Yearly Long Homeschooling Post

I should laugh at the title of this post…as if I were only longwinded once a year.  Ha!

Last year was really hard.  Not only did we have the normal pressures of homeschooling, we dealt with my injury from the car accident, all 5 of the kids having various degrees of injuries from the car accident, working through some learning disabilities with one of my children, and solving some big problems there.  We did a very extensive standardized test near the end of the year, which our state requires, though we chose one more extensive than we did in the past.  The results were a resounding:

My children are thriving as we homeschool.

I knew, though, that I was not.  I burnt out, crashed and burned, stared at a wall, whatever you want to call it.

To be perfectly honest, I spent hours on my knees, I mean hours at the end of our last school year, asking God if this was really what he called me to do.  I played out in my head what it would be like to send my kids off to school.  I played out in my head quitting this whole homemaker/homeschooling gig and going back to work and being a “working mom.”  I get emails from knitting publication editors, I have opportunities to contribute to books.  I could have a job tomorrow if I wanted one.

I walked away from that soul/God searching with a renewed peace that this was exactly what I was supposed to be doing, and yes, it’s hard, but it’s good.  It’s the plan.  Stay the course.  And He will sustain me.  Sacrificing is hard, but on the other hand, isn’t it the trademark of a Christ-follower?  How can we possibly be walking in the footsteps of Christ if we avoid sacrifice?

I also walked away with a renewed conviction that I need to be taking care of myself better than I have been, if I’m in it for the long haul.  There must be balance.  This is a marathon, not a sprint.  I am not the hero.  I am not the Savior.  I have spent some time this summer reading books from homeschool veteran Sally Clarkson.  I’ve been having tea, Facebook conversations, and phone calls with friends I’ve met with homeschool networking who have graduated children and have some wisdom to pass down.  I’ve been gleaning wisdom from all of them, and soaking in their advice and words of grace.

So I’m making some big changes this year.  They have been hard decisions, as I choose between several good things, to find the right things.  I don’t know if these changes are permanent or just this year.  I hope that every year I will be open to change, though, so I don’t think anything is permanent.  The first change made was that I’m stepping down as Sunday School teacher at my church.  Teaching 6 days a week it too much.  I love teaching there so much, and get much joy from it, but I feel so much at peace about stepping down that I know God has someone else lined up to take my place.

The second big change is we are stepping away from our homeschool co-op.  Now, we’re not stepping away from our homeschool group, or association, which has various activities throughout the year.  We are only stepping away from one of the homeschool group’s weekly gatherings.  We will still do some field trips and other activities with them.  I just found I need to schedule in down time at this stage with the kids.  As in, write on the calendar “stay home and play” instead of leaving it blank.  We are adding maybe band, and starting piano lessons for David, and signed up for some nature study field trips.  I have to take away activities somewhere, and we’re having to cut deep to do that.

One of the main reasons that we’re stepping away from the co-op this year isn’t because we don’t love it, because we do.  It was so beneficial.  It’s just that is the only day a sitter is available for me to use.  I need to make a priority of taking care of myself this year, and that means that taking care of myself has to replace something.  I’ve arranged for a 17 year old homeschool student to come once a week in the afternoon and finish up a few assignments with the kids while I go to the library and work on my knitting patterns, or have coffee with a friend, or wander around an antique store.  I’m thankful that my knitting business will be able to pay for this weekly down time, and I hope it will enable me to release the backed up pile of patterns that each need loose ends tied up to actually get published.

I’m always a proponent of moms taking time to rest and regroup, but for some reason, I had to work through a lot of guilt in making this decision in regards to me.  I feel guilty for pulling my kids from their co-op to do it.  I feel guilty for spending money on myself when I could give it to someone who needs it more than I do, or spend it on my family.  I feel guilty for needing to get away, and not being strong enough to carry this all on my own.  I finally realized that I was merely having to lay down some pride, and that is normally a good thing.  It wasn’t guilt that was plaguing me, it was pride.  It’s easy to confuse the two.  It’s the idea that everyone else needs help, but not me.  Nope, I’m fine.

I need to take care of myself, and there’s nothing wrong with that.  It’s okay to say, “Nope, I’m not enough, I can’t carry it all, and I need help.”  Whew.  Glad to get that off my chest.

