I’ve run out of things to do this year, except for some math. I’ve tried buying a K level lapbook on autumn (lame) and printing out some worksheets, or perhaps they called it a unit study, from Enchanted Learning on firemen (more lame).

I’m at a bit of a loss.

So I figured I’d start looking for stuff for next year and maybe I’d find something for now too. AND I’ve decided I want a boxed curriculum for next year. I think that would be much easier for me.

I never realized how frustrating it would be to find one. Boxed curricula are expensive. Its not like spending $20 on a subscription to EL to see what it’s like. Some are close to $1000. I can afford that, but its not an amount I want to invest in a product without being pretty sure its right for me.

K-12 seems to be an all day deal, and I’ve heard they are controlling. Also, I couldn’t see any sample lessons or syllabus online.

Calvert sounds great, but their sample lesson had an error in it (in the middle of a paragraph their story changes from past tense to present tense. Then it changes back. There is no reason for this change beyond sloppiness), which does not inspire me with confidence.

Oak Meadow also sounds great, but their language arts (what the heck is language arts?) is way below my child’s current level. I don’t want her to be bored. On top of that, I’ve already decided to stick with Singapore for math and science. So there’s not a lot there for me to use beyond their structure–which I must admit is what I truly want anyway. On the plus side their cs says you can start their “year” at any time.

Laurel Springs sounds like its all distance learning, which I emphatically do not want.

Enki doesn’t post sample lessons, and when I have emailed with them in the past they have avoided answering my questions. Since I want to SEE precisely what I’d be buying, I’ve not bought from them.

Winter Promise, I’m assured, is easy to secularize. I’m a little lost on what unit to pick for a 4 year old about to turn 5 who is behaviorally age appropriate, but is reading at about a first grade level. Especially since I am not sure she’d be interested in studying nothing but animals, nor am I certain I want her to hear about abused children.

Konos I know very little about. What it would take to secularize I don’t know.

On the positive side, I think it would be easy to do either a Konos or a WP unit for the second half of our academic year.

Sycamore Tree has a secular option, and its less expensive than other boxed sets, but there are no sample lessons or syllabus that I can find.

I have NO CLUE what to do.

.

I’m working on balancing my obsessive-compulsive control freakness with my humanist, child-led learningness. Yes, I know those aren’t real words, I’m attempting to be cute. So, anyway, I got thrown into quite a tizzy yesterday when my 4 year old announced that she was giving up on a new type of problem in Explode The Code.

I had intended to skip that page because I thought it was all about spelling, which she can’t really do yet. But she protested, loudly, that she wanted to do the page. So we looked at the first problem in the workbook. She didn’t understand what to do, and as usual her first step was to stop listening to me as I try help her figure that out.

As I looked at it, it became clear to me that the work really was something she could do.

So, what to do? Follow her impulse to give up as soon as things got hard? Or heartlessly impose my will on her and force her to try? Rephrasing, should I let her make her own choice about not trying and support the development of her will and make sure her schooling experience is not more stressful than she wants to handle, or should I teach her that she can do hard things if she tries and that she shouldn’t quit something she wants just because its harder than she thought it would be?

I suspect a better parent would have found a way to manage both.

I went with forcing her. She got the concept easily once the mini-tantrum was over, and did the rest of the page happily. My choice was intuitive, and I think it worked out well. I’ve been emphasizing with her that she can do things if she tries, that mistakes are only failures if you don’t correct them, and that she CAN do hard things. So perhaps that was why I made the choice I did. On another day, I’d have let her choose to quit. I think the big issue for me in that moment of decision was that she had specifically said she wanted to do the page. She made a choice, and I guess I wanted her to follow through on it by at least TRYING the work.

So all’s well that ended well, I guess.

Last week was out first week of school for the year. I’m trying to get off on the right foot with record keeping. I’m doing that for my benefit, not for the state. I like to have a record of what I have done.

Last week I didn’t get much done at all. I’m still doing a balancing act between following my own mental schedule and following dd4’s interests. But she still likes our materials, so that’s one big hurdle crossed. This week has begun better. We did trees today, in accordance with the science through children’s lit book. It was fun, though dd decided that she’d paint everything BUT a tree. One mini-meltdown and some other pictures later she did a tree, and I declared myself satisfied. We also did our first science experiment–watching water change states. That one was purely following her interests, as we’d somehow gotten into a conversation about that yesterday and I had told her we’d see for ourselves today.

I’d also planned to read The Seasons of Arnold’s Apple Tree today, but I can’t find it. I know its in the house SOMEwhere…

This past weekend we attended a birthday party for one of dd’s friends. His mother is an old friend of mine, and her family and her husband’s were all there. It seemed that every single adult came up to me, complimented me on my child, and then asked me where she was going to school. That got awkward, not to mention dull, but I know they were only trying to make conversation. I guess I’d better get used to it.

In about two weeks, my stepdaughter will begin her last year of high school. For simplicity’s sake, I’ve chosen to start our school year at the same time hers does. While she’s finally doing well in school and reasonably happy, it took us a very long time to get here, and I’m still not satisfied with the education she’s receiving.

All this, plus a comment on a website about whether we all simply home school out of fear, has got me thinking back over the many reasons I home school. They can basically be broken down into Things I Don’t Want For My Daughter, and Things I Do Want For My Daughter.

