Quest

Quest classes started today. The kids are involved in several classes. Zach is in a Kingdom series that is a really in depth study of medieval history with biblical allegories. The teacher is nice women who has her own children in the class. Zach, got a paper cut in the middle of class and that was the end of learning for him. My live in moment child turned his attention from the class discussion to his paper cut that stung. His easily distracted attention is not new to his teacher since she had him last semester for her Viking history class. We have worked out a system that I get his assignments instead of handing them to Zach. I know millions of parents have their own opinions on how to handle Zach and frankly, I don't care. They were not sitting in that class room. I was, and I was shocked at the high level of expectation required and the discussions going on with those homeschooled kids ranging from 9 to 14. These kids were excitedly discussing the allegoric representation of the fictional characters in these series of Books called "The Kingdom". At their age and I didn't even know what an allegory was, let alone know how to recognize it and apply it to the story I was reading. They also have to do worksheets, projects, finish a book in the series, then do a book report on it all before each Monday. Oh and of course, there are the extra reading material that is handed out each week about the history, culture and times of the middle ages. Looking it all over I felt overwhelmed for Zach. Of course, then I realized; hey, we homeschool. This one class takes care of English, history, writing, Bible study and even art! Phew! I think a few college kids would glean a great deal from this course, HA!

This semester I am teaching an ASL class using a curriculum that I got online (with permission) and teaching a group of kids ranging in age from 6 to 14. I have the younger kids and newbies doing more of the basics like ABC's, numbers, vocab and short sentences. the older, more experienced, and frankly more gifted students are doing stories. I gave each student a VHS tape of me signing the vocab and stories that they are required to learn. At the end of the semester I will be giving each of them an "I Love You" cookie cutter as a reward for all their hard work. Sam is in Phy Ed while Zach is in his Kingdom history class then Zach is in Phy Ed while Sam is in Spanish. Sam is also in choir but Zach uses that time to work on his Kingdom History class. We even eat lunch there between classes and when the day is all done, the kids play board games while the parents clean the church that so graciously allows us to use their facility. I am luck enough to be in charge of cleaning the bathrooms, yippee.

So that is our Mondays for the next 10 weeks.