An update on homeschool.

Well, today wasn’t very exciting. Haha! In fact, the kids didn’t even step foot outside the house today. That’s a little depressing now that I think about it. Anyway, because there is not much to share about that, I figured I’d give you an update on how Elijah’s homeschooling is going so far.

I’ll start by saying that Elijah is still alive, and Julia is still sane, so that’s a big accomplishment! Julia says that she enjoys being his teacher, and loves the relaxed nature of homeschooling. That isn’t to say that there aren’t some challenges or difficulties, but the benefits outweigh those. One of the difficulties that she’s facing is with taking breaks. The teaching strategy focuses on short bursts of learning with breaks between, but this is hard with Elijah because he doesn’t have much of an outlet to expend his energy during the breaks. So, he gets antsy, and has nothing to do with that as it builds up. Instead of taking breaks, Julia takes him straight through the entire day. I do have to mention, however, that the full day is really only about an hour and a half long at this point, so it’s really not that long to power through.

With the curriculum that Julia chose, it starts out with some review, so you ease into the content. That means it hasn’t been too difficult so far, but will get more challenging as time goes on. One of the projects they’ve been working on recently is creating a scroll. This scroll project encompasses many different subjects such as history, writing, language arts, and the Bible.

As as you can see from the picture, they’ve done some work trying to make it look like an old scroll. After seeing some pictures of the Dead Sea Scrolls, however, Elijah is dissatisfied with this project as it doesn’t have any staining like real Scrolls. So, he wants to add some stains to it to make it more authentic!

We have a couple science experiments currently in the works, one being getting some beans to sprout in a glass jar so you can view the growth, and the other being killing a patch of my grass with a brick so that we can hopefully see some worms underneath. It better be worth it!

Elijah will take his first art class on Friday. It’s a class that’s taught by a lady who works out of some of the Hobby Lobby’s around. They’re specifically targeted towards homeschoolers, and the class he’ll be in will have some of his friends as well. I think he’ll like it a lot.

As you know he was given an iPad as a gift before his surgery. We used some of the money donated to us to buy a subscription to an app called ABCmouse, that focuses on educational activities and learning. We were able to build in a profile for him so that all of the activities and tools at his disposal are age and grade appropriate. Today was his first day using that app, which he did during rest time. Tonight, he kept saying how excited he was to use the app again tomorrow. We’re so glad that he’s off to a good start with that, and enjoying it. Hopefully he’ll learn a lot through that as well.

I will say that things are bit more challenging with Abigail, now that I’m back to work. She keeps saying that she wants to do school too, but obviously can’t do all of the same things Elijah’s doing. We try to give her activities to do, and have bought some different toys and projects for her just to do herself, but they don’t always keep her attention as well as we’d like. So, inevitably she’ll come to Julia or myself looking for a play or snuggle partner. Julia’s trying to teach Elijah and I’m working on my computer, so there’s nobody left to give her attention. We’ll have to keep trying to figure out how to make this easier, or better, for her. Or maybe she’ll just get used to it.

Overall, Julia says it’s going well, and from my perspective I would agree. I think it was a good move, especially for this time in our life.

On a different note, it was present day today. He opened a present from my brother Jeremiah and his wife Wendy, and another from our friends Dave and Noelle. More great projects for him to work on!

We also gave Abigail a present, which was a recorder I picked up for her at the thrift store. I know, we are gluttons for punishment, but she loves music!