Teaching Tuesdays - We made it through the first week.

Week one is done.  That's all.  Lets keep it real.  Week one was hard.  Between teaching both boys, prep, computer problems with the program and pulling my hair out (really  . .almost) I spent anywhere from 5-8 hours a day doing school.  That is not what I anticipated.  I understand it is the first week but wow.  On the first day I spent about 5 hours sitting in a chair talking and teaching one boy at a time. By the time Wednesday rolled around (day 2 . .) I mowed the grass and faced the underground bees (I can run fast HA!) just to get away from all things related to school.  Here's hoping week two goes better. 

Of course, we took some awesome first second day pictures:

Such cute kids!

So, you might be wondering where I'm at with Connections Academy after our first week so even after a tough first week here's some truth:

1) I know it is only week one.
2) The boys have things they like and things they don't like.
3) I've changed my strategy and spent several hours on Saturday prepping for the week by reading through every lesson, using post-it tabs to mark daily assignments in books, copy, pasted, and printed the "Learning Coach" (that's me!) lesson guides so I don't need to use the IPAD constantly to ready what I'm doing AND I highlighted what is important for me to emphasis.  I tore out workbook pages and prepped vocab words and sight words.
4) I'm hopeful that as the weeks progress I will be able to have both boys working on schoolwork at once to free up time for play, getting outside to exercise, and time for me to actually get something done (for real!)

The boys also had their first week in Tae Kwon Do at our homeschool co-op this past Friday which counts toward their PE time.  I didn't get any great photos this first week but hopefully next week the boys will be more relaxed and will be more "into it". 



What's coming up?  We still have AWANA to add to our schedule this week, weekly Library trips which start today, and some upcoming field trips. Not to mention that they start Gymnastics next Monday too.  I've finding that our schedule is much busier this year which is keeping me on my toes!