Finger on the Pulse

This is the seventh part in a series based on this cost/benefit analysis.  Here you can find Part 1:Scoping out the Sequence, Part 2: Making the Grade, Part 3: Unscheduling, Part 4: Why DIY?, Part 5: Race to the Finish and Part 6: Do Over.  Next I want to talk about this "plus" for us in letting go of our math textbooks:

• I have a better handle on the actual, individual progress of each child and I can individualize practice not only to the specific topics each child needs to review, but to the frequency with which each needs to review.

I talked here a little bit about the spreadsheet that I use to track what the kids have learned and what we still need to cover and here about how I track what each kid needs to review and with what frequency.  (And, because I haven't mentioned it in a while, I want to reiterate that none of this was an original idea for me.  It is entirely based on the Math on the Level concept.)  So my intention here is not to re-explain the mechanics of the process, but just to share what I'm enjoying about it!

We already discussed here and here how having a separate system for keeping track of mastery and review enables me to un-link record keeping from the textbook scope and sequence.  And I wrote here about why I like being able to make up the problems myself.  All of that is facilitated and made possible by having a closer eye on individual progress.

In a textbook, topics are reviewed at some recurring schedule.  I haven't been observant enough to figure out what the schedule is.  Probably more complex things are review more frequently, because it seems like there are multi-digit addition, subtraction, multiplication and division problems on most every page.  But it was commonly the case that I'd skip over massive amounts of review material on each page in the textbook, either because I didn't think my child needed to do so many problems in one day, or because I didn't think they needed to review that topic again so soon.  The spreadsheets help me to make informed choices, not just hazy guestimates.

Also, at a certain point, I realized that we could make our review more efficient by thinking about all the processes that go into a problem.  For example, in completing a multi-digit long-division problem, you are:

• dividing, obviously, but also ...
• multiplying
• subtracting
• regrouping/borrowing/carrying or whatever you are supposed to call those strategies these days
• using place value concepts
• comparing numbers
• rounding
• estimating
• possibly dealing with remainders, decimals, repeating decimals, fractions and/or dollars and cents

Add another layer by putting it in the context of a word problem and you could be ...

• averaging
• converting between units of measurement
• dealing with percentages or rates
• reducing large fractions
• calculating measures of sides or angles in geometry
• and probably lots more I haven't thought of!

So, give a long division (or other multi-process) problem and check off review of lots of concepts.  In the reverse, however, if a child continues to struggle with long division (or another complex-process problem) break it into pieces to determine where the difficulty may occur.

In a couple of cases, I've realized that I could add something to the review line-up that a child hadn't officially come across in her textbook because she grasped the concept.  In another case, I realized that even though a child had moved through a concept in her math book (and had completed problems accurately), she didn't grasp the concept well enough to be able to work confidently with it on her own.  I wanted to drop back and explore/experiment with it more before putting it back in the review rotation.

Another big "win" was in tracking (by color-coding) the difference between "needed to go back and correct this" (in yellow) and "needed help knowing how to do this" (in red).  In my mind, a student who can find and fix his own errors has a different place for growth than a student who needs help completing the problem.  The first one may need encouragement to work accurately, but he grasps the concept.  The second student may need that concept moved from review back to something we can investigate further.

Finally, I am hoping (though this is completely untested as my oldest is only ten) that this system will help us to know when a student is ready for algebra.  Between the beginnings of math discussion to the completion of pre-algebra, there are 146 concepts that need to be covered.  Of course, part of preparedness for algebra is a developmental maturity.  But seeing how we are progressing towards mastery of the concepts and how strong the understanding is retained through review should (I hope!) give us some clues in that direction.

Oh, and did I ever mention that I love spreadsheets?  Yea, that's just an added personality-match bonus for me.  A friend told me yesterday that she and her brother joke about spreadsheets being their "love language".  If that is a thing, then I think it might just be one of my things!

