Day Fourteen

It's 2 weeks today I withdrew him from public school.  I have not, in fact, broken him yet. 


However, we seem to have arrived in "I don't really need to take notes, it's all in my head already" land.  *sigh* The frightening thing is that he is correct, he's got loads of it in his head.  That's not the point though, is it, dear?


I got another piece of relatively shoddy work turned in and the one spiral notebook is completely void of review notes.  We are going to have to tighten some belts here, this isn't OK. 


I am sure part of it is me, He did put a couple of things in the "check work" folder which I didn't review and he took the books out to continue working and I am absolutely sure he realized there was no "OK" so he's pushing to see what'll happen I'm sure.  I don't for a moment think it's intentional, he IS the Banker after all, Mr. Straight and Narrow, BUT he is 12 and I am his mom and he is supposed to try.  I'm sure it's somewhere between abject obstinate behavior  and preteen brain.


We've had a quick chat about quality of work and note taking.  We've had a quick chat about the reports I just generated on the paid site and although 99% of the work is 90-100%, but there are two 50%'s ?  So, the choice is apparently 100 or 50, there's no middle ground?  He shrugged and said he'd pressed the wrong thing.  Well, um, that is how ALL wrong answers are input, dear.  Isn't inputting the wrong thing the definition of the wrong answer? *sigh*  We've had a further chat about how all the quizzes matter and that perhaps we can redo the 50%'s and then we move on.


No stress, no drama, a reasonable conversation.  Nice.


We start our new me doing science unit this week, Me and Rocket Science.  Sure, that's not weird at all.  The "what if I break him" blanket is covering my head heavily today.  I'm sure it's the same with all the newbie home school moms, well, I hope it is and that's what I'm going with.  I'm going to pay a little closer attention today to be sure we don't have any shoddy work, empty notebooks or 50% review quiz results.


I also feel like a cold is trying to get me, it was trying on Friday and I fought it off but I woke up today feeling thick in my chest, maybe something allergy related.  I'm in the allergy capital of the cosmos here in Austin, apparently.  Maybe that's it. 


I'm going to spend some time reviewing work and setting up the next week schedule and print some papers he can work on, ok ok  they are worksheets. BUT there's only one per unit so he's not being overrun by paper.  He LIKES worksheets notwithstanding what we call them, I tried "work book pages" but he laughed and didn't buy it, "you mean those WORKSHEETS, mom?" HAHA  So, he's got 1 per social studies unit and I am pretending it's helping with his handwriting.  :)  There are also answer keys so I don't have to think too hard, also a bonus.


Off to spend teacher/manager time, I'll sew later.


/Tracy