Slow Is Good


 One motivation for homeschooling is to take time to set up, test, and get used to appropriate supports
*** BEFORE ***
giving expectations, assignments and challenges. That means that starting slowly at something new is a GOOD thing.
  
We made a (very light) schedule and stuck to it for a few days and will start with it again on Monday. We reviewed a bunch of online learn-to-code resources and I was glad to see that that investigation and conversation didn't stress out my kid.

We talked about how actually coding has two parts:
- doing the coding
- setting up the environment in which to both code and run the code
and how paid-for classes often do that second part for the students. She is not emotionally prepared to set up her own environment which makes Khan Academy a good choice. She started and hit an accessibility hurdle so I spent a long time trying to contact someone about it and couldn't so next time we get to it we'll do Plan B which is mom transcribes what she dictates. A forum post from seven years ago indicates this hurdle is only in the first couple exercises.
 
My kid is eating more and eating more protein-rich foods which is a solidly good change. It's getting a little easier to wake her around 7 am. She's showing fewer stress symptoms in general, but still gets very tense when a parent initiates an academic-esque request.

What I've been reading recently: Lots of posts in Facebook groups about math word problems that don't make sense. My teen and I are going to have to remember that the people who make math problems are fallible. Not being able to solve a problem and get the answer in the answer key is not a big deal; that problem might be ambiguously worded. 
 
Homeschooling is not just picking and following a curriculum, it's also assessing that curriculum and deciding whether to skip or adapt parts of it.

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