Do Over

This is the sixth part in a series based on this cost/benefit analysis.  Here you can find Part 1:Scoping out the Sequence, Part 2: Making the Grade, Part 3: Unscheduling, Part 4: Why DIY? and Part 5: Race to the Finish.  Next I want to talk about this "plus" for us in letting go of our math textbooks:

• A LOT less time spent explaining work and correcting (and re-correcting) work.

I want to say up front that what I'm comparing here isn't really, purely, textbooks vs. no textbooks.  What I'm comparing is the way we used to do math vs. the way we do math now.

Before:

"Math" every day was sitting with one kid at a time and explaining to him what to do on his math assignment.  It went something like this:

"See, they're showing you that in order to divide by a fraction, you just flip it upside down and then  multiply.  Does that make sense?  Here, try this one.  Exactly! Good!  Got the idea?  OK, so you are going to do these five problems about that.  And then how about if you do one of these ... and one of these ... one from each of these sections ... and a word problem and, sure you can do all the Roman numerals.  OK, go get your sister and tell her it's her turn."

So, basically, it was like math, minus all of the best parts of math.  There was no exploration.  No wonder.  No awe.  No lightbulb moments.  No connecting the concepts.  No conversation.  Like a Dementor had kissed our homeschool math.

Maybe we can get into all that some day, I'd tell myself.  Some day when I didn't have to spend 15-20 minutes x 4 kids just telling them what they had to do on their worksheet for the day.  Someday when I wasn't exhausted by all of the exertion of the "management" of six other people while I tried to spend an hour meeting with each of the least destructive ones individually.

And what about quiet work time in the afternoon?  It went something like this,

"Good, all of your Roman numerals are correct.  Oooh, sorry, your long division problem is wrong, so you'll have to do that over.  Stop grumbling; math is supposed to be challenging.  And, oh, wait.  Yikes!  You weren't supposed to flip BOTH of the fractions upside down.  Only the second one.  Oh dear.  I guess I didn't really explain that very well.  OK, maybe I can go over this with you tonight and you can do all these over tomorrow along with tomorrow's math."

Good fun, right??  Can you tell why the kids and I all dreaded math?

Now, all of the exploration of new concepts happens together in a group.  There is still some "people management" - there always will be - but usually the oldest four are engaged (they are either hands-on or answering with their dry erase "slates") and the younger two are coloring, which is their version of "doing math".  And quiet work time?  Sure, they still get problems wrong.  And there are still corrections to be made.  But not as many because:

1. They are only doing review work - not work on new concepts.
2. There are only five problems.
3. There is only one problem per topic, so no more discovering that they've done eight problems in a row wrong because they didn't understand one concept.

I've gotten some questions about what "family math" looks like these days.  I promise to write a post on that when I'm finished with this series (almost done!) but I have to say up front: we've been doing this less than two months!  I can tell you what it looks like so far, though, for what it's worth.

A Very Simple Schedule

At the beginning of the week, I felt a moment of crisis because I knew that I needed to spend more one-on-one time with my new reader and my struggling reader.  The schedule already felt packed and scary and the thought of adding one more thing was daunting (to put it mildly).  Monday evening, I attended Part 2 of the Focus and Align class at the Read Aloud Revival and the beginnings of some ideas began to percolate.  We had two hard, rough days, followed by two good, smooth encouraging days, followed by one more hard, low, rough day (as viewed from my internal perspective, only).  And here, in retrospect, is what I think has settled out to be our new schedule*:

• Breakfast (sometimes while listening to a recorded book or story)
• Morning Chores, Joseph (1) to nap
• Read the Bible
• Talk about Math
• Talk about Language
• Meet one-on-one with Luke (10) and Robyn (6) to practice reading skills
  Emma (9) and Ruth (8) take turns doing things with Henry (4) and Hazel (3)
• Lunch
• Quick Straightening, Hazel (3) and Joseph (1) to naps
• Quiet Work Time (Math 5-A-Days, Latin and some silent reading)
  On Tuesdays this is replaced by "Latin Class" with another family
• Play Outside
• Final Clean-up
• History (on-line course the kids do as a group) while Mama fixes dinner

That's it.  That is all we can do in a day.  And some days we don't accomplish all of that.  If you look closely, you'll probably notice things that aren't included.  I bet your list wouldn't be even a third of the things that are on my mind.  But I'm setting that aside for right now.  Let tomorrow worry about itself.  This is what we can do right now.

