NOT.OUR.BEST.
I'm worn.
The kids are worn.
There are days it's been plain painful.
I have been mentally distracted by all of the "upheaval" and is this job interview changing this, or that. I've had my phone glued to me and straight up, it's been UGLY. This cascading of everything runs into the kids. We've said "yes" to too many things and the ease of homeschooling does translate sometimes to too many interruptions because it falls under the "well, you homeschool so you can just make it up right?"
The problem with that is that it can snowball like crazy and then you are buried, suffocating to survive, and then explosion. Trust me. It's not pretty.
So, let's break down some hard realities of where we are so far. Here is a nitty gritty post of how homeschooling isn't all roses.
My boys, let's start with them, have done mostly math and english. Co-op has made up for some science and home-ec classes over the first semester, but let's be honest 12 weeks out of 18 or so is not sufficient.
Period.
We are still using Sonlight Core C for their history and Bible but it's hard to push for it everyday because there is so little to read. OR we read the entire week in a single day.
Now, this is great for those other 3-4 days of our week (depending on the week) that we have school and there is a huge blowup day. History was done on Monday so "you're good", right? Wrong. I want to use those other days then to dive into their topic but blowups with attitudes or strong willed children wear me out. It wears them out and by the time we need to sit down to do their reading/history, etc, I'm spent.
Again, co-op, in theory, did cover things for the boys the first semester.... The youngest had PE, art, science, cooking, and some grammar. The middle guy had cooking, elections, Total Language Plus, chess, and art. When I break it down that way it sounds like they still got some good subjects in, but seriously is a single day a week enough for some of that? Ugh...
Their Science.... love love love it! BUT... when you are spent and they are spent, and finances only cover your monthly bills and sometimes groceries, and you don't always have materials at home for the experiments you get defeated. Now, I have a friend who uses this same curriculum and she just skips over the lessons she doesn't have the materials for and does the ones she does. Sounds great! However, my type A personality looks at it all and sees where some lessons are connected to the ones before it and I start to twitch if they aren't done in order. So, in true defeated nature, I push it aside.
I told you, not our best year so far.
I'm hoping that turns around this semester. Can we school all summer to make up for the lack of "gusto" this last semester? I genuinely feel like we need a do over!
I know, I know... but this is why you homeschool. I can assure you the memories made so far this school year are not the ones to write home about describing with roses all the "outside of the text" kind of learning that has taken place. It's my last year of middle school with my oldest too. It's been rough.
This girl has taken on a lot. Yet like the boys, there is no art or music, or extras... just core work. Algebra 1... kicking her tail in some areas. Biology and reading from the text herself... bogging her down to no end. Add in reading of History on her own (because she's 8th grade, she knows I have 2nd grade and 4th grade I'm helping with too so she wants to do it on her own)... She's getting worn out.
So, we have decided to start her Biology over, from the start... yippee, right!? Right? Instead of starting Apologia reading all over again though we paid for her to start Dive Science's self paced e-course. Now, this is the time I plug in that this course was one I was pushing for in the summer to do, but she loved General and Physical Apologia and begged to do the Apologia Biology book so we let her give it a go. Neither course is a joke y'all. However, what she will admit, begrudgingly... because she has a "rep to protect", is that we should've definitely started with Dive. Having a video instructor explain and show breaks down the material she read so much that it makes sense. I highly recommend Dive!! Highly!!
Math for her. Oh lordy. For the most she's nailing the daily work. There are things we've had to take slower for a concept to sink in, but when it comes time for the test, because let's be real... life has been too busy for true studying... she gets the concepts, yet doesn't. They throw so many similar formulas at her that she uses one when she should've used the other. I'd get upset but it's taken even me a few extra minutes and the aide of the teacher's guide to be like, "Oh okay, hold on, I see what they did here." SO.... we are taking Algebra 1 slow. Again, I have a friend who used Algebra 1 over a year and a half or so, peachy, but we've always finished math in one school year. Always. The knowing of we are "behind" in Algebra is making both my daughter and I twitch and feel defeated.
Again, yeah I know... it's one of the perks of homeschooling. Taking it slow and making sure they know things, but I'll be frank, so much of my mind with that is stuck on the brick and mortar mentality. Yes, even after 9 years of homeschooling.
To help elevate some of her reading alone we started back to her reading her History lesson out loud to all of us.... that counts as a 2nd history for the boys right? Even though some of the time you know they aren't "listening" listening. They are but they aren't.
Ugh!
Again, not our best year.
My daughter's English we started off with... ugh. Not our favorite. So we made it to where her reports during her Current Events class at co-op would be her english/writing grade. This next co-op semester (that starts next week) she'll be taking a vocabulary & sentences class.... hello, english grade for the rest of the school year. Her history reports are being added into that grade as well. So, we are throwing out her English book from the start of the year.
I probably shouldn't have written this on raw emotions but I desperately wanted to get "onto paper" a midyear update.
I still have no idea what is going on with anything in our lives. I don't know what God has in store about how we school here, but we are trying to start the last couple weeks with a fresh outlook, and attempt to have a way better 2nd semester than we did first. The cell phone is set aside... God told me to be STILL this year so thought of our future I've been trying to block out. The not thinking about or "planning" seems to be helping. I'm focusing only on a day at a time.
Co-op craziness starts up next week. The chaos of that will stress me out. Just being honest. But the attack on our home and schooling from Satan has gone too far. We gave into the fight too much last semester. He wore us down and we have some battle scars to show for it, but in the end of this year I claim we will be the ones victorious!
Because despite how awful all of the above sounds the heart of all of it is Satan trying to beat us up about the season we are in. He's given us plenty of times to talk and bring our bad days back to God and call out who is truly behind the issue we are arguing about.
So, here is to a second semester that is already underway. To new schedules. Some new curriculum (I forgot, we changed the boys' spelling curriculum as well.). To prayerfully having a major turn around and lots of learning and retention taking place.
This is the path He's called us to... There is a lesson He wants us to learn in this... We can't possibly be the only homeschoolers who had years like this and still ended up successful.
So, yea first semester has stunk! But we refuse to let it define the rest of our year.
Come on 2nd semester.
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