School Already?

We had planned to start school after Labor Day.  I am a staunch lover of summer and being outdoors as much as possible.
No stuffy days indoors doing school when it's beautiful outside.

But then...

Last week the four youngest kids started begging to open all those tantalizing boxes that had been sitting in the basement for a few months.
You know....the ones with all their curriculum for this year.

In a moment of weakness, I caved.

I couldn't lift the heavy boxes yet (post gallbladder surgery), so they recruited Jillian to lug them upstairs for them.

With great glee, they unpacked all their books.

We spent some time getting things organized and then the chorus started.

"Can we watch our videos?"

We are doing the Abeka video school program.

Riding a tide of euphoria that I still cannot explain, I blurted out, "Sure!  I'll set them up for you!"

About an hour later, there were no visible signs of euphoria as I attempted to get the streaming videos to actually stream.
Like right that minute.
While my little scholars fidgeted impatiently.
Argh.

By the following day, everyone was up and streaming.
Sort of.

Within five minutes one of them had a computer issue.
Then another.
And other.

There were no less than 437 'issues' that day.  It went on ALL.DAY.LONG.
I began to dislike the sound of my own name.

Jeff was home for only a few minutes and after noticing how many times I was summoned to the dining room to address a computer issue, he said,
"That is going to drive you crazy."

Yep.
Pretty much.

I'm happy to say that they are learning how to navigate a few of these issues...use the refresh button, try a few options when the cursor freezes, etc.  So now I am only summoned 157 times a day.

But who could resist these cute, eager little faces?

Me, either.

Saturday School

Homeschool - Week 2

We had several good days and one awful, horrible, no good, very bad day. 

Today--Saturday--three kids came and asked if they could get started on school.  I gleefully told them that it was Saturday.  They said, 'We don't care.  Can we still do school?"

Um....

I guess so.  If you want to do some work sheets by yourselves.
'Cause this Mama is NOT doing school today.

A few minutes later, I was telling Jeff that several of the kids requested to do school on Saturday, and Kate piped up,
"Not me!  I'm gonna be a slug today."

And there you have it.  I have some over-achievers and some not-so-eager achievers.
I'll let you guess which ones make mommy have awful, horrible, no good, very bad days.
Ha.

It has become apparent that a few of my ADHD/ADD kids are going to be a bit of a challenge.  And that is okay.  I just need to adjust to them and figure out how to keep all of us from having those no good, very bad days. 
Well...that...and a bit of daily chocolate bribery. 
I'm not above that.

Here are some pictures of the Saturday school team.

And a few from earlier in the week...

I have been asked what video curriculum we are using.  We are actually using two different ones.  The four oldest kids are using Abeka and the four youngest are using BJU.   The reason for that is that the younger kids were already doing BJU at their school and came home with several of the workbooks.  BJU was running a special on their streaming videos and allowing them to be ordered ala carte, so we decided to stick with the little kids curriculum and use BJU for the rest of the year.  Abeka is less expensive, so we may be doing all Abeka for everyone next year.