School Days...

Illissa with her first completed school project on sea stars

For the most part, the kids are enjoying school.  All of them are making great strides - they are picking up on the things that we hadn't got to at home yet (because of the different time table that we based our homeschool philosophy, schedules for learning different skills are not the same as the kids get them in regular school).

Jarrett is ready to come back home, but the girls seem to want to stay for the rest of the year. Lissy goes back and forth.  She really likes school, but she also really likes homeschool.  They schedule, while only four days a week, is physically, mentally and emotionally exhausting for all of us.  Tuesday through Friday, The kids have to get up at 6:00 am to leave for school at 7:00.  We don't get back until after 4:00.  The school is across town, so we have a bit of a commute each way, plus the school runs a day and a quarter schedule.  While the kids tested rather low for their "grade level" in their math and English, they are all gaining those skills quickly.  Hannah and Kelsea really are shining in their classes.  Jarrett is doing well at school, has a teacher that seems really good for him, but he just doesn't want to be there.  Lissy is fitting in well, but is coming home with some bad language - not swear words, but slang that we don't find appropriate.

The school is billed as a leadership school, and unfortunately, we haven't seen any of that in the curriculum at all.  The junior high teachers love to threaten their students and entire classes.  When approached by the students who want leadership, they have been shot down.  Kelsea isn't a trouble maker, so she hasn't been too troubled by the excessive detentions and now sentence writing, but it's not really the best environment to be in if you are trying to become a leader.  Not the greatest examples of leadership.  She is thriving at school, and is much better at finishing her work for a regular teacher than she was at doing it at home.  She is quite competitive, and that has really helped her with her math.  She can move at her own pace, and she loves being ahead of the rest of the class.

We are impressed with several of the teachers, and they seem to really care about our kids and their education.  I really like the project based learning.  The school does have a lot of room for improvement in a lot of areas, but some of the people there seem to be trying.  I just also there weren't all the bad parts that go along with being in a public school type setting.  There is a lot REQUIRED of the younger students, and that seems to be the best way to kill the natural love of learning that all children are born with.  I would hate for my kids to loose that natural skill.  There is all the wasted time while waiting for all the others in the classroom - even if the classes are small, there is no way around all that wasted time.  That means it takes extra hours to learn the same amount of information that the kids would at home.  That leaves very little time for the children to play, relax, or be kids.  All family time seems to be disappearing as well.  There has been a lot of homework, leaving very little time for anything else in our lives.  Kids are tired, mom is tired, house is thrashed.