Hello everyone! I have been reading a little on this site, and already it's been a huge blessing to me! I'm pretty much alone in my homeschooling journey. We have very little outside support or groups. And the thing is -- we kinda like it that way. We have church and church friends, and a few friends we see occasionally. But it seems everything I read says I need to "get involved", "get a group", "make more friends"! I wanted to know what others think about the idea of -- family is enough most of the time. We are blessed with one good set of grandparents, and they help with the kids a lot. The other question is -- the dreaded "s" word -- structure. This is our 3rd year, and every year is about the same -- I'm a crazy guilt ridden mess by the end of the year. And the kids are normal, happy and pretty well learned. When I worked in public work, I was neat, organized and meticulous. Now, for some reason, not so much. I just struggle to sit down for hours on end every day and do the same boring things over and over. This year I've gotten a curriculum that will force more of an organized school session. What strategies do you guys employ to force yourselves to keep going even when you are up to your ears fed up and tired with the routine? Thanks!!!
I do a couple things. I start out with a master plan for the whole year - this is not a day to day plan AT ALL. I take each chapter of our history text and plan out the readings, quizzes, etc. and everything I want to accomplish in that chapter (I consider each chapter a unit study, and wrap as much as I possibly can around the history - sort of like Sonlight, but without them telling me how to do it. I hate people telling me what to do!!! LOL ). Then, each month, I make a monthly schedule for each kid. We spend roughly 4 weeks on each chapter, there are 9 chapters in the master texts, so that gets us basically 9 months of school - allowing for breaks, and also, usually a week on the front end that's just math, grammar and reading, and a week on the back end, too. I'd be happy to share a copy of my docs so you could get a feel for what I do, if you'd like to see them. Might help to know what grades your working with so that I know which of my kids schedules would help you more. Feel free to PM me.
I schedule buffers into the year. I try to schedule 4 days of work in 5 days, knowing that something will always come up. If we get 5 days done, that's great. It builds the buffer for entire weeks when everyone is sick, for example. I also have a master plan for the year that says we need to do (chapter) by (date) to keep on track. When we do the work really doesn't matter as long as it's done by that date. If it's not, we have to catch up by doing 5 day weeks until we're on track.
First welcome Second is family enough most of the time... heck yeah! Your kids will be fine, I promise. Third.. Schedule??? That word and I do not see eye to eye..lol I have found what works best for me is to figure out how much of each subject we need to do a week to get it done in a year at the start, then I figure out how often a week we need to hit it to get that amount done in a week. I then make a list like this: Monday: Math Reading Grammar Spelling Science PE Read Aloud Tuesday: Math Reading Handwriting Social Studies Art Spanish Read Aloud Wednesday: Math Reading Grammar Spelling Science PE Read Aloud Thursday: Math Reading Handwriting Social Studies Music Spanish Read Aloud Friday: Math Reading Grammar Spelling PE Read Aloud Fun/hands on activities.. could be games, science or social studies projects, nature walks, etc I like the Tanglewood Corebook for helping figure this all out if you don't want to do all the thinking yourself.
Each family is different. We aren't very active in a lot of stuff. I do belong to a couple of homeschool eloops and get good info from there about field trips and such. But like you, most of the time family is enough. We live next door to my parents. A good friend lives 2 doors down. And my children have never met a stranger... As far as structure,t his is our first structured year. We've unschooled up until this year and the kids learned plenty! I find being structured has it's pros and cons. If unstructured works for you and your then go with it! You don't have to be structured just because PS is or someone else told you to. We chose more structure this year because we felt the kids needed and wanted it. So far it's going great, but if that changes then so will our plans, that's the beauty of homeschooling!
I hope I'm replying properly here. My message may end up in oblivion somewhere. Thank you all for the thoughtful replies. Even though you all are doing it a bit differently, I see that the most common thing is to start with the big (yearly goal) and break it down into smaller chunks. I don't usually do that very effectively, but I'm going to try it this year. Thanks again!
Personally, I think I would be all over the place if I didn't use a set curriculum! You are not alone there. It really helps for me to have our books set out that we are going to use, and we just go through them one by one until we are done. As far as being super-involved, we are not either. We have church on Sundays and Wednesdays, and we sometimes enroll the kids in soccer, swimming, or something else. I think having too much going on would just drive me crazy. If I am feeling just too overwhelmed during the year, I will have my husband take over a subject, which really gives both my child and I some relief.
I'm new also, to home schooling and to the forum. I'm having a hard time finding my balance. I don't want it to be like public school, but not too lax either. All of the responses are so helpful. After stumbling on this forum today I feel some relief already!
I do what others have already stated. I take my curriculum make what I call a year at a glance spreedsheet... this tells me what I need to accomplish for the year, then I take it a week at a time and each week write.. (really type then print) weekly goals for both my girls. It helps me to know where we are in our studies and helps the girls know what I expect from them. Welcome to the Spot, btw!
We use set curriculum with lesson plans (Bob Jones, Abeka, Teaching Textbooks). For me, this is the easiest way to work. I don't always follow the lesson plans exactly but for the most part they take the guess work out of it for me.
