Hello readers!
Let’s talk about my homeschool year two, week one. We completed five days of academics. We began at 8 a.m. with Bible and we ended with electives or study time by 2 p.m. It’s gone very well so far. The new cirriculum is working out. Particularly better is Math. Now, I do expect it to get more difficult as the year goes on when they learn new concepts. If you remember from previous posts we struggled to get through the work load and understanding some of the concepts in the Lifepac cirriculum we used last year. Those workbooks may work great for some, they just didn’t work for us in the math category. This year we are using Masterbooks. My 6th grader is going through Math for a Living Education, Level 6. My 8th grader is working through Principles of mathematics, Book 2. I started in book 2 rather than book 1 because of what level I feel he’s at and capable of. There is some degree of review as most curriculums would do. My 8th grader told me that it doesn’t even feel like he’s doing math. Not that it’s too easy because he’s had to remember things he’s done in past years, but the way it’s written and how it explains why and how we use math in different circumstances. He used to ask me last year all the time why it was done this way and why we have to do it.
My son (the 8th grader) wanted to stick to Lifepac math which didn’t make sense because although he did okay, we didn’t come close to finishing all 10 workbooks. This was because of the amount of work and the need to supplement with videos and other resources because the workbook and teacher book didn’t explain well how to do the problems, so we both struggled. My daughter (6th grade) actually told me after this first week using the Masterbooks math that “math is fun”. These are words I never expected her to say, ever. She may well change her tune as the year goes on, but so far so good. She did not want to stick to Lifepac math this year because of the workload and they were boring lessons. While my son does take longer to complete his lessons each day than my daughter, the amount of work seems to be far less for both of them. That’s not a bad thing. I still feel like they are getting enough practice time. The program is also helpful for me in that I didn’t have to do all the lesson planning. Both the math and science we are using this year from Masterbooks came with a recommended schedule. Because of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter breaks I have had to alter them a bit, but it has been so much less work for me.
Hello! After a busy fun-filled weekend and a slow sluggish Monday, I am back! I’m sure you all were waiting for my next post. In case you were wondering, I survived the comic-con and came away with, well, a lot of comic books to read! As I said in my previous post, this was my first real comic-con and those who know me personally know that I enjoy comics and science fiction for entertainment. I don’t want to spend too much time talking about my weekend as I want to get into today’s topic, but just know that the experience was good and I have really nothing negative to say about it, other than a less than optimal stay in the hotel and the way the con had set up the celebrity Q and A panels. They were not secluded from the noisy 
vendor floor or other panels going on at the same time. Geeks are very welcoming and unlike going to an amusement park where there are LONG lines of pushy rude people, we didn’t experience that here. Sadly, I have no photos to post of the event. I didn’t take photos on the vendor floor or of the many costumed people. In the celebrity area, photographing is frowned upon, unless you pay for a professional photo (which is behind a curtain) or pay for a selfie. We did not pay for celebrity photos or autographs. I do have some very poor images during Q and A’s. Poor due to very bad lighting. Two celebrities asked several times during their panel for us not to take photos or videos, most people did as they asked. I sure “got my geek on”, and by-the-way, calling us geeks isn’t derogatory.
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