Here we go

Well, tomorrow morning, ready or not, we start school. I think we're ready. The first day is always a type of syllabus day where we go over the schedule, I explain how school will work this year, I pass out the supplies everyone will need, etc. There are varying degrees of excitement from the masses. Math seems to be the tipping point; the reason any given child is or is not excited by starting school. We'll see how well my experiment of a page of math a day over summer works out as far as getting back into the swing of things. I'm keeping my expectations very low at the moment.

The pile of things to either show or to pass out in the morning. This is everything we'll be using minus the library books that I'll check out as we come to them and the streaming Great Courses videos we'll be watching.

This year four of the six will have weekly assignments that they will need to complete on their own. In a general sense, this is a good thing. It is good to learn to be responsible for getting assigned work done and figuring out how to allocate your time. In the short term, I know from experience that learning to do this is a very steep learning curve that depends a lot upon parental diligence and follow through. Not unlike teaching children to do household jobs. It is far more work in the short term to help them do it themselves, but worth it in the long term. I'm not overly excited about this portion of our school year because I dislike having to micromanage anything and this will be times four. I may need to make a schedule of my own so I remember to check up on them all through the week. 

Probably the biggest hurdle we face in the morning is everyone (including myself) getting up in a timely manner and getting chores done before it is time to start school.