Hey everyone, I found this board today and joined because I really need some advice/support. We just started homeschooling this fall. I have a 4th grader, a kindergartener, and a 9 week old baby. We bought ABEKA curriculum for both students and did a 2 week homeschool trial this summer. The trial went fine, I had my baby 3 weeks later (July 22), then we started school again on Aug 15. We had a few rough patches with my 4th grader adjusting, especially to ABEKA math, but I honestly feel like homeschool is going well. The kids seem to enjoy it and are doing well with their work. My problem is that I feel like I'm drowning. My husband works full time, and I work two days per week. I also have the baby, plus all the housework that comes with a family of 5. My hubby is very involved with our church and volunteers a lot there. He is also the cubmaster for our local cub scout troop, which is quite time consuming. We live in the country with 7 acres and have a lot of farm/yard stuff to do as well. He is a great provider, father, and husband but he helps little to NONE with the housework. I am just totally overwhelmed. My house is trashed, the laundry is piled up, and I'm exhausted. We wanted to homeschool because we wanted more time with our kids while they are young. I have more time with them, but feel rushed a lot, and DH really doesn't have any more time with them than before. I feel like I'm not giving them my best a lot of days though because I'm so run down and I feel like my mental health is suffering since I have no "me" time. I am considering putting them back in PS after Christmas break because I feel like I'm doing this alone and I can't keep up this pace. People always say "the first year is the toughest", but I don't know what they mean by that. Is this normal for year 1, or have I taken on too much with our busy schedule, the newborn, working, and homeschool? I don't really want to quit HSing, but something has got to give and I don't know what else to do. Thanks for reading! Meg
Awe hugs honey! The first year can be a little rough. Don't worry about your house and don't worry about schedules right now. You'll get into a groove before you know it. Relax and enjoy this time with your kids and your new little one. I homeschooled my oldest while the others where napping even if it meant we only able to get in 20 minutes at a time. Your kids are learning so much by living and taking care of a farm. Take a deep breath and relax. You may feel like your drowning in a sea of laundry and dirty dishes but your staying afloat trust me. One thing about homeschooling is you can do it all day long if you wish. Do a little in the morning, do a little in the afternoon, and do a little in the evening. It will get done. Asking for help from family and friends is allowed too. Even Michelle Duggar had someone come over once a week to help her with laundry. Taking a bite out of elephant is easier to do than trying to eat it all at the same time. When my kids were little I would get up a little earlier than them and quietly do some chores. Folding clothes was therapy for me and I still enjoy it sometimes. Hope you feel better today and have a wonderful weekend. We are all here to encourage and help you.
Hey Meg, I'm in a similar state. However I don't have a new baby. Teaching two cirriculums (sp) is tough. Doing it with an infant won't be any easier. I myself, started in February, not because I wanted to spend more time with my children, but because every year is a crap shoot with what kind of teacher my kids will get. My daughter is in grade 5 this year.but by the middle of grade 4 she had been eased through the system where only 2 out of 5 teachers seemed adaquately prepared to TEACH. One teacher was just getting her feet wet in her first year at the school. The other teacher who was ill-equipped was spending half of his instructional days getting ready to be vice president of the teachers union and was NEVER there. And her 4th grade teacher, a new daddy, teaching a split class of 30 students and attempting to be a "fill in principal" was cracking under the pressure, yelling alot and doing things like reading all of the childrens test results alloud. The kids who got A's got an ego boost;the kids like my daughter who got C's or less felt less than fine. I HAD to bring them home!! It's not easy. But it's worth it. My daughter has gone from being a C average (barely some days) to getting A's in math and acheiving a C+ in lanugage arts for the first time. Yes, the house takes a bit of a beating initially. BUT you will and can find a rythem. Don't give up. I wish you luck. lol now i had better get back to teaching my kids. Recess is over. Have a great day. Kelly.
You definately have alot on your plate right now. Using abeka is definately a help being that it is a boxed curriculum but it also can be very overwhelming. Don't try to complete everything or you will have a very long day. Maybe you have already found your nitch. I wouldn't be ready to give up so soon. All this is new to you and your kids. It does get easier as time goes on. Maybe in a month or two you will find that public school is the best choice for your family and that would be fine too. My suggestion though would be to give it a little more time. (((hugs)))
I agree with Lee. But, I also would have to say.. you need to talk to dh about it. Tell him its to much and you need help around the house. you work outside the home too, beside inside the home and you just can't do everything. Let him know up front that you need help. You want this hs stuff to work but with baby, farm, house work, hs and work you are burnt. Hopeful he will kick in and don't forget part of hs is to give the children chores to learn how to cook, clean, wash all the fun stuff that goes with home ec. (((((HUGS)))) take a deep breathe and talk to dh.
