Taking time off for doctors appointments during the day and not doing our work in the evening has caused my daughter to be excessively behind.. To the point that she is still working on her mathbook from last year that just so happens to be 2nd grade level when she is in the 4th grade.. We can't seem to finish our books in a year and even though I say I'm going to school some in the summer to finish it up, I don't do it.. I get burned out with all that's going on around here and I take a week off because I'm exhaused.. I don't know how to get out of this "funk" that I'm in.. Surely I'm not the only one with this problem.. I'm so annoyed with myself! I WANT to sit down and come up with fun things for my daughters school but I don't even know where to start.. I do MUCH better when I'm sticking to a schedule.. i think it's because I have a goal. Right now, the only goal I have is to do school when we "feel" like it.. Today I went through all of our school work that we have done this year and seperated it into months to place into our homeschool binder. Then I put my daughters grades in the grade book. She's doing ok, but I feel like I need to add more to what she's doing than just her workbook pages.. Games and lapbooks and I don't even know WHAT I want.. I'm ONCE AGAIN feeling very inadequate.. She's been begging me to take her to the museum and on field trips.. She's SO bored. We live in the middle of nowhere with nothing like that near us besides a tiny museum that we visited not too long ago. She wants to make cookies and learn how to cook recipes out of recipe books. I am stuck in the public school mindset where if she doesn't do papers she's not learning. And besides, Once she gets up she's lost all interest in bookwork. A bit ADD. I'm not really a lazy homeschooler, I'm just overwhelmed really.. Sick hubby, sick son, excuses? maybe.. I want to do some christmas activities with her and make memories!!! She's such a sweet girl and I know I don't have long before she's not going to be "little" anymore.. She's 10 so technically she's NOT little, but she is my baby. Hmmmm. Maybe a homeschool advent calendar for her where we do an activity every day to count down christmas?? Just her and I.. I'm encouraging myself! LOL! Anyway, tomorrow we are going on a horse and buggy ride with our homeschool group.. The first outing we have been able to go to since August due to doctors appointments for my son and then my older daughter broke her arm and we had to miss that outing to take her to the orthopedic doctor and hubby's pain doctor appointment kept us from the time before that.. So it's been hard to make plans and stick to them anyway.. If you've read this far, bless you.. I'll shut up now.. I've rambled on long enough.. We have tomorrows outing and are looking forward to finally getting to join in with our group..
hugs, you do sound overwhelmed and wanting to do the right thing. I don't know your curriculum. Over here we (teachers) are taught to do activities. the less workbook the better, perfect if you use no worksheets at all! go cook with her. you can teach her math, physics, chemistry, following rules, biology, history, writing, art and much more simply by making a cake! I use cooking food in chemistry all the time, it works great and is super engaging.
WOW, Mommi, you do sound overwhelmed! (((((HUGZ))))) She's 10 -- she should be able to do a lot of her work independently, given in small doses. Even if she's ADD.
So, we weren't doing much book work (by choice, we were unschooling) but my youngest wants school work (workbook/worksheet type stuff) and my oldest decided he wanted some too. As I was trying to make this happen for them, it was hard, as it's not my style. The key for us was workboxes. Oh my goodness we all love them. We get so much more 'schoolwork' done! And they work independently better with the workbox system, they can just move on to the next box and LOVE putting their labels on the wall (after finishing a box).
I agree, workboxes might be a big help for you. You could even do work folders or something similar for days you need to be out of the home all day. Calm down and breath, you aren't going to ruin her, I promise.
And the saga continues.. We will be having even more doctors appointments in the near future as we begin our journey to fix my husbands back.. He can barely walk for all the pain and someone stepped up and offered to pay for ALLLLLLLL of the medical bills. Major prayer answered.. So gotta get some sorta plan in order for Lyndseys school on those busy days. We may be having a surgery in the near future and no telling what from there.. I'm NOT complaining AT ALL!! I've looked into workboxes before, but was overwhelmed with 4 kids.. It may be do-able now with only one.. Thanks for the reminder.
how nice someone helped you out there! Can you use the hospital treatment to teach as well? There is so much there you can use to teach.
