We are back where we started from with regards to homeschooling Nate. When I pulled Nate out of public school in December, I picked up a few workbooks with grade level appropriate reading comprehension problems and math. I didn't want my academically advanced 2nd grader to fall into an educational abyss due to my lack of preparedness for teaching him at home. So, this is what we used to fill in the gap between Christmas vacation and getting a spot within the homeschool charter.
I felt better using a charter because: 1. All of the materials that I needed to teach him "the right stuff" for his grade would be available to me, 2. It kept me accountable to make sure he was getting his school work done. We are NOT on perpetual vacation here. and 3. He could take the state standardized test and I could track to see that he is still ahead of the majority of kids his age in the public school system. Translation: I am not screwing him up academically.
We've been with the charter for almost two months. The first was ok. The second made me realize this is not the way to homeschool Nate. The charter prescribes EVERYTHING. Right down to the number of problems to do on each page. I pulled Nate out of public school because it was not working. My intent was NOT to bring the public school into our home. (Alot has changed since I homeschooled Joshua with a charter 10 years ago.) There was no time to bring Nate's interests into our schooling. If he did something extra, I could not turn it in to the "teacher." And I could not tweak assignments to make the "Nate friendly."
So, last week we filed the affidavit to create our own private school in our own home. This is California's way of allowing parents to teach their children what and how they want. This is how we were doing it in those first few weeks with Nate. And we enjoyed it so much more.

Today: We rolled dice and multiplied them.

And we made pictures with graph coordinates.

Today, Nate had fun learning. And I did too. I think we are once again on the right track for homeschooling Nate. I also bought a couple more workbooks for Language, and he still doesn't like to do that part. But, at least it isn't an all day process to get everything done, because he enjoys more of it. Check back and see what other fun stuff we are up to, as we learn together in this crazy adventure of Homeschooling Nate.