First off, let me say when I'm talking about what's going on in our home this summer I'm using quotation marks around "homeschooling" because I'm fully aware that it's not the real homeschooling some of my friends do. What's going on in our house is more pseudo-school than real homeschool. More like after school tutoring than school :)
I started out the summer with grand plans of "homeschooling" my son for about 2 hours each day, 5 days a week. I was figuring this would get him in a wonderful position to start his 1st grade year once school starts in August. The first week I was really good about that. The second week . . . I, uh, started slacking. After about halfway through the second week our "school" time was him playing Starfall every day while his sister rested and I got a bit of a break.
We're now a month in and only have 6 full weeks until school starts (1 of which we'll be out of town) so my grand plans have now gone completely out the window. I'm now to the point I'm just trying to make sure he didn't have a "summer slide".
In the past month I've learned (or confirmed):
**I'm not disciplined enough to be my child's teacher
**My son and I do not work well in a student/teacher relationship
**I'm lazy
**Coming up with age appropriate lesson plans is hard
**Choosing curriculum is a mind-boggling exercise
**Trying to figure out what my kids "should" know at this age is hard
**I have no clue how to do assessments and figure out if my kids are where they "should" be
I know if our family was committed to this full-time some of those things would work themselves out as I did further research and educated myself, but the truth is every time I've tried to think that way and look into standards and assessments I pretty much have a nervous breakdown.
I went into this summer with unrealistic expectations of our "homeschooling" time each day being a wonderful one-on-one time with my son. Instead it's become a very stressful thing that makes me thankful for teaching professionals :) Because I won't want to "ruin" my son's summer with a screaming stressed out Mommy we're doing much less "school" than I'd anticipated and I'm fully ok with that.
I'm also left with even more respect for my friends who have determined that homeschooling is the right fit for their family and who are in the trenches as both parent and teacher to their child.
Now, excuse me while I figure out what to do with the curriculum I bought when I got ahead of myself several months ago . . .
Well, if you have MUS Gamma I might be interested in purchasing it.... :)
ReplyDeleteHere's the thing: A lot of homeschool families only do 2 hours of school or so per day DURING the school year for kids of this age! So even a little bit...even Starfall...is awesome for summer.
Chickie is doing about 15 to 30 minutes a day, 4 days a week, this summer, and that's it. I have had plans of doing fun science stuff but we've done very little. We're just doing 7 minutes of a math facts app per day, and either one Spanish lesson or one (formal) math lesson. That's it!
Ok . . .seriously, even the idea of spending 2 hours homeschooling and getting the rest of the time with my kids during the day just eradicated a lot of my arguments against homeschooling for real:) We'll see what God has for us. And I'll e-mail you about the MUS Gamma that I ordered directly from them that is sitting unopened in our office/spare room :)
DeleteNumber 3 is hilarious! And honest. I'd be the same way. It's all I can muster to do Summer Bridge every day. I don't remember summer being anything like this as a kid - seems more like drudgery for my daughter, who'd rather be doing puzzles and painting pictures and swimming in the pool. But, we'll muddle on. Four pages a day and 30 minutes of reading. Thankfully she doesn't hate the reading part that much!!! Hang in there. I'm sure you're doing better than you give yourself credit. We moms can do that to ourselves.
ReplyDeleteLisa
Glad to know I'm not the only one :) My kids would much rather be swimming, too so I've kind of shelved my grand plans and am letting "school" slide for the most part. By being consistent with the Summer Bridge you've been more disciplined than me :)
DeleteHa! My "homeschooling" experience is pretty much the same. I do the Summer Bridge books, the library reading program, read one family book together at least every month and work on problem areas (like handwriting for my son). In past years I have been more successful but this year for some reason I get maybe an hour of real work in about two-three times a week.
ReplyDeleteI find that using life as it happens as teaching moments (both academically and spiritually) to be the most effective these days. Letting them figure out the tip o change after a purchase, acknowledging God's creation, etc.
Give yourself slack. Learning happens in all sorts of ways not just sitting down and doing school work.