Journal Entry: Bird Poop LOL

Today My Little Man is having a excellent day. He is staying on task and writing with out fuss.
He read Mole and Baby Bird and in his journal I asked him to write about whether or not he would want a pet for a bird and why. This was his response LOL.

Hmph

Well My Little Man was supposed to get 1 day's worth of school work over the 3 days at his dad's house. He did approximately 1/4th of his English lesson and that's it!
If he went to public school and needed to do 1 days worth of work at his dad's house each month it would get done. But nope.......ARG! drives me nuts!
Well Bob did apologise but this is absolutely not abnormal.
Bob offered to have Carter stay until lunch on Saturdays of the weekend My Little Man stays late so that he can get the work done for the most part at my house. I am ok with that except it means the poor guy will have school 6 days in a row the one week of the month then 4 the following week.
Oh well at least then I know he will get a fair amount done the one day.  Alhumdullilah. Well My Little Man got home at a little past 7 this evening and we started his school work at 8ish so he is wrapping up the last thing and its 12:30. We skipped 1 or 2 things and saved his math practice pages for tomorrow.
I really don't see what the problem is. I send all the lesson plans, printed out and customised for My Little Man. I print off all the materials necessary. I Send all the counters and manipulatives. I go over what the lessons will be with My Little Man the day before hand. I even go through the lessons with Bob before he leaves with My Little Man for the weekend. I am available to help.
I have suggested that My Little Man get dropped off in the morning for schooling and picked up afterward but somehow that offer is rejected each and every time.
I think Bob really just isn't thinking of My Little Man's needs at all. He thinks i am trying to steal his time but my son needs an education and he just doesn't respect me. Grr.

My Little Man at 2 houses

My Little Man is at dad's for the week but is home first thing in the morning for a couple of hours to some of his school work. We cover Arabic and IS and what ever else we have time for. At the moment he is working on his Arabic. We are using Madina Arabic Reader for Children. He is on the second half of lesson 3.

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. 

Three Weeks in

Well we are 3 weeks in and have a routine.
We do our American calendar, then our Hijri calendar
Next the weather and our prediction
Next we do our daily Islamic Studies lesson
Depending on the length of the IS lesson we will either take a break or do our Arabic, then take a break
Next is math
Followed by Science
And then depending on the day, art, PE, or social studies.
Then he does his work boxes.
The length of time it takes varies.
Today we slept in a bit and then went to a park to meet up with other HSers. It was awesome! Anyway we didn't start school until 2 oclock today. My little man had a snack and is now on to work boxes.

4th Day of school

Today we really didn't have a whole lot of work to do. Unfortunately someone's focus is at the level of a fly on caffeine.  I was very excited to have a short day. But he is still at it. He needs to draw a picture of a party with as many details as he can, then write a sentence using a descriptive word. He after 2 and a half hours has nothing on his page, not one doodle or line.
The thing is I know he loves to draw. It took him half an hour on another assignment that should have taken him about 5 minutes, 10 at the most. I don't know what his deal is.

Inshallah our next day will be better. He knows as soon as he finishes he will be done and can play the rest of the day, with the exception of emptying the dishwasher. PS he is not fasting today so that is not why.

DAY 2

So today we started on time! At 9:02! Today I have learned that letting him play on the computer for break is not conducive to getting more school work done. He had a COW despite advance warning, when I told him it was time to get beck to school work.
Right now he is having PE with the Big Man. They are learning about food groups and then will do some physically active stuff.
We did our IS for the day and Arabic. That covered handwriting as well. After he takes a break when finished with PE he will then, inshallah have English then  preforming arts.
For PA we will just briefly identify good public speakers and discuss what makes them good speakers. I figure 5-10 min at most. After that work boxes.

Just a few days until Ramadan and School!

I have just a few days before school starts and I am ready. I am impatient for my son to get back from his dad's and I am excited begin our new school year. I am also exited for Ramadan to begin as that is my favorite time of year.
The year has been paced, the room is clean and organized, my little man's computer is ready and updated and all I need to do is adjust his desk. The floor in the school room is sloped so the desk is slanting currently. I have my first weeks battle plan. I have everything printed off and organized for the first month. The only thing I need to do is print for the following months and make the subsequent weeks battle plans.
As far as preparing for Ramadan, the house is tidy.I need to clean all the floors and dust. I'd like to cook all the dinners ahead of time. I also need to start going to bed earlier so that waking for suhur will be easier.

Links to Free Math Books (1st grade)

I am on the great journey of selecting math curriculum. I know that I could buy something, or I could just kinda do an ad-hoc kind of thing but I want to do neither. I want it free, not counting the cost of printing and manipulatives. I want it to be very interested to my son and preferably scripted or at least very heavily outlined. I am not very comfortable with math and I want my son to love it and do well with it. (The opposite of me.)
There are actually quite a few options out there. We could use a very old fashioned text book like First Lessons in Arithmetic published originally by Brothers and Company. The Grammar of Math is a site that a private school teacher has made video lessons and supplemental materials to accompany the book. I think she uses the book in her class room. There are other similar books that I like. For example First Lessons in Numbers, Oral and Written by Benjamin Greenleaf, A.M. The problem with it is that it does not cover geometry or algebra. I covers measurement and somewhat covers money. There are other books that do cover these areas but the money part is out dated. Pictures of money from when I was a child are out dated so one can imagine.
There is the MEP program. It looks a little in appearance but it seems to be primarily activity based and would take quite a bit of preparation. They use it in Hungary and the UK. A similar program is CSMP.
And of course there is the typical school books. I will just list them rather than give much info as they are all kind of similar anyway.

• Go Math Florida TE (Intended for children that are either up to 2 years behind their peers or more than 2 years behind their peers.) This is the TE. Here is an index of many other resources that go with it. Take your time and explore.
• Go Math Florida Student edition. 
• Think Math TE
• Think Math Student addition
• Math Expressions
• Math Expressions TE A cool thing about this one is that you can access a lot of resources that go with each lesson by clicking the resources button. Tests and everything.
• HSP Math NC I don't like how this one id displayed, but NC is known for the best schools in the US.
• HSP Math NC TE It seems to be very similar to the Harcourt book we had.
• CA Mathematics McGraw ID camath01 password redwood Has a student handbook. This is a site that has mini lessons and games to accompany the book.  D6FFE73DD6 is the code to link and had the text book with audio available and occasionally links to the games page under the resource button.
• NCERT Mathmagic is made by a government agency in India I believe. Scroll down to Class 1, which is for 6 to 7 year olds.
• Georgia Math ID fcsfirst password fcsmath 
• Math Connects D6FFE73DD is the code. F765640977 or AEF03A3C25 for 2nd, A838535E8A or DA4F562186 for 3rd, CB77A58EB7 or E3488CCEF0 4th, A7B8EC5CE9 or E3F898A3AB 5th, A8FBM1C38F or F066E2B8F1 6th, A84CFF6287 7th.
• HM Georgia Math ID 1classdekalb Password dekalbstudent1 you can change the grade by changing the number