* We do school Monday-Thursday.  Fridays are for laundry, housework and maybe projects.

The Next Thing

One of the things that I have recently found to be a crushing burden of homeschool (for me, for now) is the feeling of needing to "finish" something in a given time.  I fear that if I don't finish it, my kids will be "behind".  I fear that if I don't finish it, I will have wasted the money I invested in it.  I fear that if I don't finish it, I'll miss out on that break I was hoping to take when it is all done.

For some (and even for me, in other phases of life) the structure is helpful.  It's nice to have someone else plan out what a year's worth of work includes, how much to review when and what should be included in a day of work or practice.  It feels very tidy to have five days worth of activity and begin again on Monday.  When we are able to get it done, it brings a sense of completion and closure.  But those days are getting much fewer and farther between.

Perhaps I'm less able to accomplish something that would be good to accomplish.  Perhaps the new pressures and constraints of life at this moment are revealing "shoulds" that never should have been "shoulds" and I am now releasing myself from them.  But whatever the case (and in some ways, it really doesn't matter) there is only this: what can we - at this stage, with this present grouping of children and this present, tired mama - accomplish in one day?  That is it.  What has God given us to do on this day?  Let's do it.  Let tomorrow worry about itself.

And what if we get to the end of the day and it wasn't all done?  Then not all of those things were things God meant for us to do today.  Yes, maybe there was time wasted.  Maybe we could have been more efficient.  But on this day, at this moment, whatever the causes, the task is still the same - trust to the Lord what wasn't accomplished and wake up tomorrow to start on the next thing.

As much as possible, I have moved away from organizing our subjects such that they must be done on a daily or weekly schedule in order to "work".  I've tried to avoid setting up things such that if we miss a day we are "behind" and have to try to cram two days worth of work into one (or three into two).  Instead it has worked much better for us if Mama has a general sense of the next thing(s) she'd like to teach or work on with the children.  When we come to school time, we do the next thing.  And if we don't get to it, it is tomorrow's next thing.

Didn't read a chapter of our read aloud book?  It will still be there tomorrow.  Talked about place value but they didn't fully "get" the concept?  Talk about it some more tomorrow; try another approach.  Time to start school but not all the morning chores aren't complete? They can wait until the next slot of time for getting a little work done.  (Or, do a little more housework and some school things can wait until later.)

The only way to make this system a reality has been, as much as possible, to unchain activities from each other so that each piece can move forward (or not!) independently.  Since our math discussion and written practice are no longer directly linked, we can do one without the other, if needed, on any given day.  Since the children's Five-A-Days are all things that we have already covered and they are just reviewing, we can take more time than I expected to work on our current concept without interfering with the Five-A-Day work I picked for them.  Or, conversely, if we didn't get a chance to complete the Five-A-Days, they can wait for the next day and our morning math conversations can keep happening.

This week, my oldest was only able to finish three out of the five problems on his Five-A-Day one afternoon.  Rather than requiring him to "catch up" on those two and do five new ones the next day, I simply took those two problems, added three more and they were his Five-A-Day for the next day.  If we've determined that five problems in a day is what we can manage, then why plan to do seven?  There will always be more good things to discuss and practice.  What do we gain by "doubling up"?  What are we racing against?  More and more, for us, the answer is: nothing!

Note: The two subjects that still "need" to fall into a weekly pattern are History and Latin.  And for now, I'm going to let them stay that way.  I'm not at all convinced that Latin is something all homeschoolers must do, but I have a degree in Latin and, quite frankly, it's something I love to teach.  Plus, our pastor's wife and her two youngest come over on Tuesday afternoons to do Latin with us, which is a big plus in the be-with-people category (perhaps even more for Mama than for the kids!).  We began three years ago with Song School Latin and are now working through the Latin for Children series.  We are on Primer B out of C, so after next year we'll reevaluate what to do next.

