2013 review and wrap-up

After reading The Year of Learning Dangerously and trying to decide what is our way of homeschooling, obviously that did not include blogging for awhile.

We went round and round all summer about whether or not we would continue to homeschool. When we lived in Mississippi, there was no question. We were homeschooling. Moving to Connecticut in May to a community with an excellent school district put that up for debate. There are reasons to have our 2 oldest girls in public school, and reasons to continue homeschooling. I've always leaned more toward homeschooling and AC wants them in public school but so far has gone along with my decision. In August, I was about to enroll our girls in public school when AC said out of the blue that his gut was to keep them home for at least another year. So we switched! For 5 minutes. We're back to our old tug-of-war about how to educate our daughters.

What I learned in the past 12 months is that unschooling  - or project-based or whatever free-for-all term you want to use - does not work for us. We need more structure to get anything accomplished and to be able to see any noticeable progress. So we headed back in that direction for our learning methodology. (The first homeschool book I read was The Well-Trained Mind.) We're good at looking in a book and following the directions. No, it's not the most creative and inspiring way to go about self-education, but hey, you have to start somewhere.

I made grid charts for the girls with squares for each day of the week (Mon-Fri) across the top, and their subjects down the side - scriptures, math, writing, reading, art, science, and blog posts. The charts were laminated and taped to the wall by the kitchen table, and we put X's in the squares with a dry erase marker when they finished their work for the day. Even Birdie and Magnolia had a chart - their "work" was to do a handwriting coloring sheet and a counting game, and I read a couple of books to them. They're 3 and 2 - too early for formal school, but not too early to develop a love for reading and learn to write the letters and numbers. It's a game to them and they love it. If they're not interested for a day or a week, it's not a big deal and I don't push them at all.

We also joined a co-op group in Middletown on Tuesdays. Sunny and Posy had group classes for reading stories together, Spanish, and science. They made some friends and I was able to talk to a lot of other parents about the why and how of homeschooling. It was a bit far, though and the friends we met live even further, at least 40 miles away. Distance makes it difficult to meet friends at the park or the library on a whim. I also wasn't too impressed with their preschool "class." One of the moms brought a couple of books and some toys, and that was it. I was hoping for something a lot more interactive.

And we had our trips to DC and Virginia in August and November. Field trips there are always awesome.

So we finished on an upswing. Given how the rest of the year had gone leading up to the fall, that was a good thing. I'm plotting how to pick up the pace even further starting in January, but I'll write about that when we get to it.