September 29th, 2013
I recently got a new magazine on homeschooling. I am still planning on taking the oldest out and starting her for her 5th grade year. I am excited and terrified. While I have lost some faith in the teachers who have not changed with the changing children, I have a few that I love. But I lost faith in what our schools teach our kids and how they teach them.
Monkey will soon be a square peg in a round hole next year for 4th grade and that terrifies me. She is smart, but is a horrible and inconsistent tester. We just had our mid-mid-term conference based on how she tested on her benchmarks last year. While I can tell she actually did retain some info from last year, and I am thankful I pushed her to continue to do workbooks all summer to rehash that knowledge, she did horrible on her tests. She currently is allowed to test in small groups....which is still too big for her. She needs one on one testing so another 504 meeting is in the cards. And I am thankful for this year's teacher b/c she gets my child and her hurdles but the poor teacher has to figure out how to pull/push her along with the system she is forced to work in.
Which brings me back to homeschooling. After last years struggles, I began to toy with the idea. I decided I would start with Lawyer and cut my teeth on it with her. She reads really well and has a fair grasp on math. So now I am spending this year wading thru the thousands of curricula options. The one thing I have learned so far, is that there is no one size fits all. And even the most seasoned of moms can't tell you which is right for you and your kid. It depends on the kid, their personality, your personality and both your learning styles, as well as time you have to spend doing it. Plus I fear I will forget to do something and be in trouble either with her scores or with the state. Thankfully I have friends and family starting home school and already doing home school but again, their kids are not mine. So I have to experiment on the first kid so that the second kid isn't a horrible struggle. And the second is the one that needs it the most. And ok, the lure of not having to get up or get grumpy tired kids up (even when we do get them in bed on time) is appealing. As well as the freedom to pick up and go and learn history via a tactile way by visiting places. Or even take vacations not tied to a holiday or break. I love to learn new things (the irony here is that I do not like change though...but can read all day about it!) and I want them to love to learn too and I want to do it before their spirit is broken or zombiefied.
I just have to pray, trust my gut, and wade thru lots of material and hope I get it mostly right the first year. AND work a full time job. Thankfully, I can juggle the work in to whatever hours I need to get things done as long as I am available to my customers 8-5. I do that anyways. And I recently did it for myself juggling my own schooling when I went back to get my master's degree.
My other lure is that I can feed the kids hot or cold lunches and try new things and they can eat when they are hungry, not when a school dictates it. And, I can feed them things that don't have to sit or fear that I might give them food poisoning b/c the thermos doesn't keep the food warm like I thought it would... true story. But one of the bigger things, is sickness. They are basically going to school when they are sick with 99 fever b/c someone decided that is ok. I don't' know about anyone else but when I run 99 fever I feel like someone beat me with a ball bat. Sometimes you do too much on the weekend and are still tired, uh like climb really big hills! (Alright, I think the kids are still tired from that b/c they are still a bit whiny but I will admit my thighs are still not happy about that little hike yesterday!)
We were supposed to go with some friends to a pumpkin patch today but 1) hubby has a sore foot for reasons unknown and didn't want to be on it again, 2) it looked like rain...I melt in rain and, 3) I need time to prep for the week mentally and literally. (I need to plan out dinners, get lunches prepped, and food on the table for that night.) So we passed. It ended up raining out the day we heard, so my day was not a total slob fest. I did get laundry done, school week prep done, Sunday paper read, one magazine finished, Hayday taken care of (b/c that is important ya know), and dinner cooked. We needed a veg out day. Missed church, but I am not sure either of us could hobble up the stairs to our back row baptist...I mean balcony spots.
Tonight I went the easy route. I have recently turned the kids on to hash-browns. Then I turned them on to homemade versions of it. We had bacon, scrambled eggs (not the lawyer who gags on them), wheat toast (not hubby who...well lets just say it isn't pleasant for him), and homemade hash-browns. I took a red and a yellow medium size potato, peeled it, shredded it with cheese grater, and then squeezed the water out of it. Then I heated some olive oil in pan, dropped it in, and cooked it for about 7 min on one side and flipped it. I have an orgreenic pan I love that is 10 inch and I can flip the hash-browns with the flick of a wrist due to the nonstick! (It basically is a disaster waiting to happen but I have fun trying!) Kids were happy, hubby was happy, and belly's were full! Voila! Now to thaw out something for tomorrow...
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