kimbermommy's homeschooling journey

Feb. 18, 2007

The End, The Beginning, The Plan

Today is Sunday and I am preparing for the week of homeschooling. On F riday I was so frustrated by the homeschooling experience that when we arrived at our homeschool gymnastics class I announced "I'm putting them into school tomorrow even if it is Saturday!" I remained in this mindset until today, feeling very much like I cannot do this. In fact, I said this to my husband, "This is too much for me!" I don't like to say those things to him so I was dealing with major frustration.

However, as it always is, I realized that there are alterable things contributing to my feelings. The first is the lack of organization that started the year out. I felt compelled to start the school year when the public school kids started at the beginning of August. It didn't matter that I had originally planned to start September 1st, or that I wasn't ready. It also didn't matter that I had a big family gathering two weeks into it to clean and organize and cook for. So, I started out the school year feeling behind and unorganized, and I wasn't really ready for the family gathering.

I also have moved around our space for homeschooling. It was in the diningroom, but my husband felt very strongly that the diningroom should not be used for everyday use. Moving homeschooling into the kitchen again made me a little crazy because food and school seem to mix making things messy. I also feel like I can never just have the kitchen. I seriously want to finish and paint our little desk from downstairs and put it in the office, although that has its issues as well. We use our office for work and if the kids are in there it gets messy. So the location and boundaries on activities really need to be determined.

I am going to make a long list of things that I need to do in order to be and feel organized and take it step by step. I will organize day by day, week by week and get to some semblance of order. Next year should go much smoother and I don't plan on taking much time off from schooling this summer.

The other aspect of my quickly planning the demise of my homeschool mom career is that it isn't fun anymore. I focus on the boring basics because we are struggling with reading issues in my oldest daughter and it all seems like drudgery. I hate it when I do this, the kids hate it and I don't think they learn nearly as much. So, again, I have to make a list of step by step things that I need to do to bring creativity, fun and life back into this vocation I have chosen, I am supposed to be doing Waldorf and I am not really doing it that way. I am relying on the supplementals, which is fine, except that the supplementals are boring and worksheet based.

This was never illustrated as much to me as the contrast between my girls doing an Ancient China lesson AFTER they did the supplemental work which they complained about endlessly. I have been skipping around, which has its advantages, but it can also make me a little crazy.

I read them a story on Ancient China, they answered questions, made pictures about the story and wrote key sentences out. on the back of their pictures. Then, we did some hands-on activities to illustrate the lives of children in ancient China. At one point, when they were practicing throwing coins into to a basket as children in the marketplace were known to do at the time, one exclaimed, "I love homeschooling!" The other piped in "Yes! This is so much fun!" Quizzing them on the story and lessons later, I learned that the hands-on activities that I often skip were what made it all sink in.

Fun, organization and taking it one step at a time. That is the PLAN, my new BEGINNING, to avoid the END.

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A description of my homeschooling journey.