I started my 1st homeschool year with a newborn too, although I only have one older child. Suggestions I can make: don't try to do every subject every day. You don't even have to do school 5 days a week, and you'll still cover more material than in public school. Get your oldest to do more chores, this counts as school because they're learning how to take care of real life! If you're involved in your church, ASK FOR HELP! I'm sure that there will be plenty of people who wouldn't mind coming over with dinner, or who would help you with laundry. Also, my first year, we barely did any outside activities, and used most of our time to just try to learn how to homeschool. Now DD is 1, and DS is 11, and year 2 is going so smoothly, I'm almost afraid! We are doing a lot more weekly activities, and we started going to church every week. Plus field trips and all of that jazz. But our first year was nothing like that. Good luck with everything.
Aw, thank you everyone for being so encouraging! Almost made me cry... I definitely don't want to throw in the towel yet, because I enjoy the school part of our day and I can already see benefits in our kids. My MIL also suggested giving the kids chores to do. They feed the animals and put away their clothes, and other things as I ask, but maybe it would be beneficial to have a chore chart where they would be responsible for unloading the dishwasher, vacuuming, and other household things? I did scale back the ABEKA assignments some, but maybe I need to do that more. My son loves reading and reads almost anytime he has a chance, but for whatever reason, I still feel like we have to do ABEKA reading every day. :roll: I know I just probably need to get over it and relax more. It's hard to do that though, KWIM? Does anyone just give 'satisfactory' or 'unsatisfactory' grades in any subjects, or do I need to always have an A-F grade? Kris- I have talked with him quite a bit, and told him how I feel. He really likes that we're homeschooling and doesn't want me to quit. He says he will help more but he needs a list of things that need done. I wish he would just see what needs done and do it, but I guess he's not wired that way. I will try the list this week. Thank you all so much for helping me! I want to make it through at least this year and it's great to hear from so many ppl with experience.
Yes, make a chore list for the kids! I have my 11 yr old doing all kinds of chores first thing in the morning before breakfast. Make your DH a list too, if it will help! And, unless your state requires some type of grading system you don't have to use one at all. My first year, anything DS got wrong, we went over together and figured out why it was wrong, then he was allowed to redo the problems. Yes, you can relax, and don't have to complete every assignment from Abeka. You can skip an assignment here and there! (I had a hard time with this concept, trust me). It's not easy, but I wouldn't trade this life for anything!
You're not alone! Most of the time, the kids get dressed from the pile of laundry on the couch, I usually have to wash a glass just to get a drink of water, the living room has to be excavated just to get to the front door, and I haven't had a matching pair of socks in about 4 years. My husband and I have very traditional roles, so I don't get any help there. Basically, this is what homeschooling looks like. You'll get your house back eventually, and some day you'll have all kinds of time to yourself. But these are such precious years, when your kids are young, so enjoy them while you have them. Relax, take a breath, and remember it doesn't all have to be done in one day.(or even one week!) If something has to give, let it be the stuff that doesn't matter. No one will stand around at your funeral someday and go, "Her house was always so clean!"LOL
OK, you had to go and bring up the list thing. I am in my 1st year hs also so I thought I'd just watch and keep the trap shut. But you had to mention the list. That's what I do. I have a list for everything! While I don't have a little one, I have one in ps and one hs right now. We run a pretty busy business out of our home and dh is trying to run between our house & his mothers to help her. We live by the work calander - everything home & work is written there or not done. I have a list of chores to be done by the day that I have posted. I have a list of things to do by the day for the business. I have a weekly list of hs stuff to do. I have a list of long term things to be done for home, work & hs (like painting the Living Room, advertising, making curric. and things like that). DH used to laugh at me for it but I write a list every morning. Now when he offers to help I have exactly what I have planned for the day & I pick out what I'll let him do.:lol: Really, I find it alot easier with lists. I find when I get interupted 20 times trying to get something done, I remember exactly what I was doing and can get right back in the swing alot easier. The trick is to schedule yourself more than enough time to get it all done. I find I don't worry so much about what doesn't get done because I can see I am making progress. I still feel overwhelmed much of the time but I think it's getting better. Oh yeah, NO men cannot just see what needs to be done & do it. It's a companion disease to selective hearing called selective blindness. Hope it gets better for you. Debbie
I sometimes feel like I can only get two things done a day: school and cooking! And thats okay, there are other days where I get more done and there are some days I don't. I think chore charts help, but you have to stick to them. There are some great printable charts out there. Maybe a check list of what needs to be done each day, that everyone can see (even hubby!). I also love having workboxes for my kids school. I find that they get more work done with seeing exactly what they have to do each day. I also fill a few boxes with independent work too that they don't need me right there to do it, so I have a few minutes to get the dishes done, laundry, etc. It does get better, this is our third year and it is going smoother, even if I don't get housework done every day, we are having lots of fun!
