10/13/11

Catching Up

So - it's been a while.  I've been trying to get caught up in entering things into HST+, and figuring out why various programs aren't working.  I've got everything back to normal except I can no longer access Pandora on my computer!  This is a might bit distressing because I love having it on in the background while doing various tasks at my computer.  I'm going to breeze through the last several weeks in an effort to get caught up.  I'll start with this slide show of photos (mostly of the little two princesses) of school over the last few weeks.





As you can see, Princess M is moving along.  We finished I, O and are about halfway through U.  I am amazed at how well she is doing remembering the short sounds of the vowels.  The little stories from IEW PAL, combined with the characters from the Leap Frog movie are really helping her a lot.  She is having fun with the activities from Letter of the Week. 

Princess L went in for vision therapy testing.  She is a bit of a different case than what they've seen before.  As such, they want her to try a pair of reading glasses for a few weeks to see if we see any difference.  If there is a difference, then we will get a pair for her to wear for school and close work for a year and re-test.  I haven't really determined if there is a difference yet.

With our TOG studies, we are just finishing up week 8 today.  We have been enjoying listening to the Old Testament on audio for our Bible times.  Princess S is just going to be starting lesson 17 in MUS Delta.  This lesson sets her up to learn long division in the next several lessons.  This was where Princess E slowed down, so I'm anticipating that to happen again.  Princess E is slowly moving through lesson 15 in Epsilon.  She has finished up Module 4 in General Science.  I have offered her the chance to retake the first few tests.  She did much better on the first one.  But, the offer is only good for a week, and she will not be given the chance again.  I also am taking away her option to schedule herself for this work.  We gave it a quarter and she was not doing a good job.  So now she has to follow MY schedule!  The same with Latin.  She was not making good use of her time and ended up doing a whole bunch of pages on one day.  That meant that she kept making the same mistake over and over and getting horrible scores.  No more!  She will now follow my schedule.

I am really struggling with the lack of drive in my eldest two students.  The road to excellence is one that requires a self-will to travel it.  Princess E wants to walk the road of excellence with her music - but that is all.  I cannot force my students to want to get good grades and do the best work that they possibly can.  That has to be something they want for themselves.  Apparently, this is not something they want - and it is driving me crazy!  I cannot relate to the lack of motivation in that area.  And as such, I have no idea how to bring it out of them.  If we continue this path, Princess E will be repeating 7th grade.  She has a summer birthday so it really will cause no problems to hold her back a year.  But she will be madder than a wet hornet.  A logical person would reason that this would be enough to motivate a person - but not my stronger-than-diamonds-willed child.  Princess S has different, yet equally maddening, issues. Her inability to stay organized throughout the day; her losing of assignments, books and pencil; and her consistent wasting of time throughout the day leaving her to do school ALL.WAKING.HOURS.LONG is draining me of all my energy.  But I will keep on keeping on - because that is all I know how to do.  That and cling to the promise that God will sustain me.

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