Building on the Rock - My First Week

Back to my experience so far: 

It was a rocky start.  I went to begin it on Monday, and the CD that has the power point and pdf stuff was nowhere to be found.  I searched and searched and searched, gave up, and we didn't do it on Monday at all.

On a whim on Tuesday, I checked the drive of the desktop computer.  Voila!  There it was.  So, on Tuesday, I put the CD into my laptop, grabbed my cute little remote, and we did two days worth.

It went so well, and the kids enjoyed it.  Having the PowerPoint thing made it SO EASY.  I don't understand why I didn't grasp that this was there.  Probably because I was totally overwhelmed by the pages and pages and pages (and pages, and pages, and...) of documentation they give me.  

In reality, yes, I read the pages of documentation about a year and a half ago, and felt totally overwhelmed and unwilling to start it.  So maybe that helped, I don't know.  But how it worked in real life?  I opened up the teacher book to the page where I was supposed to start, I started clicking my little remote, and I read from the book and/or the slides.  It was fast, it was easy, I felt competent, and the kids had fun.  That was the first day.

Wednesday was even easier.  Thursday, the kids decided that we did need to use the posters, so they dug them out (they were hiding behind the cookbooks) and found the appropriate posters for what we were doing.  Again, it was easy, straightforward, and I LOVE my remote :)  

Friday was long.  So I've found one thing I don't like about the program... the first four days took 10-15 minutes each.  Today was a half hour, easy.  Which is fine, except I expected no more than 15 minutes.  I loved it though.  Specifically, we were learning about obedience.  What mom doesn't appreciate a well-written lesson about why you need to obey your parents?  :)

The kids wanted to know if we have to wait until Monday to do it again.  They think we should do this every day of the week.  I may 'indulge' them in this!  I just wish I had started earlier.  So I guess that is TWO things I don't like.  The materials are overwhelming.  Very easy to use when you start, but incredibly overwhelming to just look at and grasp.  I very nearly called Summit to beg to come in and have *them* do the first lesson with my kids, I was that overwhelmed by the whole thing.  I know very few of you would have that option, and sometimes I think I should have...

Anyway, I think that when I get a bit further, I am going to contact them and volunteer to put together a "quick start guide" for homeschool moms.  If I had a couple paragraphs of suggestions, I would have started using this 1.5 years ago, when I intended to do it.  Maybe it would take more than two paragraphs, but certainly a single page.