Meggo, ABEKA is good, fine, cool. But as a reading teacher, I assure you that if your son is that devoted a reader, he IS getting what he needs. Take it easy on yourself with the ABEKA. Sometimes curriculum starts to control the learning, rather than *learning* controlling the learning. I truly believe you should take it easier on yourself. Buying a curriculum doesn't make it gospel. If he is reading, growing, expanding—you're doing great. That's my non-parent 2 cents. :/
We tend to "try" to keep up on the basics during the week (dishes, general pickup) and do catch up on the weekends. My kids are a little older. But even my youngest who is 6 helps by unloading the silverware from the dishwasher. We tend to start school first thing often during breakfast, and take some breaks from school during the morning to do a few chores, get back to school etc. We usually finish most of our book work by lunch. If there are a few things left we put them off till evening, or sometimes just skip a subject and start again the next day. Afternoons I work in my store and sometimes the younger one or two go with. Sometimes they stay home with my oldest. I leave chores for my oldest to complete in the afternoon. It would be doubly hard to do this with an infant! But it does get easier! Definitely try to do some school during naps. You might also consider hiring a young teen after school to come in and be a mom's helper. She can help with chores, help with the baby, whatever you need! It's not quite like babysitting because you are there, but a 12 or 13 year old can help a LOT! Good luck! Keep us updated!! Edie
No one fails out of my homeschool Both of my kids are 'A' students because we repeat anything they don't understand. Although I do give tests, I set them up to succeed- no tests on material they don't get. The other ladies have great advice, but I just wanted to throw this out there: it takes time for things to work smoothly. It is kind of like riding a bike: it might be wobbly for a little while but it STILL counts, right? Homeschooling is the same way. And don't forget that a TON of learning happens when kids are left to find something to do. We had a crappy homeschooling week this week for personal reasons.. by Thursday we were doing bare bones. Yesterday we did nothing- but you know what? Dd was READING to dh on her own. Ds has spent several days learning to use his webcam and how to make a movie, not to mention a little bit about internet safety (he won't be chatting with it!). They are still learning even when I'm not covering my 'official' sequence. Those days COUNT too! I have no experience with Abeka, but with ANYTHING 'official' that we've used, we take what we need and move on. Sometimes I add to it if I feel like it's skimpy. But sometimes I subtract as well. My kids have 25 practice examples on each math page, but ds does 15 and dd 10. Why? Because that's all they NEED to do to get most concepts right now. And that's the point- not busywork and boxes to check, but learned concepts. When your kids have it, move ON even if you didn't follow the manual kwim? Public schools repeat things ad nauseaum so that all kids can get it. You DON'T have to emulate that in your homeschool. Switch the focus from what the book teaches to what YOU want your kids to know. (((hugs))) It WILL get easier!
Over the weekend, DH helped me get the house in decent shape. I made a chore chart for everybody and we went over it with the kids. Everyone has chores and an assigned day to them, even me. I think that will help me use my time better when I do have time. I also got lessons planned for the next 3 weeks and I cut out some of what we were doing. For my 4th grader, I spread a spelling list out over 2 weeks instead of 1, only doing language arts twice a week, and no reading lessons, just letting him read on his own and we'll do a book report together. Also, instead of a math lesson everyday, I made some days just review days or flash card days. I printed out his assignments for the week so that he can work on some of the things he doesn't need my help with before breakfast. I also let him pick what we'd do next in science. For my K student, I am using some "funner" books, like a connect-the-dots book, and a different math book that has more fun activities in it than the ABEKA stuff. We're also just going to read more. This morning went great! I got done feeding the baby and came downstairs at 8:30. My son already had his math done. We ate breakfast and they did their chores, then we did school while the baby napped. We were totally done with school by 11:30 and I've had time to do some bill-paying and vacuuming today! Thanks for all your suggestions and advice! Hopefully today isn't just a fluke and everyday will be this enjoyable. :love:
I didn't read all the responses but one thing that comes to my mind is that perhaps your husband's volunteering is what needs to be given up during this particular season of your lives. First ministry is always your own home and family and right now perhaps he'd be best off putting in more time there until the kids are a bit older. Cub scouts, etc is an EXTRA curricular. There's no "extra" in your schedules right now. Cub Scouts vs. Education... hmmm, not really a very tough choice. In a couple years your 4th grader will be a bigger help with chores and helping care for siblings (which are fantastic life-building skills they don't learn in ps) and the schoolwork will be more independent. Hubby sounds like he has a great big heart. But he needs a little perspective is all. =)
