Homeschool Conventions and Contentions

Originally posted 4/25/11

So, we attended our second ever Great Homeschool Convention-Midwest last week. It is always overwhelming. There are so many great ideas & curriculum materials, all of a sudden you're thinking about buying something that 10 minutes earlier you didn't even know you wanted to teach! Violin, Chinese, Music Theory, Latin, dozens of others all sit in their respective booths screaming, "I thought you were going to do this right, this whole teaching your kids thing, but here you are and you don't even have a circuitry and electric work curriculum!" Wait a second, my second grader is a little young to be wiring real breakers, maybe next year.

We knew about the overstimulation this year though. We went with a list of goals (ie things we needed for next year) and tasks (things we were researching). Out of that 12 item list, we were able to cross one thing off, ONE. C'est la vie. It was a biggie. We bought Math-U-See's math curriculum. Math-U-See. It's pretty cool, all hands on and brain-using. Hopefully, it'll give the kid's some better tools for learning going forward. We were using Singapore Math. I do really like it but it only goes through sixth grade and Matthew needed a little more guidance through the concepts. I'm hoping the dvd's that come with the program provide that.

Contentions came in at the history section of our list. I love WinterPromise. We've been using their "Animals & their Worlds" curriculum for science this year. I am planning on using their "All American 1" curriculum next year. Shown here:

http://www.winterpromise.com/all_american_1.html

 My fabulous husband loves this one:

http://www.home-school-curriculum.com/product/paths-of-exploration

I am trying to be a good Christian woman, an obedient wife...but I'm not pulling it off very well. His is cheaper, mine is better. Oops, that's not what I should say. I'm so torn, POE looks good, but not great. AA1 looks great but WP is slow to ship and it'll drive me crazy til I get it.

In the Weeds

Originally posted 2/7/12

Welcome to February, we're behind and I'm frantic. I'm disenchanted with parts of our curriculum, can't afford new curriculum and have too much invested time-wise to start over anyway. To top it all off, I think I have iPad neck, you know, where you sit in a bad position too long staring down at a screen?

We have a Valentine's Day party Sunday. The house is a disaster, like some kind of 1970's B-list actor studded burning building disaster. Like the Mayans quit counting because they saw my house in their nightmares. Like...well, you get the point. So much for making a good impression on the homeschooling crowd :-/ There's only a few people coming anyway. I just wish we could get the whole place vacuumed, mopped & the dogs washed first. Oh, and laundry...16 baskets currently take up my living room. Course, Emma is starting multiplication this week. So I'm going to have to teach her extra and Matthew is having issues which I need to figure out if it's laziness or he's lost.

I'm in the weeds at work, too. Why does it all hit at once? I wish I could call my aunt to come clean. Man do I miss her. That would eliminate me working 6 hours after work every night.

Guess I should sleep...goodnight.

"Draw your chair up close to the edge of the precipice and I'll tell you a story..."

~Quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald

Originally posted 8/19/11

I feel poised on the edge of a precipice. We sent our official letter to the school district last week, our "official" letter. My head keeps screaming, "There's no turning back! THERE'S NO TURNING BACK!" For the most part, my heart says, "You're doing the right thing." I know that I need to quit looking for confirmation in our decision and realize that I make my own path. I still get a catch in my chest from it though.  I feel poised on the edge of greatness as well. If this works and it goes well, my two littles will have an incredible variety in their education, they will have limitless possibilities for expanding their intelligence and an education that is hand-crafted for them with their interests and learning styles solely in mind. The edge of a precipice, indeed.

I do worry though, it's what I do; who I am. I realized while looking through some grammar lessons that I don't believe I've ever heard of a gerund before...how can I POSSIBLY teach grammar and not know what a gerund is???? (it refers to the usage of a verb (in its -ing form) as a noun).  The non-lizard part of my brain acknowledges that I quickly figured out what a gerund was and how it fits into the lesson at hand. Additionally, it's part of a seventh grade lesson (which I'm currently teaching fifth and second grades).

We have taken a slight respite from our weekly schedule after having made the decision for sure. We wanted to allow the kids that last fluttering days of summer to play with friends, ride their bikes, and drag their grandmother to the creek.  Matthew needed a little more deschooling to bleed off some of the massive anxiety that he has built up around all things school. We got a postcard from his teacher yesterday, introducing herself and welcoming him to her room. I felt guilty, as though I could have gotten my letter in sooner and they wouldn't have held out a spot for my kids. I know that I couldn't have, but I still felt bad.  I may email her a note though so she doesn't give him a desk and put him on the cubbies, etc. The Homeschool groups tell you  that you shouldn't, but it just seems like a courtesy from here.

Time for work...or lunch anyway, more crazy later ^_^

Somedays, you need some umph!

Originally posted 7/25/11

I feel like we were making great strides, only to grind to a halt. I know my husband would say I'm exaggerating and in return I would argue, "You're right, we weren't really making great strides."

We made it through 2 weeks worth of lesson plans in 3-ish weeks. Since we're starting slowly and easing into it, I felt like that was acceptible. Then, we just made no progress last week. A tiny bit of independent reading that was more like dental surgery than happy homeschooling.

I feel like I'm floundering a bit. I'm second-guessing myself again and questioning whether this is all a good idea. Maybe I'm just dreading sending the letter and making it official. Then, in the same thought, I'm cursing myself for not pulling them all out when heather was a sophomore. Matthew would never have built up all this anxiety and Emma wouldn't have had to go to school. WHY do I think this will work again?

Then my parents, who earlier in the summer made it clear that they needed to cut back to one day a week, just had a breakdown on the phone because I was making sure they knew we were keeping them at the store tomorrow.

Idk, some days it's just too hard.

Welcome to Homeschool!

Originally posted 6/23/11

My Facebook today summed it up nicely:

"Welcome to homeschool...
Rule #1: There's no crying in homeschool.
Rule #2: There's no fighting in homescool.
Rule #3: There's no whining in homeschool.
Rule #4: There's no yelling in homeschool.
Now that we've broken all the rules, maybe we could open some books."

It actually went very smoothly (I'm sure it never will again). I kept putting things off until everything was perfect and the lesson plans were combined and on and on and realistically, it will never be perfect. So my parents bailed on watching the kids today & instead of calling my MIL, we took them and two huge bags of books to work and we just started.

Was it perfect? No. We had left Ereth's Birthday at my parent's house Monday night and I pulled the wrong independent reader for Matthew, but by golly, most everything else got done.

The kids did their reading together (mostly Matthew who's 10 did the read alouds). We discussed the readings, did our lesson in World of Animals and then did Spelling and LA. After a break to watch a movie, they came back individually and finished up LA and did their first lessons in Singapore Math. Emma (7) even did tomorrow's math because she enjoyed it.

We didn't make it to the Habitat book, but Tuesday's my busy day at work and I had to focus at the end of the day when UPS showed up 3 hours late with my big shipment for the week.

I let the kids mark off their assignments as they finished them in my book and that made them so excited. Next week, I'm gonna try that with the chore chart.

Here's hoping that we manage to fit in more lessons this week and that the kids are as agreeable when the grandparents are at work too.

While we were finishing up at work, my 7 yr old shot a podcast about homeschooling with special effects. She was playing with the built in camera on my Mac & just started doing this PSA about how great homeschool was. Once I figure out how, I'll post it. It was funny and sweet. She also interviewed her brother, but that devolved into chaos.