First - family yes. We do not belong to the local co-op at this time. I have a couple of reasons for that - mostly that the majority of my kids are still too young for it. But my kids are best friends, during the summer they're outside with the neighbors all day long, do summer camp, attend church etc. So yeah they get their socialization outside of our school day. They also have 8 cousins that they see regularly. As to the structure thing. I do what others have said. I've looked at our curriculum and set end goals - for most things it's "finish the whole grade book" and then I try to divvy that up into what I want to get done each month. It's not an exact science and there are certainly days we don't do everything. I used to be a head teacher at a daycare before I had my own children. My classroom was always decorated nicely, organized, clean, the kids did fun projects all the time. I have struggled a LOT with my apparent inability to make this happen with/for my own children but I have to remind myself that at that time I had no children so my OFF hours were truly OFF. I have no OFF hours as a mom and a ton of added responsibility I didn't have 7/8 years ago. I often think that if we had a separate building to go to for school during the day that things could run more smoothly like they did when I worked in the daycare. But as I don't have the option I just trudge along.
My schedule for the year does do a day by day break down but it is really a generic one. I lay it out for 4-5 days a week for some where between 32-36 weeks on each subject. This way I know approximately what I need to get done each day in order to finish. That does not mean that I sometimes move stuff around, combine it or break it up during the year but the daily schedule gives me the overall picture so I can keep myself on track. I also use Sonlight because I like their schedule (although I have been known to tweek it when I need to). As for co-ops or hs groups I really like ours. With us though dd is now the only one at home since her big sister has moved down to Florida for college and maybe gets back up here once a year. Having our co-op is a place for dd to meet up with other kids and feel a connection, to know that homeschooling is normal. Our group also does some great support for parents which I really need sometimes. Every family needs to do what works for them. For some folks groups are not the way to go and that is ok. You do what is right for you.
I do have a separate building. Several blocks away, so that I need to drive there. Uh, ... no. I have only my grandson with us for school (at my house - we also school Other People's Kids at the school building). I can't say it helps anything to go any smoother, and my house is not cleaner, and my schooling is not any more organized. Than it was when we were hs'ing only DS only at home. In fact, two locations gives me two locations to clean and keep organized!
I think you will find a lot of help here. I did several years ago! I find myself structured more so at the beginning of the year and then I slack in the Winter months a little and pick it up again in Spring. I try and set a schedule of time, and then it gets messed up by the child I am working with. Ds only now is 15 this year and we will have a new schedule as soon as I see if he gets PE with the church school our church has. If so then we get Band and Pe and will school me teaching him but down at the Church most days of the week. My point here is that we as home schooling parent/teachers have to adapt to suit the child. Some will work well with mega structure some will need the lax. Happy Home schooling is not worrying about the difference but living it!
Family time is essential!!! And if for you that means limited (or no) outside activities, fine. Wouldn't work for me, but your homeschool doesn't have to look like mine (or anyone else's). You can accurately assess your kids' needs (AND YOUR OWN!!!). If you don't feel they need lots of outside "socialization", then don't sign them up for it. If you're comfortable with what you're doing without a lot of input from outside sources, that's fine, too. And we're here to listen and advise if you want us.
I am so excited about all the answers here! So. very. excited. It helps so so much just to see how different, yet the same everyone is. If that makes sense! ^_^ I have joined a local co-op, so I'm interested to see how much it demands of us. If it's too much, I'll definitely have to pull out. But I'm game for trying. I wish I could go through line by line and respond to everyone because so many things ran through my head while I was reading. But overall, just.... thanks. Really. I've never had any type of support before now, and I am so relieved to have somewhere I can just ask all my stupid questions and feel like I belong. <3
I have been researching this extensively (we are new HSer's also...if we decide to HS, haven't figured that out yet) but in the event we DO HS, I wanted to have an idea of what our year is going to look like. First for us, we are deciding whether a year round approach is best. Not full time year round, lots of breaks. We plan on traveling a lot and I think building our breaks into the days we are traveling will help decide when to have our "vacation days". That way we don't have to take our HS material with us on our trips. Secondly, after we decide how to layout the year, then decide what subjects we will be teaching this year. The obvious ones are laid out by state law. Texas is lax on what constitutes a private school, but there are subjects that must be taught> Next, we are adding in extra curricula's that appeal to MY children. For us, Phy Ed, Art and foreign language are definites. Other once or twice a week subjects will include Geography and Science. MAYBE history by using the American Girls theme (we will make our own depending on what books the library has available). Then, I will look at which curriculums I will need for us personally. This first year I will most likely buy most the important ones, reading, writing, math and Language arts as well as our Spanish foreign language so that it's all laid out for us. Lastly, I will make our extra curricular activities schedule and then do school around that. May sound weird, but because my older daughter will be in gymnastics every day instead of 3x a week and my younger daughter wants to try ballet and soccer, I have to find groups that they can join because those are taught by others. Then I'll focus our schooling around those times. My daughters gymnastics program has a homeschooling group that meets 8-11am so my younger daughter would do school during that time. Then I'm hoping to find a playgroup for her in the afternoon's (she is a social butterfly) while I do schooling with my oldest daughter. We'll see how ti works. To be honest we have not completely decided upon homeschooling yet. PUblic school is a very good option too, but since I'm a stay at home mother and both children will be full time school this year, I'm feeling very chaotic inside about what is this step in MY life supposed to be. That's my take
Shelly, you might want to consider books on CD while traveling. It's a great way to pass the time. There's lots of "fun" educational stuff you can do while traveling.
