It's Already November?

How does time fly by so quickly?

Illness certainly helps with that impression. I got hit by the flu AND pink eye last week. Oy! I guess it's better to have them at the same time than to have them one after the other.

I've been thinking this weekend about my kids and how to help them get more learning done--well, in my daughter's case, more of her classwork done since she's doing online and correspondence work and is horribly behind. It hit me that I was doing something I shouldn't: just expect that she'll figure it out and get it done. Hm. Nope. So, I took charge today. We did math first thing, I told her what I wanted her to get done during the afternoon, she got some of it done and then took a break, and when I told her to get off the computer finally, I let her know I wanted the German pages done. They are now done. And she's trying to finish off the religion reading. I will need to sit down and work out a vision for how much she can reasonably get done this week and work at catching her up. I won't tell her that's what it is because that seems to stress her out--focusing on catching up--but that's what will be going on. We already talked about how I'm setting a limit and the one English assignment that was due over a month ago MUST get done this week. And I've decided that to remove certain distractions and comforts which cause her to work more slowly being at home, we will head out at least 1/2 a day this week to a library. I'm thinking Wednesday could be a fantastic day to do so: go to the library in the morning, have a lunch out, then come back home and dd can work more in the afternoon. Might do it again on Friday. (Can't tomorrow morning as she has online sessions she needs to attend!)

For my son... It hit me how much he is a creature of habit. His room is habitually messy, so it doesn't bother him. If I can get him into a habit of keeping it clean, then he's likely to keep it clean. In terms of school work, his habit is to hide away and read comics. He is not going to move out of that habit, out of that comfort zone, on his own. I keep hoping that he'll just be enthralled with something we're doing and go and explore on his own, but either I haven't presented the right thing or it's just not going to happen with him--until he's out of the current habit!

More thoughts to come...