So Much To Tell: The Rough Spots

Our roughest spots out of the gate these past three days, were undeniably math and spelling: two places we've achieved the most and had the best results curriculum wise.

First off, as we moved to Level E with RightStart, there was seemingly no review. Son panicked and did not handle his fear well. The lack of summertime practice took it's toll and patience became the order of the day as I watched him struggle to remember his tens facts. (It has begun to come back quickly now.) Needless to say, math took a good hour. There were tears and lots of hugs. We're over it now. :) Prayer helped immensely and then there was this...

I took the advice of the great Andrew Pudewa and used a white board for the first time. Success! Son loves the board and has asked to use it everyday so far. More than that, his attitude has done a complete about face. Of course, it may also have to do with the disciplinary tactic that I'm resorting to.

I'm calling it "positive reinforcement". Every time he whines or cries and utters words in the categories of "I hate..., I can't..., No...", he must write three things down that he loves about school. It will be a running list and no two items may be the same. The more he utters, the deeper he's going to have to dig. It's my most brilliant mommy moment in quite a while, if I do say so myself. He gets it and there's no room for misunderstanding.

Back to the math. It was just today (third day) that I heard it: "This is fun!" I'm recording it here for posterity so that I'll remember that, if even for a moment, math was fun. My cup runneth over.

The last tactic that I embraced was that of letting son decide when he would do his math. He has wanted it first thing when he is fresh. A bit of good wisdom that has helped. I think we're over the hurdle now, so we're going to try it after Bible. (I like to have Bible first thing, don't you?)

The second bump in the road was spelling. This makes little sense to me. He's good at it, it's not hard and there was nothing new. We continued the same routine (with Spell to Write and Read) and began with review words. Mentally, he's gotten into an attitude rut with spelling and he knows it. A couple of things will help: more prayer! use of the "positive reinforcement" tactic, and the use of the recorded spelling lists on the ipod. Also, he does like his new notebook pages for spelling. Today there was nary a peep from him about it. The conniption fit of Monday is just a faded memory. May it ever be so.

That's the extent of our rough spots so far. Well, unless you count daughter's "adjustments" into a learning routine...but that's a different story!