Easy for us but then I'd settled on unschooling and my kids have never been to school. The toughest years for me were probably the first year my daughter had real curriculum and last year which was just a bad, bad year all around for reasons mostly unrelated to homeschooling.
Ok, I was very overwhelmed! I was told to pick out curriculum in 2 days and do my best. I went with a basic curriculum in a box and it was OK. We struggled through the long wait to get the curriculum in and honestly there were just regular text books like PS used. I was trying to hit all subjects everyday. And push some concepts and ideas that were over their grade level. I finally evened out, took some advice from the kids. Went to 4 days a week with Friday as a Make-up day. (That way I could live life and still HS.) Things are better now. I one point I felt like we were struggling just b/c I didn't know what to do. I feel even better after talking to our teacher today.
for us it was not hard at all. My ds was always wanting to be in my class at the preschool/grade school that we worked at and when we chose to home school him he was fine with mom being teacher. He was the only one actually schooling that first Kindergarden year and so I gave dd play stuff and was taking care of my little baby at the same time. Dd would help by laying beside baby ds and playing with her stuff so he could feel presence of others, so this helped I am sure! All these years later, I think that was my easiest year! HA!
I'm finishing up my 3rd year, and they've all been hard!! The first was definitely the most difficult because I picked the wrong curriculum for us!
I look back on our first year and shudder. I honestly believe it was by the Grace of God that we survived and decided to try it for a second year. I pulled my oldest out of PS in sixth grade, DS2 was to start K, my three year old refused to be potty trained and screamed like I was killing him when I would put him on the toliet, my eleven month old never slept and was into everything(and escaped his playpen and baby bed), and I was six months pregnant with DS5. Now I look back and laugh but at the time it was so not funny. I also was fighting family that did not agree that we should homeschool and thought I wouldn't be able to handle everything. Let's just say I was so discouraged and felt like we didn't get much "book work" done but when the boys were tested at the end of the year, they aced the tests so I knew if we could learn through all that craziness, it had to get better from there. I love homeschooling my boys so much and I can't imagine doing anything else, but we pray and put it in God's hands and so far everything has worked out.
I'm really scared about this guys! It's just so much stuff it's overwhelming! I feel a little better that a lot of you didn't have a lot of problems you first year!
Just relax!!! Don't be afraid to have fun, and don't worry about keeping up with the Jones'. The kids will learn everything that THEY need to know for their own specific needs all in good time. Don't be afraid of being different
Rough 1st year (on some days). We bought a full curriculum with workbooks, DS doesn't really care for that. We do like Saxon Math. I hear every day "I hate school". I tried Unit Studies, he didn't like that. So, we are going to try Time4learning next year, he might go for that.
Our twins never went to a public school nor a kindergarten as my wife and I have been teaching them since they were toddlers. However, we did feel some anxiety when they were old enough to begin grade 1 and we didn't send them to school. The worst problem we faced was from some of our relatives and friends who criticized our decision to homeschool our kids. We weathered that and now no one bugs us. Homeschooling allows us to develop our children's talents. My kids can play the piano very well although they are only 9. That is because we have the time to teach and motivate them. I guess that if you believe in yourself, eventually you will succeed at homeschooling. Kris
I thought our first year was tough (five years ago) but it was a piece a cake compare to now with me teaching (sometimes trying) three children. I started out with a 5 year old and two babies and now I will be teaching middle school and elementary school (1st and 2nd).
Some times it is like that, you have a great plan though to switch things up a bit, I would also tell you some kids just hate school from books and you may find yourself studying up and doing hands on school more than from a book. What grade is your ds on?
ya, boys sometimes don't like it right away. I tried to make things more playing with school at that age. I always wanted to teach Kindergarten so I had a lot of fun with it. Be sure and use a lot of hands on in first grade too, I think we have a habit of growing our kids up too fast and the fine motors need the work, so we played with playdoh all the way to 3rd grade as part of arts and craft, when they got older we got self drying clay and what we read about, or history and geo , or just a story we liked we created characters from it. It was a great way to get them paying attention to stories.
Our first year with sd was tough. We pulled her out of high school mid 9th grade. The rest of that year was a little crazy since we had not planned on doing this. The next year was a year of adjustment and really trying to figure out what worked and did not work. My first year with dd doing 1st grade was much easier since I had time to prepare and go slow.
Nope, our first year was fun. This is our 4th year and we have had some difficulty this year. We moved ( that put us behind) I got seriously ill in December ( that put us behind even more) DS went to NY for a month ( behind again). So it looks like summer school but not the fun kind like we normally do. We school year round but summer is more like educational camp. I told DS if he wants that then he has to buckle down and with any luck we will be done by mid July. Then I will allow him to start school for 6th grade in late September. Despite all that he still has no desire to return to PS.
