This last month has been a challenge. Isn't getting back into an organized schedule always a challenge??

Schedules

Speaking of schedules, I have one now, which is a sight bit better than where I was this time last year. As with homeschooling, though, it took some time to get it to where it worked. It seems like it is very easy for a beginning homeschooler to fall into the perfect homeschooler trap, isn't it? I did it. I will probably do it again before this journey is over. This time it was over the schedule.

See, perfect homeschoolers are up before the sun (preferably on their homestead) reading the Bible, making homemade bread, and preparing a huge made-from-scratch breakfast for their family (of no less than 6 children).

I did the homemade bread thing last year. I still love homemade bread. On special occasions. For a snack. My loaves never turn out "sandwich size."

So this year, it was the up before dawn thing.

Oy.

I am, by my very nature, a night owl. I always have been. I can get up early if I have to be somewhere, but if my only pressing obligation is hanging out with a bunch of cranky, over-tired kids, well....let's just say I'll hit the snooze button.

Anyway, I was bound and determined to be up at 6, do my quiet time, eat breakfast, see DH off to work, and get the kids up at 7, to start school at 7:30 a.m.

We did it for two weeks. And we were all exhausted, cranky, MEAN, over-tired, and frustrated.

So I moved the schedule back one hour to 7 a.m. wake up for me. And what a difference it has made. We are all in better moods (most days), and school is much less of a battle for me and my night owl DD6. DD4 is a morning person, but she still gets up at around 7:30. DD6 gets up at around 8:30 and we start school at about 9.

And you know what? It works for us. We finish up school around noon or 1. Usually breaking for lunch. We mosey through the work. We have a rest time, and we all feel so much better on our "body approved" schedules!

A New Philosophy

I love Sonlight. I have loved Sonlight currculum since I first laid eyes on it 2 and a half years ago. I love it!

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So, this year we are doing their Introduction to World History, Part 1. Personally, I am fascinated by this stuff. The Egyptians, the Roman Empire, the Greeks, etc. Amazing stuff.

And I feel like DD6 is getting a great education. She is very happy about school. She likes school. So many of her peers do not. But, she does.

So, I was trolling the local library online card catalog a couple of weeks ago for homeschooling books. Like any profession, I like to stay up-to-date on what's going on out there. I look at it as teacher in-service. Training days for the teacher side.

I found a book called The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise. I put it on hold and checked out a couple of other homeschool related books.

One was Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto. A very interesting look at public education. I hadn't really given it much thought until I read his essays, but he made some very strong arguments for a complete upheaval of the current public school system. It had never really occured to me that in Public School no noe really taught me how to think. I just regurgitated whatever I thought the teacher wanted to hear. And then, coincidentally (or not) I was sitting near some teachers at one of the girls activities and they were talking about grading strategies. They were middle school teachers and were talking about the fact that they each had upwards of 140 kids that they are teaching this year. One, and English teacher, remarked that for the first 8 weeks or so, she reads each and every paper each child turns in. After that she just reads the essays of the really smart, well-written kids (to make sure that they do not start to back slide) and the essays of the really poor writers (to make sure they show some improvement. The rest she skims the introduction paragraph and the conclusion paragraph and grades on that. The other teacher remarked, "Yeah, the good kids get even better, the bad kids get a little better, and the average kids stay average." How sad for the average kids!! But, what more can one adult do when faced with 140+ kids EVERY DAY! What kind of ratio is that?!?

The other book, well, it was more of the same information that I already have. Nothing new. So nothing worth mentioning.

I got The Well-Trained Mind (TWTM)a week later. What a fabulous resource! I must admit that there is a ton of discussion in homeschooling circles about the different philosophies and ways of homeschooling (HSing) children. There's unschooling, Charlotte Mason, Classical, Literature-Rich, the list goes on and on! Til now, I have been reluctant to read too many HSing philosophy books for fear that I would "just love" the new philosophy so much that I would want to completely change our direction.

What a relief it was when I fell in love with TWTM, and I realized that Sonlight (SL) uses a very similar approach. Not exactly the same, but close enough for me!

I love the approach of having my first grader memorize, which was taboo when I was in school. We didn't memorize, we "looked it up." Ha! TWTM also employs phonics for teaching reading. I had already used this successfully with DD6, but was chastised for it, as that is not the current accepted practice around here. I love how the focus changes ever so slightly as the child ages from memorization to deeper thinking to logic to rhetoric! I love the early foreign language exposure. I love (almost) everything about it.

And I love how I can employ it right alongside SL. As much as I love my library, I cannot fathom digging through the tremendous numbers of books there to fond books for DDs schooling. I like having everything arrive at my doorstep in one box and using the library as a supplement! And TWTM works for this purpose. I love it! I feel like I have finally found my HSing groove!

DH Turns Around

And I just have to share this. I knew from the time I was pregnant with DD6 that I wanted to homeschool. It was about that time that public schools in California really headed down the moral slippery slope and I just knew that my local schools would eventually head there as well (I was right, it's starting). That bothered me.

So, when DD6 turned 4 I ordered a PreK program for her from Calvert. It was a quality program, but not a good fit for either of us. We hated it and it was a beating to do school every day, so eventually we stopped and she "unschooled." Can you even call ditching Prek unschooling?  We were much happier, but DH wasn't convinced. I can still remember vividly the knots in my stomach every time we talked about "school." He just wasn't seeing the progress he thought he should. Knowing what I know now, I should have asked what it was he wanted to see, instead I did a lot of crying, thouroughly convinced that DH would force me to enroll DD6 in PS K the next fall.

Obviously, he didn't.

I found SL that spring through a message board. Up until I had found SL, I was planning on buying Calvert K and mucking through it. Like I said, It was a good, solid plan. Nothing wrong with Calvery AT ALL! I AM NOT KNOCKING CALVERT! It just wasn't a good fit for our family. I convinced DH to let me order SL and away we went. We finished the K year strong and I think DH started to turn around.

Now it's a full 180. He is sooooo pleased with the girls progress now. DD6 reads at a 2nd - 3rd grade level (a bookworm like her Mom) and DD4 is showing solid progress in ABCs and 123s. And we are HAPPY.

The other night at dinner DH says, "So, tell me more about this Classical Education." I almost fell out of my chair. But, I did tell him about it and he was impressed. And he is totally on board! What a relief! In fact he wants to take Latin right along with the kids. And hear all about what they are learning, since we both discovered that we didn't learn very much at all in school.

At least we know that we really don't know, right?