Though it is not absolutely essential, our history program works best done in five-lesson-a-week rotations because every five lessons covers one topic.  I absolutely love the Veritas Press History for many reasons.  Content-wise, it covers history, including Church History, map skills and lots of historical context.  Each era of history has its own song which helps the children to have a mental framework for the order and relationship of historical events, as well as some key dates.  Another plus is that it is on-line, very interactive, and the kids can do it on their own (mostly) while I watch and listen from the kitchen as I make dinner.

DIY Math on the Level

As much as I have raved about Math on the Level (and I DO love what I know of it and WOULD recommend it if anyone was considering it) I haven't actually purchased a copy of the material.  I have looked over a friend's copy of the material, read everything there is to read on the website and taken a few webinars with the author.  But at the moment, part of our "experiment" is testing out a kind of a home-grown version of a Math-on-the-Level-like system.

From what I know (and chime in if you know better than I do) here are the essential things Math on the Level offers:

1. What to Teach - Math on the Level clearly outlines and describes what your children need to understand and what skills they need to master in order to be ready for Algebra.
2. How to Teach - Math on the Level books are full of very detailed explanations of each topic and lots and lots of good ideas about how to teach math and specific suggestions about how to help your children encounter individual topics, especially in "living math" ways.
3. How to Assess - The primary means of assessment is in face-to-face interaction with your student as you teach the lesson.  The material also includes many, many practice problems (and answers) for each topic so that you will have plenty of options for making up their Five-A-Days.  Also, the record keeping system (either by spreadsheet or paper/pencil) enables you to know what has been mastered and what needs review.

At this point, my working theory is that I have resources available to accomplish all three of these these things.

1. What to Teach - Using a combination of the table of contents to the math textbooks my kids have used in the past (because I still have the answer keys), the Mathematics Common Core lists and the Math on the Level list, I've put together my own list of topics.  (It's basically the same as the Math on the Level list, with a few additions/modifications.)
2. How to Teach - This is the part I love best and that I most appreciate having the freedom to do on my own.  However (ironically?) it's also the part where I feel the most insecurity.  If I purchase my own copy of Math on the Level, it will be mostly for this reason - because I want to make sure that I teach each concept completely and thoroughly.  We've also been making use of Math Antics and  Kahn Academy to help us out with the how-to-explain-this aspect.
3. How to Assess - I love the Math on the Level method.  I've basically adopted that method by use of a free spreadsheet I found on-line (which saved some time, but could be easily made from scratch by someone who had some basic knowledge of spreadsheets).  I already believe strongly in assessment by conversation (even in math) and am liking the new method of only five practice problems a day just to ensure that skills stay sharp.  Also, since I have teacher answer keys from all of the children's past Abeka textbooks, I have an enormous supply of practice problems (and answers).  And, of course, the Internet (including  Math Antics and  Kahn Academy) contains abundant resources for practice.  Of course, the benefit of the Math on the Level practice problems is that they are arranged and indexed by topic making it much easier to grab just what you need.

So, will this DIY method work?  Or will I end up purchasing a (used?) copy of Math on the Level?  Or, will I throw my hands in the air and just order everyone an Abeka textbooks for next year?  Stay tuned to find out.  Or, watch paint dry.  Either way, should keep you on the edge of your seat and provide great family entertainment. ;-)

Details on Demand - Part 2

In my first Details on Demand post I talked about how a friend suggested Math on the Level and what an amazing discovery that was.  However, the post was getting long, time was getting short and, to be honest, my spreadsheet wasn't finished yet.  Now that I've got a completed spreadsheet under my belt (that's an odd mental image, isn't it?) and a little more time, here's the rest of the summary overview of our new system.