Here are the DON’Ts:
1. A poor education. Our town’s public schools consistently fall below state averages.
2. An education so expensive it may as well be college, like some of the private schools here.
3. To have her be away from home most of the day, most days, being taught and
essentially raised by strangers.
4. For her to be having a problem, and me to not be informed of it.
5. An education that does not encourage her to rise to her potential.
6. For her to find school so unpleasant that she’s turned off of learning.
7. For her to be in a peer environment that values cutting.
8. For her to be in a peer group that devalues grades and work.
9. For her to find out what its like to be bullied.
10. For her to be afraid of her teachers.
11. For her to be ashamed because of how someone else treated her.
12. For her to skate through because she’s not a behavior problem.
13. For her to learn any of the following valuable lessons I picked up in public elementary school, along with the days of the week and names of the continents:

-If they don’t notice you, nothing too bad will happen.

-If you get picked on, it’s your own fault, and you deserve it. There’s something
wrong with you that makes this happen.

- Friends are the people willing to let you sit with them in the cafeteria and to play
with them at recess, no matter how badly they treat you.

-They hit and tease you because they like you (that gem came from my mother).

-Don’t trust adults, not even your own parents, because NO ONE will protect you or
even try to understand your feelings.

- If you have trouble with a subject, it’s because you are lazy and have a bad attitude.

You can class all that in the DON’T category.

Here are the Dos:

1. For her to have a close, trusting relationship with her family.
2. For her to have a close, trusting relationship with her friends.
3. For her to be assertive.
4. To have art and music classes regularly (many of our schools don’t).
5. To have Phys Ed regularly that is an actual class (many of our schools don’t even
have gyms).
6. To treat others with respect and courtesy.
7. To be treated by others with respect and courtesy.
8. That learning is fun (I know I am stretching here).
9. To receive HELP if she has trouble with a subject, not blame.
10. To get a good education.
11. To be taught and raised by the people who love her.

Ever since I started calling myself a homeschooler, I’ve been getting weird reactions from other parents. Not negative, just wierd. Sometimes I hear, “oh, that’s great” in a VERY nervous voice, like I am suddenly going to sprout a second head and start ranting about how the dinosaurs went extinct because they all lost their tickets for Noah’s ark. Sometimes I hear, “I could never do that.”

That one gets to me every time.

Why not? You taught your kid to walk and talk, didn’t you? You taught him the difference between a doggie and a lion, how to throw a ball, and to not fart at the table (we’re still working on that one). So why can’t you teach them reading, writing, and trig? Look, what I say in response to these folks is true–we all have to choose what works best for us. But don’t think that just because you haven’t ever taught, you can’t ever teach.

For me, it was easy. I consider myself pretty smart. I used to work part time in the financial aid office in my graduate school, and I dealt with many education students. They were, on the whole (I know there are exceptions), some of the dumbest folks I have ever had to deal with. They couldn’t fill out a form asking for their identifying information without calling me to ask for help:

Student: It says name
Me: Put in your name
Student: But I don’t know your name
Me: Do you know your own name?
Student, annoyed: Yes of course I know my own name.
Me: Write it down there
Student: Write my own name there?
Me: Yes.
Student: Where do I put it?
Me: On the line next to where it says name.
Student: In the line?
Me: ON the line. On top of the line.
Student: On the top?
Me: Let me transfer you to someone who can help you better.

So when I got insecure about teaching my daughter, I remembered that and I decided that the day I couldn’t teach as well as people that stupid would be a very sad day indeed.

I know I have my weak areas. I stink at math. That’s why I will buy a teacher’s manual or something else that tells me what to say, how to teach, and what the answers are. When my daughter gets older, if we are still HSing, I’ll get her a tutor if she needs one, because I sure won’t be teaching trig. Probably not even algebra. With some hand holding from the manuals I think I am up to multiplication and long division. While a tutor is an extra expense, its one that many parents of public and private school children have as well.

Yes, they CAN home school. They just think they can’t.

July is almost over. We’re starting school up again in September. I’m not yet sure exactly *when* in September, but it’ll be fast on the heels of whenever her summer activities are over.

I have Singapore Earlybird math and science. I have the first Explode The Code book, but not the teacher’s manual. I still need to buy that. I also have a book of kids around the world that we can look at together with our map. I bought Singapore art, but the lack of a supply list and my complete inability to do art has meant we stopped after the first lesson. I’m going to sign her up for an art class and a music class. I bought a geography game that may be above her level, but between that and a puzzle map of the US and a general kindergarten game, she’ll get a gleaning of general knowledge which is more than I got from Kindergarten. I also got some new Dick and Jane books and between those and the library she’ll have some reading practice. Last year we did dance and gymnastics as well. The year we may try soccer again too.

I’m torn between being free-form and having a schedule. In the end I will probably come up with a schedule to use as a guideline. We have many educational games, and those she plays when she feels like it. Her interest tends to come in spurts, and so far I have followed that and supported her interests. I guess that’s worked out all right. I wish I knew if I was doing this right or not. I don’t want to stifle her interests or to have school become a chore, but on the other hand I don’t want her to lack tenacity or a work ethic.

When I think about these things too much I send myself into a real panic.

I’ll probably adjust as I go depending on what I see happening with my daughter. I’ve managed okay so far, so I should be able to handle kindergarten too. Right?