Mommy plus Five

My 365...

Blake and I had a bit of a rough night last night.  As we sat down to work on his homework, I found myself completely and utterly confused?  He had several pages of questions, however no materials to answer these questions from.  No handouts, text books, notes....nothing.  I emailed his teacher to express my frustration and concern over the lack of information to go on, and he explained that these papers were to be completed in class, as the information is on the bulletin board. Oh.....

With Idaho Virtual Academy, we would receive UPS shipments before school started with brand new text books, work books and all the supplies needed to learn.  Daily Blake would log into the IDVA website, and check his daily plan.  Each subject had a unit to be completed, and a corresponding work book and online lesson to be followed.  If he had any problems, the teacher was an email away, and he could log into virtual classrooms complete with white boards and he could get one on one instruction.  I loved it!

Fortunately, it was open house at school tonight, so I was able to visit with his teacher and get the "low down" on how he teaches, and what the expectations are.  Thank God I went!

Our plan was to ride our bikes to school.  I was little worried about the weather, but it looked as if everything had blown over.  The sky over our house was blue.  We got about one block from home, and a hurricane hit!  The sky opened up with pouring rain, lightning falling everywhere, and huge gusts of wind that were impossible to ride against.  It was quite exciting actually, but I arrived at school looking like a drowned rat...lol

Was it worth the trip in the driving rain?  Oh yes.  Blake's teacher is awesome!  He has the class very well organized.  For the Mountain Math and Mountain Language homework that I was so confused about last night, all the questions were creatively arranged in multiple colored pages across two large bulletin boards. Blake finally caught on to this today, and took pictures of both boards with his cell phone.  Pretty clever kid this child of mine.  He also has text books!  I was so worried that there were no text books as I have not seen any, but there are.  The teacher has the day arranged so that much of the work is to be completed during the school day. Homework is mostly reserved for work that is not completed during the school day, and weekly spelling and math packets.

So my conclusion...Blake needs to work on his time management skills.  With home school, our time was very flexible.  Blake is not accustomed to having specific time to complete specific tasks.  We were very relaxed here at home.  In public school it is the exact opposite.  This is a good thing.  It will take a while for Blake to work into a successful routine, but I know he can do it.

We are both feeling much better about public school.  I am very impressed with his teacher, and I am going to work very closely with him to see that Blake succeeds in this academic adventure.

When the meeting was over, the weather had cleared, and the sun was shining.  Gee thanks mother nature.  Our ride home was much easier.  I made some yummy chicken flautas for dinner, then we sat and worked on his homework together.  All in all an awesome day.

I would also like to take a moment to remember my daddy.  Today would have been his 77th birthday.


Hope your day was a good one planet.  Until tomorrow...
"Come on mom, we can ride in this.
 Blake's teacher.
 A rainbow in the foothills.

Peace.

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Love,