In the last post, I shared an image of the main/first page of our spreadsheet:

This worksheet lists all the concepts to be tacked before Algebra.  The X's on the right simply indicate mastery - concepts that are ready for review.  However, I also have separate worksheets for each child.

Each child's individual worksheet enables me to track not only what concepts they need to review, but how often they need to review them, when they have recently reviewed that topic and how they fared with it.  Here's a sample of Luke's worksheet.

"Max intended" lists how frequently I'd like Luke to practice this concept.  Because I'm just getting my feet wet (and because Luke has a ton to review ... this is only about half of his list) I've put most everything at 21 days (once every three weeks).  However, he had a little difficulty with #76 Converting Between Customary Units, so I upgraded that to a once-a-week (7 days) review.  The blue column shows how many days have passed since the last practice and the column to the right of that displays *** if the topic is up for review.

As I assign new problems, I put in the date to the right.  The gray column tracks the most recent time that topic was covered.  I took this screen snip after assigning Luke 5-A-Days for 2/3/16 but before updating the spreadsheet to show how well he did so that you could see the ones assigned for a particular day.  Even though he only does five problems per day, one problem can review multiple concepts.  For example, I was able to ask one question that addressed both #10 and #11 and another question that addressed both #7 and #129 (Comparing Fractions).

Problems given on previous days and already checked have been color coded.  Green means he got it correct.  Yellow indicates a problem he missed, but was able to correct without any help.  Red (not shown here) indicates he had trouble and needed help.  More than one red and I'll reassess whether this is really a concept that belongs in the "mastered, ready for review" group.

For comparison, here's Robyn's personal worksheet.

While the screen snip from Luke's page showed only a portion of his review concepts, this is everything for Robyn.  A much smaller list.  And so a much more frequent rotation.

Another day I'll go into more detail about why this system is so great for us.  And I know I've just dropped a blizzard of new blog posts on folks, so feel free to take a few days to sift through it all.  It may be that long before I get back to adding anything new because my next project is to get the Language spreadsheet up and running.  Enjoy your weekend!

P.S. There is a Youtube Video giving more detail about how to use this spreadsheet narrated by the person who created it (a Math on the Level homeschool mom).  It won't be of much use/interest to you, unless you are thinking of personally adopting this kind of system.  Otherwise the summary above is sufficient.

Day 8: No Five-A-Days

We did morning school time as usual.  But I chose to forego the Five-A-Days because we were so behind in Latin.  We used the afternoon time to help the older children catch up on that work.  It reminded me of why I am so excited about the idea of not having textbooks, because it eliminates the concept of being "behind" and needing to cram many days worth of work into one or two days.  It reminds me of the need to make resources work for me ... and not the other way around!

Day 7: Failure or Flexibility?

Because I stayed up (too) late the night before working on the math spreadsheet ... and because the person I was sleeping next to spent the night dealing with fever and chills, I was a tired, tired girl in the morning.  I hadn't made any Five-A-Days for the kids. So, here was the true test.  Our experiment met its first big trial-by-fire.

I do have a tendency to procrastinate.  Sometimes I choose not to work because the work seems overwhelming.  But sometimes I choose "fun" work (like getting a spreadsheet up and running) over less fun work (like writing out Five-A-Day questions).  The night before I was telling myself I'd get up early and do them before the children woke up (which I have done several times over the course of this experiment).  When that didn't happen, I told myself I'd find a time somewhere to fit them in during the morning, since the kids didn't have to do them until the afternoon.

The result was that everybody had Math 5-A-Days, but nobody had any language.  So, was this a failure of the system (or a proof that I don't have the character qualities for a system like this)?  In hindsight, I truly think not.

First, the night before, what I had spent about three hours doing was setting up the review-topics section of the spreadsheet for each individual kid.  Yes, this was fun (for me).  But just because I'm enjoying my work doesn't necessarily prove I'm being lazy, selfish, weak or [insert other pejorative character trait].  This was good work that needed to be done.  And it was one-time kinda work.  Maintaining the spreadsheet on a daily basis will take moments, compared to the hours the initial set-up process took.  (Good thing I enjoy that kinda work, right?)