Wow! That's huge! to pay the whole thing for his surgery! That's amazing! If it were me, I'd assign her some math, reading, and English to do independently each day and "catch up" with her (check her work, go over corrections) when there's time... She'll be worried about daddy too, so be lenient.
So glad he is going to get help with his back!! I know that has bothered him for a long time. I hope it helps him find comfort. Now... my suggestion, get your daughter a tablet. A cheap one running android should work just fine. You can load it with books, mp3s, and even videos.. grab some memory cards, they will be on sale soon. Remember, homeschooling doesn't have to look like school. Make it work for you and her.
Your daughter is learning that life can get messy and isn't always the way you planned. You do the best you can and move forward. That is an important thing to learn. If this is an unschooling year she will still learn a lot even if it isn't what you had hoped for this year. So exciting to have the help for your husband, but I am sure it will also be a hard time for your family. I'm praying for you guys. You mentioned wanting to do some Christmas stuff with your daughter so I thought I would share a couple links I have been looking at. They might be of interest to you, too. Journal writing prompts for the Christmas season. http://www.hiphomeschoolmoms.com/20...hristmas-season/comment-page-1/#comment-16328 Christmas themed books on homeschool share. http://www.homeschoolshare.com/connections__christmas.php Christmas Around the World Unit. http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/2013/11/christmas-around-the-world-unit-study.html
My baby is 10 too and is still finishing up her math from last year (we are majorly zooming through it and should be done in 1 week). Two years ago, before my son got his drivers license, I had to drive him up to the high school for a few classes he was taking. Instead of driving all the way home, doing a little school work, and then driving all the way back to the school to pick him up...we would go to the library a few blocks away from the school. There was this little area with comfy chairs, tables, a fireplace, and a big world map on the wall. It was like our special place (a fancy living room...at least fancy compared to our real living room :lol: ) to do some school work. What we had was a backpack that had specific stuff in it that was easy to do away from home. This included pencils, crayons, her geography book, handwriting book, spelling....oh, I can't remember what else. But the point is, which seems to be taking me forever to get to, is that the stuff is always in the backpack and ready to go...it was our school-on-the-go. Maybe you can have something like that for her when you have to be in the hospital. I know it's hard to do....because you probably don't feel like doing any school when you are there. But, even if it had stuff she could do mostly independently...at least *something* would be getting accomplished. As for the workboxes, we've been using them for a few years and I've tweeked my "system" many times. I've finally gotten it down to be easy-peasy. I bought a cute bin from Target that has black and pink stripes on it. I put all her stuff in there for the day. She just knows we have to get everything done in the box (but life often gets in the way and we don't always get it completely accomplished). It's been really working well. It's really easy to reboot the box for the next day, because most of her things stay in there from day to day (spelling, grammar, etc), and just a few things get switched to something else. I have a super easy list for each day (M & W are the same, T & Th are the same) so it's a snap to get the box ready. This just made it so much easier than having individual boxes or drawers for each subject.
Thanks guys!! My daughter asked for a tablet for Christmas along with a million other things.. She just may get it.. As far as learning during this time, we also have my oldest daughter who broke her arm a month ago and it REALLY peaked my 10 year olds interest in how bones heal and about the body in general.. Same thing with Dad. His bones in his back are broken, but they don't heal up like normal bones.. Some real life learning stuff going on here. Kinda makes her WANT to learn about it all.. Who knows, maybe she'll be a doctor.. Or a nurse.. She's always been interested in this stuff but even more so now. Maybe because it's so in her face.. She's a very inquisitive little gal. I LOVED that the nurse putting my 13 year olds cast on gave the 10 year old homework. Thermonuclear fusion is something that he told her about and told her to look up what a catalyst was.. LOL! He ended up explaining it all to her.. He said "now you can go and tell your teacher you know what these are and she's going to be so happy". LOL.. We didn't tell him she was homeschooled
