LONG days

Both yesterday and today have been extremely long days. Despite the length the kids have managed to complete every task without complaint. Not once have I heard "I don't want to do that." In just two days we've done 5 experiments with magnets, learned about Ben Franklin, the 13 colonies, Philadelphia past and present, worked on Spanish, writing, typing, spelling, math facts for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, discussed the idea of force and power both in nature and government, and practiced piano. Zoë has also gone to art and PE. Whew!

I've been impressed with both Aiden and Zoë's ability to think through and use reason while doing their experiments. They could figure out exactly why things weren't working or their data was not the same. They both found ways to figure out which pole was which on their different magnets, and Aiden correctly assumed which materials would conduct magnetic force and which would produce a shield. What's great about that to me is I was completely wrong! Home school certainly is making us all learn things.

My challenge now is to decide if I'm having them do too much, or find some way to decrease the amount of time we're spending in class. Yesterday, we didn't complete everything until 2:30, and today it was after 3:00. That's with very little goof off time in between. Snack and lunch only took 30 minutes total and we started classes at 9:00. That's as long as a public school day, but none of it is wasted time! I guess as long as there is no complaining, I won't change things. It will just make our weeks off that much nicer. Of course it means I have absolutely no free time until about 7:00 pm, but that's probably better than a full time working mother, and I get to spend my time surrounded by people I love not lousy co-workers.