Home school

I am now a homeschool mom, for at least the next week and a half.  We shall see if the idiots in charge decide to allow schools to open back up or if they decide to close for the rest of the year.  And if school will start up as normal next fall. 

If things stay in the shitter, I may simply buy the Abeka curriculum and do the job myself.  $800 (two years' worth of curriculum, when I last checked) is much less of a hit on the family budget than tuition. 

The school had middle and high school pick up their packets yesterday; today was the elementary school's turn.  K-2 was on the north side parking lot for pick up (where that bunch gets picked up by parents anyway), and 3-5 was on the south east side (again, normal pick-up spots).  We drove through the regular pick up line, and the teachers talked to the parents and ran the packets out...and talked to the kids.  The Spanish teacher, librarian, and art teachers were there, waving and hollering at the kids, too. 

I think this may be harder on the teachers--it's a really small school, and all of the teachers are really attached to all of the kids--than it is on the kids.  Or the parents, really. 

Honestly, this isn't something I expected to be able to do, ever.  Take the imp: he's going to school because he would hide and try to learn things for himself instead of letting me help him, or teach him.  He still does that, to an extent.  The pixie is such a social butterfly that NEEDS people around that she wilts on her own.  It's not as pronounced now as it was when she was a toddler, but it's still there.

I have a list of assignments per day for each kid.  The imp's started today, the pixie's starts tomorrow.  The imp was done for the day, within thirty minutes of actually working on stuff.  Too bad it wasn't all at once...we'll see how quickly the pixie does hers tomorrow (I'll be doing hers with her, first).

Today was really hard for the imp, though--he wound up forgetting to take his pill this morning, and forgetting that he hadn't taken it until it was way too late.  I wound up letting him do his history by doing the reading, then typing the answers to the chapter check comprehension questions assigned for the day's work.  And then booted him out for a while before starting math.  And booting him out between pages of math.  But he did get done, and it really did only take him a half an hour of focused work to do.  He just...couldn't focus. 

Tomorrow will be better.  Tomorrow, I'm getting up earlier, and I'm going to make sure he takes his focus pill, and that he eats enough.  Tomorrow, he goes outside and runs around until the pixie's done with her work, to help burn off some of his energy.  Tomorrow, we go onto a modified school routine. 

He does so much better with routines.  So does the pixie, but to a lesser extent.