School

I have had a few people ask how exactly Barry Bretton's school works. To be quite honest, at first I didn't know what I was in for but he is now in this third week of school so I think I am getting the hang of things. So here is the low down about his school. It is a charter school which means it is a publicly funded school which tries to meet the needs of a group of children. This one specializes in distance education so it is all done in the home setting. The parent is the main teacher on a day to day basis. Each child is assigned a certified teacher who meets with Barry Bretton and I once a week for an hour. In this hour block, she records all of his test scores, reviews over his assignment which he did the week before, gives him a pop quiz, reads with him, and gives me the curriculum for the next week. All of the teachers are school district certified and have 18 student in their class anywhere from K to 8 grade. If I every have a question I can call, email, or text message (if I had a cell phone) anytime to have her assist me. All of his tests and quizzes are done on a program on the computer.

It is going well. It is alot of HARD work especially with Brahm and Vallie so little still. School and learning basically consumes most of our day which I am happy about because we have alot of fun doing it together. Now trying to fit daily life things (ie. grocery shopping, visiting teaching) into the picture is a challenge. Hopefully it will become easier as time goes on. I do like the fact that I can play a major role in our children's education yet I still have the school district and a teacher to guide me to make sure I don't miss anything. That is one of my major fears about homeschooling- totally missing something essential to know. Another thing I love is that we start each day with the pledge of allegiance, prayer, and a devotional (gasp, I know way out of line) and liken secular learning to spiritual learning. Barry Bretton loves it. I asked him which one he likes better: a traditional classroom setting or school from home and he said, "that is a tuffy....hummmm.....Both." He misses seeing his friends everyday but he like staying at home and learning with this program. It really is alot of fun. Vallie wants to do it all the time. So she shadows me around all day absorbing everything. We even started her on their reading program because she was basically doing it anyway. She read her first book to me today and she was over the moon about it (the book only had 7 words in it but hay, she did it). The picture above and below are of his computer and workspace BR set up for him to do his stuff on. Notice Vallie sharing the chair while he is playing a reading game. He does tons of worksheets a day so I have started little preschool worksheets for Vallie to do when he is writing and whatnot. She thinks she is so BIG. She carries them around with her all day writing in her "journal". It is really cute to see.

All in all we are doing really well. I am trying to keep organized so house, home and family all run smoothly. Sometimes I feeling like I am going back to school a little bit. I can't tell you the last time I thought about dissecting a simple sentence into subject and predicate, only capitalize proper nouns, or how exactly to teach fractions but so far so good:) I am just thankful it is not Geometry proofs yet. I swear I have not used that a day past 9th grade Geometry and the day I have to teach that is the day I am in trouble:)

P.S- Still no news on the house!