The week nothing goes as planned

I fully expected that there would be days and weeks where we had to throw out the plan and adjust to whatever – work, illness, life in general. I’ve got to say though, I didn’t expect our very first week as homeschoolers to end up like this.

Last week was a major transition for us. We left the virtual academy (aka public school at home) and started homeschooling under a private school. My niece left her brick-and-mortar public school and is joining us as well. (Having cousins 34 days apart was completely unplanned but working out very well.) I’ve been supplementing the virtual school curriculum for months so had plenty of ideas & activities ready to go to see what hit during this first week. I also planned at least one day of “school” at the park and a trip to the zoo.

What I didn’t plan on was coming down with a cold /flu/respiratory infection that knocked all those other plans right out the window. I’m talking major congestion, sore throat, sneezing, fever, want-to-sleep-all-day kinda sick. Not very conducive to excitedly introducing a pair of 7-year-olds to the funtastic world of homeschooling!

We adapted. We did more videos & CDs than discussions. We only did one of the science experiments in our lab kit because I was too tired to shop for supplies. We learned how to take quizzes on BrainPop.com online and email me the results so I could gauge comprehension from the couch. We instituted “Snuggle Conferences” and “Tickle Conferences” for dealing with minor attitude or behavior issues.

It wasn’t the week I planned but it turned out pretty good. Nobody else has gotten sick. (Whew!) We learned that male platypuses are venomous and about Newton’s laws of motion. (We have a plan for testing some of those laws out at a local bounce house very soon.) We explored weavesilk.com which led us to an app that created the image above. We started creating our own board games & they have real potential for fun. I’m excited to see where we go from here.