On one of the homeschool blogs I read, today there's yet another post about hard days in homeschooling but yet again in the context of burnout. You've been working so hard all this time ... it's time to take a break.
I'm sure those hard days will come for me. What about the hard days - like all of them lately - when you can't get your kid to START homeschooling in the first place? Any thoughts on that?
If we'd gone straight through from January 2 with 5 days a week and no breaks, we would now be done with 17 weeks/85 days. Even factoring in a week off at the 9-week mark, and holidays here and there totaling another week, that would still be 15 weeks/75 days. In my current tracking because of taking 3 weeks in March for a vacation and being sick, this was week 14 ... 70 days. But today was not day 70. No. It was Day 61. Because Sunny refuses to cooperate.
Thirty minutes. That's how long it would take Sunny to do one math assignment, one spelling list of 10 words, and one assignment in her language book. That's it. But it takes me ALL. DAY. to get her to sit down for THIRTY. MINUTES.
It's not necessary to track her reading time - she reads all the time. Since the first of the year, she's read the Little House on the Prairie books countless times, she's spent the last month reading every Beverly Cleary Klickitat Street book she can get her hands on, she's mixed in a lot of random science and geography, and the most recent additions to the reading list are the original Mary Poppins books. This morning, she spent over an hour reading a stack of math storybooks we borrowed from a friend, like Sir Cumference.
We did get 4 days under our belts this week but not without a lot of mouthing off from her and getting frustrated from me. For the most part, I've moved clear to "unschooling" - we just have lots of books around and she picks them up when she feels like it. The other night, AC read them a science book about heat for their bedtime story.
But math and language are not optional. We will do math and we will do language skills. Somehow.
Yes, we will keep muddling along. God has assured me quite clearly that as bad as this seems sometimes, putting Sunny in public school would be significantly worse. But just in case anyone was thinking homeschooling in these parts is sunshine and roses ... here you go. The quick and dirty behind the scenes shot, and now we're going to the library to get more books. This blog is supposed to be a record of the learning we do, not the learning we don't.
4 comments:
So I read your blog. I'm not sure if you knew that or not because I normally don't leave comments. (even thought I started one and love to read about other peoples lives) but i have decided to comment today. LUCKY YOU! jk. Anyways I don't know all the reasons you have decided to home school Sunny, other than what you have written on this blog, but having worked with Children in different school setting (by no means am I an expert) maybe instead of you/Adam teaching her "math' you might try having a different person teach her like a tutor, grandma thru Skype (might be a lot of work) or a homeschool trade group or even a therapy tech. Just so something is separated because you still have to live with one another. But you probably have already thought of this. Anyways Good Luck with everything :)
Amber
Hey Amber! No, I didn't know you read my blog - I didn't know you even knew about it! Good to hear from you!
With sitting down to do math, it's not a teaching/learning thing. It's an OBEDIENCE thing. She's just generally belligerent and headstrong on everything. I let her have a lot of autonomy with making her own decisions on a lot of things, but sometimes, you just have to do what you're told and quit griping about it. Ya know?
So hard. You have my love and prayers and support. I am helping teach a friends daughter to read - she didn't do well in kindergarten so they pulled her out and have home schooled since. Well a year later and she still can't read - or even find the focus to bother to try. So they asked me (the person who is not a reading specialist) to work with her. And hey, it will all be.
You do a swap with other families, right? I think I remember you blogging about mixing up lessons with other families. Does Sunny focus when she goes to their houses? If so maybe you can have one of them attempt to get in the math lesson (on the sly).
I admire you for homeschooling. I have been very tempted to but I know I couldn't do it.. At least not in our current house. My oldest has a very difficult time getting his homework done simply because he won't or can't concentrate. I hate that they go to school for about 7 hours and still have at least one hour of homework when they get home. It is too much and will burn anyone out. It is very frustrating.
Keep it up! It will all be worth it.
Post a Comment