Already the tears. day one. and NOT from the child we expected it from. Chrysta is in a puddle of tears after two hours of school. THAT"S not good. Cody has barely begun his day so he may be in a puddle as well shortly. She is panicing because there is a test in 5 hours. I dont know if she means after 5 hours of work or what. but she is all sorts of confuzled at the program. and they put her in the wrong math class. they put cody in the wrong social studies class. They want us to approve or deny our schedules by the end of today but the site they say to go to doesnt work, you cant link to it from the email, you cant copy it from the email(I tried) so you have to type it by memory and even though I have the address correct I still can't access it. You can call to tell them its wrong but first it was busy and then no one answered. I am ready already to be done. Ready to pack up the computers and send it all back. call the school and get the homeschool paperwork and find a book curriculum I can teach them myself. But for now I have to take E and M to preschool sign up, Chrysta to get her glassess adjusted and to sign up for soccer. She wants to just go to PS. I am not doin that though. I remember now all the reasons we pulled them out.

tomorrow is the first day of scho!ol

at IQACADEMY. I had high hopes for it but as it gets closer I dont think its so great anymore. Will give it a chance and see how it goes. but it definitely makes spontenaity a thing of the past. No more hey lets go _______ today! trips are no longer easy and/or possible. I guess if it gets too rigid or too "not us" or too "public school agenda" or whatever we can always stop and go back to regular homeschool. In a way I am wondering why I even enrolled them. I have evolved from homeschool teacher to mom who homeschools. they are not the same. I used to fret about them learning this or that and working x many hours. Now, not so much. I am more of a mind that they will learn and are learning and who cares what the ps does or says? Husband is more "they arent learning enough!AGH! The sky is falling!!" I wish I could just unenroll them and do something else. but I am committed now. So I will try it awhile and see how it goes. if they dont do well we can stop. I havent told them that is an option so they will not just say I quit at the first bump they come to.

more IQ annoyances

I called this morning to find out about something the kids were supposed to do online but the person I spoke to knew NOTHING ABOUT THIS REQUIREMENT. she never did call me back. Also school starts for them a week from today and we still cant access webmail and blackboard is weird. There are things they are supposed to do online but they cant until the school posts them. umm time is running out here. if you want them to do it BEFORE school starts then you have to give them ACCESS before school starts. This is the first year this school is in MN so I guess there are some bugs to work out. I feel a little like this isnt going to work very well but we shall see. wait and see wait and see.

online school annoyances

well so it begins. Online school is indeed public school. Public school "parenting" has again reared its ugly head. The kids get the use of laptops(really really nice ones) while attending this school. We had to go to an orientation for the school and they talked about being appropriate. like in your art and in your writing be school appropriate. I thought to myself some of the most amazing art includes naked bodies. thats just the way it is. bodies are beautiful. but not in public school. not even online public school where no one but you and your teacher will see. I wrinkled up my nose at that lecture about being school appropriate. Now we have been getting to know the laptops and using the web with them. All kinds of things are blocked because they think they are somehow inappropriate for my kids. again they arent in school building where if they saw something everyone else would see it too. I think it should fall to the parent to police the computer. the words drugs and alcohol alone will get a site blocked for content. Context doesnt matter. the words alone are enough. I personally trust my kids to look at what they want to look at online. I trust them to come to me if there is something they dont understand or something bothers them. I do not let them have facebook and myspace accounts and I have access to their emails anytime I want so they do have SOME safeguards but its more of a personal safety in who are you communicating with rather than what are you reading or looking at. Its like book banning only on the web. its dumb dumb dumb. I am willing to suck it up and see how it goes but if anyone else is interested in using IQAcademy they might consider this aspect. Some people feel more strongly about this than I do and would push the envelope. I am mildly annoyed but willing to suck it up because the kids want to do this.

the kids school computers came but they are useless at this point because we dont have the password to get into windows. no, that wasnt included in the computer kits. Tonight is their orientation. school starts the second of Sept. Hope it goes well. Because its a public school,albeit an online school, but public nonetheless, the school here in this town says Chrysta can not play in their band. how stupid. beurocratics. always red tape. I said I dont care about grades or anything, cant we do it under the radar or something? she just wants to play flute. The answer was ....no

I hope this isnt a sign of things to come. I sent out all paperwork. I have returned everything I was sent. and then I got an email letter saying "enroll now!" I sent a quick note back saying arent we already enrolled? they agreed, we are and were sorry they sent the letter. This is the first year for this school in this state so I am not sure how its going to go. so far only a few minor annoyances.

more paperwork!

so far there are minor annoyances with IQacademy. things like required elective. either its required or its elective. how can it be both? and if they dont take all 6 credits they dont qualify as full time and dont get the use of the computer. And since I have only ONE computer I cant really have them both doing online school without the use of the computer loans.So they will take the basics like language arts, math, science, social studies, the required electives, and another elective. Chrysta wants to take Spanish. Cody wants to take web design. I hope this works out. Both are taking math above their grade level. Cody will take algebra 1. Chrysta will take math 8 since she did math 7 last year. I hope this goes well. I have my doubts. If it sucks the big one we can always withdraw, return the computers, and find another way to do things. But I am not telling them that is an option. I dont want them to think oh its too hard, too boring, etc and think they can just quit. I wish I could have found a secular curriculum that goes up through high school without resorting to PS. But I didnt find any that were suitable. School starts sept 2.