• Oct. 31, 2007
Big changes at W.C.A
I really don’t want to say this too loud. You see, everytime I speak of how well our home school is going, the whole thing falls apart. Maybe if I whisper it, the Murphy’s law thing won’t hear me. Our home school is going really well this year. Actually, it has been great! Ok, I said it. Hopefully tomorrow will not be one of those “what were we thinking when we decided to home school” kind of days. I don’t know, maybe I’m the only one who has those kind of days. Though I will say they are few and far between compared to our first year of home school.
We have made many changes this school year and it’s just been great. Really! I won’t bore you with all of the details of curriculum this and that. Unless you ask me, that is…But I do want to tell you about two changes we have made that have made all of the difference in the world.
Our first change has been a mommy attitude change. If you read my profile, you will see that I am a former public school teacher. I don’t want to offend anyone who reads this who is a teacher. Some of my dearest friends and family members are fantastic teachers who give of themselves daily to do a hard job. But it took me two years to realize that home school is totally different that public school or any school for that matter. I can not do our school at home like I would do in my classroom. It does not work for us. I tried and we were all miserable. I have relaxed quite a bit and our school is so successful and fun right now that I am quite giddy. My children want to do school and read. We have not seen this kind of motivation and excitement these past two years. My oldest son, B, got so excited today when he figured out a hard math problem that he was jumping up and down in excitement. Man! That gets me just downright giddy!
After changing my attitude, I took a look at possible curriculum changes. I made changes across the board, for the most part. But the biggest change was us starting The Weaver curriculum.
This summer, a friend was telling me that she bought this unit study curriculum that had similar objectives for all grade levels with slight differences for each level. She let me look over it for a few weeks because I like to buy very few things sight unseen. At first, I thought “no way” as I studied it. I gave it back to her and then I asked to see it again. This time I really studied it. I mapped out a 3 week unit. I read through every unit in the entire HUGE binder, seriously… After much discussion with my husband and pages of notes comparing The Weaver to many other curricula, I decided to order it. It has not been a disappointment yet! We love it! I know, I know…too many exclamation points. It’s just that good.
So these two changes have made a world of difference in our home school. We are happy and I can not believe that we didn’t start doing this 5 years ago when our oldest started school.
Comments
• Dec. 11, 2007
Untitled Comment
Posted by doehillhomeschool
I just found your blog--great post! Hope you get back to posting about your expereinces with the Weaver. We have an eclectic apporach, but the Weaver sounds interesting.
• Apr. 18, 2008
weaver
Posted by Debbie4
I, too, am a former school teacher. I think I have tried just about every type of curriculum one can at home, and I agree "public school" at home is just not working. I used Weaver Vol. 1 with my daughter (now 10) in first grade. I bought Vol. 2, but have just not been motivated to push it yet. I now have 6, 4,and 3 year old in the mix. After reading your post, maybe I will pull it out to look at again. Right now I am just saturating the kids with both fiction and non fiction from the library.
I would love to hear how it is working for you!
