Our big plans for the first official day of school on August 7th were immediately dashed with the total demise of my computer that morning. We were forced to scrap whatever schedules we had made and just wing it.

Of course we had to wing it for the entire week while waiting for a new hard-drive... and I've learned that once you start winging it it's hard to stop.

We worked really hard this summer so these first 'official' weeks of school have been a little scary to me. We still complete a math lesson and a grammar lesson every day -- but it always seems like we haven't gotten a whole lot accomplished until I actually sit down at the end of the day and write everything down.

This morning's schedule is blank. George is working on a math lesson while William works on an art lesson while he waits to use the book. In a little while we'll switch. Plans for the rest of the day? We'll take some time to write in our journals - try to come up with some crazy prepositional phrases... and when the babies are sleeping we'll get a chance to read together.

Maybe at this pace we'll all make it afterall.

It's almost officially the beginning of the school year for the rest of the coast. For some reason this makes me nervous. It shouldn't. We have been doing homeschool for a couple of months now... But I guess as long as we were working over the summer there was less pressure somehow.

I called the Jackson County Attendance officer last week only to be greeted with an answering machine that said she would be out of her office until August. Now it's time to start calling and leaving messages until someone actually calls me back.

In the meantime we're doing the school thing.

I think the boys feel a little differently with the official schoolyear beginning as well... I've been meeting a lot of extra resistance to the even the smallest of requests. It's time once again for a new approach.

I've been spending more and more time working one on one with the boys rather than trying to force them into the same subjects at the same time. This translates into a lot more instruction time for me -- but that's better than extra time spent trying to get and keep everyone's attention.

Now I have to see how far along the boys are on their notebooking this afternoon. I had hoped to get in a science lesson before dinner...