Reflections of our first term.

Check out this clever little girl, she gets up like this and starts rocking but can't quite get anywhere yet (well except backwards when she starts wriggling and sliding which is very cute).

So it's the end of our first term of home schooling and I have been pondering how it's gone. Bookwork wise Jaden has actually achieved quite a lot. He has completed 2 units in his Targeting English workbook and a terms worth of work in his Targeting maths workbook, plus several pages in his handwriting book, and also quite a bit of work in our "Australia" project book. But I am finding that I am not satisfied with what he has actually learnt. I think these workbooks (which are designed for schools) tend to rush from one concept to another and I don't think he's actually grasping a lot of the content, especially in maths. I've mentioned before that he seems quite behind what he should know by this stage of year 4 and I think his struggles to cope and concentrate at school have meant he has missed out on a lot more work that I realised. So I am changing tactics a little.

I have decided to basically repeat Jaden next year. So for the last term of this year we are going to focus on more basic maths and grammar skills, and a science unit ( he loves science!!), plus some Old Testament Bible studies cause he's trying to get his head around why people had to do sacrifices. Then next year we will do year 4 again and I have found some workbooks from RIC publications that I'm a lot happier with. I think the fact that we started mid year and that school had gotten to be such a stressful thing by that time means we kind of started out a bit behind and it will be good to take the next term to simplify things a bit and then have a fresh start in the new year. In the scheme of things I think an extra year of primary school is far better than 'getting through' schoolwork but not actually learning or retaining anything.

So for now we are having a break for the holidays, not that we've done much the last couple weeks anyway cause I've been feeling so sick, then it's back to basics next term!