Our Tuesday

Day 6 of the new school year, and 6 year-old Little G has completed 23% of 2nd grade math. He keeps me busy. The great thing about this is that getting to the math portion of his studies is an incentive to get through the less desirable portions of his day. And speaking of less desirable...


The changes to the curriculum aren't, in my opinion, positive ones. I'm as stunned as anyone could be that I have anything less than glowing to say about K12, but this splitting of the language arts into multiple categories is confusing, time-consuming, and annoying. It makes it appear like a lot more work when it really isn't. It doesn't streamline anything; the new format is kind of like a jar of marbles being dropped on a hard floor - it's all over the place and it's an effort to go looking for everything.

They also took a very my-kid-friendly version of language arts (i.e. lots of books and lessons about comprehension) and replaced it with a bunch of rote memory tasks, far fewer books, and these lessons where my speech-impaired son has to record himself reading passages. Even with the mic turned all the way up, and my little guy practically yelling, the recordings still need to be redone five times because they are deemed "too quiet" by the system. After language arts today, Little G was exhausted and didn't want to speak at all. He also decided to forego his typical reading time, which he usually does while Reezle is doing the portions of her lessons which require me to be present. I don't like this trajectory. At this rate, his love of reading and language arts is going to be kaput by the end of the month.

On a more positive note, Reezle loves Spanish. This language course seems to be to her what math is to Little G; I can get her to complete just about any school task without complaint as long as she gets to do extra Spanish. Win! A few of our current words are:

so/bear, rata/rat, tigre/tiger, amigos/friends, uno/one, dos/two, hueco/hole, pelota/ball, zapatos/shoes, ropa/clothing, sucia/dirty, jardin/garden, con/with (con mis amigos - with my friends), roca/rock.


This isn't a complete list, it's just what I recall off the top of my head. I've been practicing them repeatedly with the kiddos, in addition to some various words they already know, and trying to build from there. I really like how the course is set up, from what we've done thus far.

Like the English language arts courses, Reezle also has recordable portions. She likes them, though, and they are neither challenging nor the lengthy passages G is required to read aloud. And on that note, it is time to get back at it.

Happy homeschooling!