Secondly, because the math spreadsheet was fully up and running, and the language one wasn't (still isn't) it gave me a great chance to compare the process of making 5-A-Days with and without a fully functional spreadsheet!  Getting math set up was fun and easy - look down the list of topics that need review, pick a few and make questions to fit.  Language, on the other hand, was daunting (and so never got done) because it was more of a mental effort.  Not as much of the planning was laid out for me.

So, in the end, I think Day 7 was a great success.  We did morning school smoothly.  And I had a chance to see what a great resource and tool the spreadsheet is!  Gives me even more motivation to get another (others?) up and functional!!

Day 6: Sub Plans

My mother and father came over to stay with the children while we took Hazel to the hospital for her procedure.  I was able to leave them with some Five-A-Day's to give the children and  a few other activities, mostly just so that the children would have some structure and routine and not suffer from running-wild-because-I-have-no-structure-or-routine syndrome.  For the most part it went smoothly.  One kid had more trouble that I would have expected with math and another more trouble than I would have expected with language.  But in my mind, it was still a success because ...

1. I was able to leave them work to practice which was productive and yet was review so (theoretically) didn't require individual instruction to prepare them to complete it.

2. Because each of their questions was aimed at a specific objective, the work that didn't go as well as planned wasn't a waste of time.  It was data gathering towards a clearer understanding of what has been mastered and has clearly move into "review" territory ... and what hasn't!

That evening, Matt was exhausted and went to bed earlier (because, as we found out in the nigh, he was coming down with the flu!) so I used the evening to go over the kids' Five-A-Days with them.  I also stayed up until midnight finishing the foundation-laying work on the spreadsheet - not because I felt I had to, but because I'm a dork and that's something I find fun.

I know I still haven't finished explaining how I've gone about selecting those Five-A-Day questions.  Hopefully I'll be able to cover that today.

Day 5: When Plans Change

(Note: We homeschool Monday through Thursday.  So today was Day 5 of the experiment.)

This morning we were on a good track.  Breakfast was done, chores were happening and we were moments from sitting down for "morning time".  And then Hazel fell off my bed and broke both of the bones in her right forearm.  Daddy came home and watched everyone while Mama and Luke took Hazel from one doctor to another.  Poor little lady.

But, though there was no direct instruction today, the children were still able to complete the 5-A-Day work I had already prepared.  And this evening, I went over it with them and they made some corrections.  Tomorrow I should be able to leave them with another set to complete.  This experiment is far from over, but this method sure has proven to flex as well as a circus contortionist!

Details on Demand

I'm determined to get in a post on some of the details of our experiment because my family has been asking about it.  It's a big question to answer, and there is a lot of "Teaching from Rest" intertwined in the process towards this plan.  But explaining Math on the Level will go a long way towards explaining what it is we are trying out.  As I said at the end of the last post, a friend recommended Math on the Level.  I had a chance to explore the idea on the website, on the Yahoo support group and by looking through her copy of the curriculum.

Math on the Level (MotL) is a complete pre-K through pre-algebra math program developed by a homeschool mom.  Instead of thinking of math in grade levels, she lists all of the topics that a student would need to cover through eighth grade (or in order to be ready for algebra).  The topics are organized into four categories - Operations, Geometry & Measurement, Fractions and Money & Decimals.  Within a category, the topics are organized approximately by complexity.  You, as the mom, can choose which topic you'd like to teach next.  There is no set minimum or maximum to cover each year.  You teach what your child is developmentally ready to explore.  She recommends that you cover topics from each of the four core books each year.

The MotL curriculum packs come with a book called "Math Resources" which demonstrates use of graphs and other visuals and a book called "Math Adventures" which is loaded with ideas for learning math through everyday activities like cooking, shopping and (of course!!) board gaming. :-)  The MotL Record Keeping book explains the (genius) record-keeping method that helps moms/teachers keep track of what has been mastered and needs to be reviewed.  And finally, there is a teacher guide for each of the categories which includes detailed, thoroughly illustrated and very helpful explanations of each topic.  In the back of each category book are oodles of practice problems for each of the topics.

