Just wanted to pop over here and write a quick post to update everyone on our homeschool experiences.
This year, as mentioned in a previous post, we decided to try out a local homeschool charter. Let me tell you…this has been the BEST decision I have EVER made in regards to homeschooling! Its been everything I’ve ever needed/wanted, and then some!
What I needed, apparently, to get me to where I wanted to be, was just a little accountability. I’ve always done a lot of a things with and for my kids…but never was I happy that I was getting things in their path regular enough and working through specific curricula has just been such a struggle to stay on task. I was forever frustrated with what we WEREN’T getting done, that I really wanted to be.
I tried my hand at unschooling (educationally, not whole-parenting, which is called “radical unschooling”…which is an approach I do not agree with), and I still think this is a truly wonderful approach. It just didn’t work entirely well for me. I just am not good at constantly staying on top of what my kids are interested in, putting things in their paths, and quite frankly, for whatever reason, my kids are just not as interested in diving deeply into things as I see my friends’ kids are. This form of education just doesn’t seem to work for my kids and myself. We need a little more structure. I WISH it worked for us, but it just doesn’t.
Sooo…now that I have to report to someone what we are doing, I am staying much more on top of things. Now, I could never be happy if I had to “answer” to someone else…I mean, as in they are the authority and I am following their instructions. That just wouldn’t cut it for me…I KNOW what I need to be doing. I’ve known all along, for the most part. Just couldn’t get myself to DO it! So now that I am meeting monthly with someone to show her what we’re doing, I’m much more likely to make sure that we have things to show! Its WORKING! I am not changing my vision, I’m just DOING IT, finally!
I’ve always wanted to be doing structured, but fun, lessons with my kiddos daily. I’ve always wanted to have a relaxed, yet still regularly moving forward agenda. Now I chart things out and WE DO THE THINGS ON THE LIST! Amazing! LOL!
Despite my being pretty sure I’m A.D.D….I think that I have finally gotten a handle on this one problem that has plagued my existence for years. And now my kids are reaping the benefits. Maeven is whizzing through her math lessons, and getting caught up to where I think she should be. (NOT, where the public schools deem she should be…where I think she should be…I disagree strongly with the public school schedule of when kids should be learning what). Tyren is well on his way to reading and doing simple math…and we are reading more and learning more every day!
Things will continue to be tweaked here and there and I’m sure there’s still much ahead of us to figure out…I’ve still not managed to fold every subject in that I would like to…working slooooowly up to it so that its not like piling a huge amount of new things on at once….but we are really getting there!
I’m SO HAPPY!! And the kids seem to be as well! They enjoy their enrichment classes and have gotten to where they are not complaining loudly about the changes and are agreeing to cooperate because they are seeing its really not so bad…and even are having some fun! Hopefully lots more fun on the agenda in the future…that’s my goal!
