week 2- Science woes, and new schedule

Well, we have managed to get through our second week of the year of school.
I had a mid week crisis about Science and posted on the WTM boards about it. I got so many beautiful responses. I thought I was fine, that I had my act together with science, but I dissolved into tears in frustrations after one science session with the kids, which surprised me!

I am not so good with experiments, messy things they are, but I tried one and the kids were bored. That triggered it. But more, it was the writing I was expecting them to do. I got lots of great ideas from the posts, and I decided to relax and just take it easy, even to unschool science until I could find a better way. (or a better curriculum - that endless search for the perfect curriculum!). I love Science myself, and my dad is an astronomer, and we are doing astronomy this term, (dad lives on the other side of Australia though). I just couldnt get the kids excited though.
We have a great planetarium here in Perth- but of course, when we went this week , it was closed for yearly maintenance. grrrr
Then someone emailed me privately and asked if they could help me, perhaps I was getting overwhelmed with my schedule. I took them up on their offer and emailed them my kids' schedules. Well, am I glad I did that!
So many wonderful suggestions for my son.
I have been trying to do too much, but not very effectively, I can see that now.

My new schedule for ds9. He seems to be doing mostly U.S. 3rd grade material. My pencil allergic, doesnt care a fig about punctuation, often very difficult to work with son, bless him.

Maths- Singapore, 2 lessons a day. Also times tables and Saxon drill sheets. 45 minutes. He likes maths.
Grammar- Rod and Staff- orally and with a WHITEBOARD- why did I never think of that myself? 10 minutes a day.
Spelling Power, because he wants to! He actually likes spelling, he is a natural speller.
Latin- 10 minutes mostly, longer at beginning of week, orally and with flash cards.
Writing- either dictation, copwork or written narration The trick is, to repeat the dictation or whatever each day till he gets it right. I started this this week with a science dictation , and he did it 3 days in a row- it was his only writing, apart from 2 lines of copywork for handwriting practice. It was amazing, I could really see his weaknesses. He corrected the punctuation by today, the 3rd day, but made 2 new spelling mistakes! But he liked doing it, no resistence except for constant happy chatting and losing focus, and it felt much more effective and satsifying to work on the same passage than just showing him the mistakes and moving on the next day. So, I have a new attitude with him, to work on perfection, the quality of his writing, rather than quantity.

So, I am happy. I needed to let go of what I thought he was supposed to be doing, and find a way to help him improve, starting right where he is at! He can do memory work, reading, listening to me read etc- I tend to think only 'writing' counts, but its not true at all.

Of course, today he read a Childcraft book for Science, and he learned something very exciting that he didnt know before, that our sun is actually a star. He didnt even believe it at first! He came to check with me. Now, thats the sort of thing I want to see with Science- a child jumping off the couch to come and find me to check if what they read could possibly be true!

So, its been a good week.