We had a sit-down family conference last night after Dad left. The past few weeks, the kids have been blatantly taking advantage of my lax rules - they'd rush thru school, not really paying attention to what they were doing (OK....Herself was doing that. Himself and I had had a talk when we first started; he gets that school takes as long as it takes. 1 hour? Fantastic! 2? 3? No biggie - it's still better than Public School!) (And....I'm the only homeschooler I know that is willing to admit that some days only take 1 hour or so. Sit-down work, I mean - I'm not counting reading-time, just sit at the table and work time. Some days, it just "clicks" and we bustle thru it. Some days, not so much. If you read between the line on the WTM forum, others experience this, too - but they don't admit it. I'm trying to keep it real, here - and yes, we ARE covering everything we need to. I keep checking to make sure.)
Anyway: If school ended up taking more than 1.5 hours, Herself would get into a snit and her attitude would go south. Didn't matter that she wasn't doing all her work, and the work she did was half-arsed, SHE was done by 9. Her attitude was starting to bleed over onto Himself - not the rushing part, but he'd immediately jump on the computer to play, and he'd blatantly ignore my "Your time is UP" chants (to the point I had to cut the internet to his Mac.)...and then he'd go into his room and watch You Tube on his tablet.
So. New rules. NO computer until after 2 PM. Tablets are e-readers only to that point - and NO going into bedrooms to "read". School takes as long as it takes (and today? *I* drug it out. We started at 8...and didn't finish until 11:30, because I forced myself to do stuff in between subjects (we did Bible, then, while they were copying the spelling list, I started a load of laundry. And put each item in 1. at. a. time. :snicker: Then I loaded the dishwasher in between spelling and diagramming. Yeah....my house will be SPOTLESS at this rate! :lol:), and there will be NO muttering about how long it takes. Chores will be done BEFORE the computer gets turned on - and the tablets remain e-readers until then, as well.
Herself is pissed over this. Himself....is upset with himself, because he knows he brought it onto himself. He's OK, for the most part - because he's bright enough to know that he still has it better than PS kids.
I'll be honest - we are seriously discussing buying iPads for the kids (refurb; after the 3 comes out in March.) Why? Because I can't figure out the damned Android parental controls. I've tried; I've looked at apps until I'm totally confused...but google won't recognize the tablets, I can't find exactly the apps I want (and am willing to pay for)....iPad? I understand. There's a section in the system preferences that lets parents say WHEN wifi is available, WHAT websites are OK (and you can put time limits on them, I think - if not, there ARE apps for that!) and.....I just like how easy Apple has made things. :sigh: The only way we can do it, though, is IF the bids come in low enough on the garage conversion that I have the $$$ left over. (Confession: SG had to have his iPad back; he hasn't gotten himself an upgrade yet because he wants a 3. So...he bought me an iPad 2 refurb for school. Yeah, I'm spoiled. Yes, I'm kinda embarrassed to admit he bought it for me....but happy, because I had gotten used to having one for school. :sigh: When he gets his upgrade, we'll look at buying a refurb 1 for Himself, and let Herself have SG's - it's got 32g; she needs the space for all the crochet patterns she keeps downloading. Himself....can make due with a 16g. Again - it's cheaper. It's why I'm looking at the 1's instead of 2's.....hopefully the price will drop when the 3's are announced...rumor has it that it'll be 3/7/12. :fingers crossed: Mine is a 16g, and there's plenty of room for all the books and apps I have...so, that'll be enough for Himself.)
I bet that if I weren't already used to Apple, the Coby's would make sense to me. I just.....I can't figure out how Android does things. Apple? It's all right there. I don't need to be techy at all to figure it out. Android? I had to dig around to figure out how to "root" it, so I could get Android market on there (but then, while you can get to the Market, you can't BUY anything, so it was a moot point anyway.).....I'm getting too old for this. Oh - and I figured out how to get the books on there to begin with, but now I can't add any new ones. And Herself can't find the patterns she copied over - you can see them when you have the thing plugged in to the Mac, but you can't find them when it's untethered - the memory is gone, so they're THERE, but we can't find them. :sigh: I hate it when electronics make me feel stupid.......
ANYWAY. Today went well - Math actually took 1 hour for both, because he had a lot of problems, and she got stuck on number sequences. I got a lot of housework done :snicker:....SG is home today; he's out in the shop prepping the coffee and end tables for me. They were starting to be embarrassing, so they're going to get faux-finished. Marble, I think - that's tomorrow's "free Art" project. Each kid'll get an end table while I do the coffee table. Should be fun!
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thankful