as a tool for communication. I think I really need to spice things up for penmanship otherwise we'll be miserable.
Also I figure for arts just making sure we have various art projects going on regularly. I will just let it be mostly child directed inshallah.  Say we love reading Three Little Bikers, maybe we can make a puppet show of it, or are leaning about the food groups, painting a poster about it, or we write and learn a little nasheed about what good writers do. Things like that.
Also I am thinking that SS and Health do not need to be done every day. Ideas i have for them are teaching one subject, a few times a week and then when we have mastered the concepts and skills do the other.
We could have one week with one subject and one week with the other or One day with one subject and the other a day or 2 later.
As far as IS goes I think we will do Quraan everyday, and other subjects on certain days. Maybe Aqeeda on mondays, that kind of thing.

This brings me to Mondays. Mondays are the hardest day of our week because he is often tired coming home from a fun weekend at Dad's. It seems also to very important that with in the first few mins that he walks in the door that he gets started on school work. If he does not he has a hard time with the transition back to Mom's house all day. I tend to want to chat with his step mom about what he did on the week end and what not. I guess I will just have to give her a call later in the day.