Mastery of a topic is assessed through personal interaction and discussion.  The paper-pencil work is saved for review.  That's where the genius record keeping method comes in handy.  Moms/teachers keep a paper copy or spreadsheet copy of the topics to be covered and mark those mastered by students.  Mastered topics are then copied to another list which is used for selecting five problems a day for students to complete to review previously mastered topics.

What makes this system particularly brilliant is that the author has detailed which more-complex topics replace earlier less-complex topics so that students do not need to continue to review more basic skills when those skills are incorporated into the more complex processes.  Here is a little snippet of the spreadsheet I'm developing for our family.

See the column labeled Rep/Drop?  That lets teachers know when they can drop review of this topic because it is replace by another or if can simply be dropped from the review rotation once mastered.  In the next post, I'll take time to explain the lists of topics for review and how I've been developing the 5-A-Day problems for our experiment!

Day 4: Flexibility

Today I had an afternoon visitor.  The kids were able to flop on the floor in the school room and do their 5-A-Days by themselves while I chatted with my visitor in the library.  This is amazing because in the past when I have tried to do this, people have needed my help knowing what to do on their school work.  And other people have taken advantage of my absence to do mostly nothing.  But not today.  All work was done.  And for the most part it was done well.

Some day I'll get around to actually talking about what I'm trying and why!

Day 2: Conversations with my Self-Doubt

Doubting Self: Wait a minute.  Think about all those visuals in the Kindergarten and First grade math books.  What are you going to do - draw clocks and coins by hand?

Confident Self:  Well, maybe I will!  I could totally do that!  Or I'm sure I could find images on-line and cut and paste.

Doubting Self: Right.  How dumb. You could just spend $15 and buy the textbook instead of making it all from scratch.

Confident Self: Or, maybe we won't even need much of that.  Since we're moving towards "living math" maybe we'll just use real clocks and real money.  Isn't that even better than pictures of clocks and money??

Doubting Self:  Sure, sure.  I'm sure you'll have tons of time to just sit around with your Kindergartener playing with clocks and coins.  No sweat.  You only have FOUR older students who have way more complicated math to learn.  Can we say "burnout"??

Confident Self: But ... but ... OK, I admit it!  I don't know how this is going to work out!  And maybe I will decide to go back to how we were doing it before - and that would be OK!!  But this is just an experiment.  And we haven't even completed a week of it.  So, could you ... could you just be quiet and leave me alone!?!

Doubting Self: ...

Confident Self: ...

Day 1: Whew. We made it.

This morning after I made the inaugural post on the blog (which went up around 6:45) I worked on labeling the binders, starting the very roughest framework of a spreadsheet and writing up 5-A-Day Language and 5-A-Day Math sheets for four kids ... plus one "bonus" school sheet for Henry so he could be a big kid.  The morning was similar to our usual schedule but I added in some math discussion with the older kids.

This afternoon they got their first shot at the 5-A-Days.  We began at 1 p.m.  All their work was done in under an hour and they did some silent reading while I checked their work.  Within about an hour and fourty-five minutes everything was wrapped up and they were on their way outside.  It took me until about 4 p.m. (just over an hour) to make new Five-A-Days for their binders, but that's a bit of an inaccurate measure of time, because it also included suiting, un-suiting and re-suiting people for snow and nursing a baby.  All in all, I think we came out about equal in terms of time invested, but way ahead in other respects.  Tonight I'll need to put in a big "push" to further flesh out the skeleton framework I began in my spreadsheets this morning.

I know I still haven't explained the spreadsheet, the face-to-face conversations or even what a 5-A-Day binder is.  But that will have to wait.  While you are waiting, here are some pics from school work.  Whew.  If only dinner could make itself tonight. ;-)