Back to School

For the past few months we’ve focused on de-schooling. In order to help the boys restore their love for learning, we’ve attended a wide range of field trips together with other homeschoolers.

With 9 months de-schooling time now complete, Jesse started up his Freshman Year with Alpha Omega Academy, yesterday. He asked for all his school to be done on computer & that’s exactly what he’s getting here, with the added benefit of online lessons & a teacher for every subject. Of course for me the bonus is not having to worry about marking schoolwork & whether or not I can explain the material to him.

Here he's kicking off his new school year with a guitar lesson before online school starts at 4pm. I’ve looked into getting him a few friends to join for lessons & jamming to help with the motivation to keep it up & also make it a little more fun.

Due to the time difference between us & USA their school day starting at 9 results in Jesse’s online lessons & open office hours only start from 4pm and finish around 10pm, but this is exactly the way he likes it. Being a night owl, like me, this allows him to sleep late in the morning. He still gets to attend all the field trips we have planned & completes his schoolwork in the late afternoon & evening since this is his most productive time of the day anyway.

I got home from chess with Misha just to find my favourite chair had been hijacked for school... by the looks of it that’s going to happen many more times during the course of the next few years since Misha does the same whenever he has the opportunity.

Thus far we’re quite happy with our new setup. The staff at the academy are very efficient. Jesse’s been enjoying the online lessons & confident he’ll be able to cope with this style of learning for 4 more years & I'm praying this will be our solution to help him reach his full potential where academics is concerned.

Now only time will tell whether we’ve made the right choice for him. Now my next challenge is finding a similarly suitable curriculum solution for Misha.