Lest you think from my previous post that we have it all together in homeschool-land, my Challenge 1 (i.e., 9th Grade/Freshman/Going on Thirty) daughter is throwing fiery darts at me with her eyes because I am making her complete work on a Sunday night.  Mind you, this is work that should have been completed by Friday night.  It was written in the planner…but it didn’t get done, and *I* did not check for completeness until 7:30 tonight, assuming erroneously that when my daughter said it was all done, it was.  Except for those four things that didn’t get done.  Including the Algebra 1 test that *I* put off yesterday when she wanted to do it.  So that one’s my fault.  Who wants to take an Algebra test on a Saturday afternoon?  Bleh!

Mean, perfectionistic mom that I am, my teen will work until 3am if necessary to finish these assignments.  This means that I also will sit down at the kitchen table at dark-thirty tonight, laboring over the Algebra test I postponed (and forgot about during my Sunday afternoon lollygagging). 

My mom reminded me that when I was in high school, I always did my homework late into the night.  Sometimes I even slept on top of my homework when my drive to get ‘er done was outpaced by the heaviness of my eyeballs.  I survived.  She will, too.  And maybe next week she will use her planner and not expect to keep track of everything in her head.  If not…well, then bye-bye anything with a screen.  Welcome to writing your papers the old fashioned way!  Welcome to doing research at the library using actual books!  

The takeaway from this week and incredibly stressful, whiney, grumbly Sunday evening?

1. Make sure the student actually looks at the planner and uses it to mark off work completed.  

2. Check the planner on Friday morning or Thursday night.

3. Take the math test on Saturday morning.  (**By the way, it helps with record keeping if you have your student complete math tests in a different notebook…this keeps all the tests in one place, in order, and you don’t end up having to flip through pages to find the tests.**)

4.  Take another look at the Challenge guide for the week to double-check that nothing has been left out.  I do think CC could make these Challenge guides a little more readable — perhaps by putting each week in an excel spreadsheet. But that’s for another blog post.

5.  Trust, but verify, preferably before 7pm the night before class day.

6.  Finally, develop a thick skin.  You’re going to need it to deflect all the flaming, narrow-eyed glares thrown your way!

(PS — all the unfinished work was completed by 9pm, including the test!  And she willingly posed for the photo of the angry eyes, in between giggles.)