I was stuck in this cycle of getting up, spending all day long with 5 kids, finally getting them to sleep, Knut coming home from work at various hours, often when I just get the kids down, and then wanting to actually spend time with me, and then me staying up until midnight or 1am just to experience being alone.  I know there are moms out there who know what I’m talking about.  Then you wake up the next day, groggy and weak, and go through the next day exhausted.  Repeat.  I need to jump off this crazy cycle, and hopefully by scheduling in alone time, I can make some progress to get off the merry-go-round of staying up until the wee hours of the morning.

Other than that, we’re just continuing on.  I normally list on the blog what curriculum we are using this year, but I hesitate in doing that because we are using such a hodgepodge of curricula this year that should I list them all, there would be the impression that we are doing all of the parts of the curricula listed, and we aren’t.  Though it’s tempting to make you “oohh” and “ahhh” and say, “Wow, that’s a lot!  I could never do that much!” I don’t want any other moms to feel defeated by the illusion of what someone else is doing.   Plus, I simply don’t have the time to list every single book, and which pages or chapters of those books we will be using.  There are very few changes we’re making this year, so we’re doing a bit of Sonlight books, a bit of My Father’s World books from last year, a bit of Apologia, a bit of Saxon, though I may switch Silje to Teaching Textbook this year when she finishes the book she is on.  David will likely stick with Saxon.  We are reading “living books” and discussing them.  We are doing a bit from some hand-me down Shurley English textbooks, and some Institute for Excellence in writing.  We will memorize poems, Scripture, Shakespeare, geography songs and timeline jingles.  We are doing some Simply Charlotte Mason art studies as well.

I will say Silje will be going deeper into art.  David will be going deeper into chess.  Elias will be doing some basics as he’s kindergarten age now.  At that age I require 15 minutes each of reading, writing, and arithmetic.  Everything else is optional, and they participate as much as they want.  That system has worked very well for us.

Elias is showing himself to be even more into art than Silje is, who is normally our resident artist.  He spends hours coloring, with such attention to detail and passion that I have not seen with the other kids at this age.  He’s no prodigy, but it’s something he’s becoming very passionate about, and he’s taken to carrying a notebook around, in case he sees something he wants to sketch.  He has so many ideas for stories in his head that he just sits and acts out through his art.  I’m excited about that, and hope to open some more doors in this area for him this year as well.  This kid is very quiet, and keeps his thoughts to himself most of the time.  So I’m eager to see more of what is in his head through this means of art and stories.

I have also been working hard in getting a better organizational system for our homeschool “stuff.”  Last year Knut built in a bookshelf and cabinet.  The bookshelf keeps our school books, and the cabinet keeps our school/craft supplies and manipulatives.  It’s great.  However, last year I had school papers floating around everywhere from bookshelf ledges to the dining room table, to random end tables, and in the back hallway.  I don’t want to hunt down a math page.  I don’t want to go through a stack to find a writing assignment.  So this year I got these pretty baskets, with little chalkboard plaques for everyone’s name from Target.  I have one for me, that holds files for each kid, for lessons I have in the works, and some household papers.  Silje, David, and Elias each have a “To Do” folder, and a “Done” folder.  The 2 younger kids just have 1 folder right now for any artwork, or worksheets, as they are mostly playing and will “grow into” their file basket in years to come.

I was so pleased how Knut hung them, because he kept every scrap from his bookshelf project, and the piece of wood he hung these baskets on, so that the weight would be on the studs, was some old moulding he had to pull off the wall to put in the bookshelves.  So it’s original to the house and looks like it has always been there.  There’s a good space above these baskets that I want to get some vinyl lettering of some quote in regard to learning.  I’m debating between about 20 quotes right now.  Actually I’ve narrowed it down to a short list about 7.

So it will likely get done in a year or so.  Ha!  That’s how long it will take me to over think it.

My goal was to keep the system simple, as I’m not a very organized person and have learned that the more detailed the system is, the less likely I will use it.  So the kids will have a log sheet or worksheet for a particular subject, and will move the log sheet or assignment from the “to do” folder to the “done” folder when they finish it.  That way when I want to find something, it will be in the “done” folder.

In theory.

I have used checklists with the kids in the past, but I’ve found that they conveniently skip over some lines and I have to go through it pretty thoroughly to make sure they do each thing, and each part of each thing.  So I’ll still have to hold them accountable, but hopefully this will help me hold them accountable.

Well, that’s my big plans for the year in a large nutshell.