Crumbs lie on the floor. Disheveled piles of papers scatter across the kitchen counters. Legos blanket just about everything in our home. And we had cereal for supper. Again.I just finished a giveaway event of resources we use, and we indeed use them. But not all the time. Not even frequently. This brings me to another point of sharing what’s on my heart.
So… what is our reality?
During January we experienced a life of interruptions (also known as blessings in disguise). We started out the month with a trip out of state. After my husband left for Brazil, our geothermal system gelled up, dropping temperatures in our home to the lower 50s. A few days later, the water tank froze and we were out of water. I ended up with a terrible three-week cold that rendered me a foggy-brained teacher and parent (even more so than usual!). Our days were full of learning, but a lot of that was just plain-old life learning.
Every year we go through interruptions. In Fall 2011, it was homeschooling through chainsaw chaos. In Fall 2012, it was an eye surgery. In Fall 2013, it was the first trimester of pregnancy. And throughout these homeschooling years, we’ve faced deaths in the family and other unforeseen circumstances. And we work through it. We persevere. Our family does not homeschool only when it’s easy. Our children get to see what living life is really like because they are a constant part of that life. And life is not perfect.
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| Isn’t he cute?!? |
Most of the projects we did in our home this year were completed during Christmas break. My husband was in Brazil then (I tend to say that a lot because he works a rotational schedule), and our boys were involved in a large play production in another county. Throughout December, many hours were spent in the car or at play practice. When we returned home each day, we pieced together lapbooks and completed other activities. And that’s how we did “so much” when actually we did very little in the way of school work. The fact is, we don’t have much time to work on projects during our normal school days. When we do science experiments and other activities, it’s usually in the evenings or on weekends.
Plan vs. Reality
Last semester, we fell behind on our reading plan (we’ve finally caught back up), we did not finish our astronomy studies, and we did very few extension activities (mainly just Homeschool in the Woods). We even took a break from our daily memory work, just listening to audios when we were in the car. I just couldn’t stay awake to do much of anything. When I was awake, I was nauseous. Such are the seasons of our lives.
So… let me share with you plan vs. reality:
The plan? Latin and Greek for all three boys.
The reality? We started out well, but…
Now it’s just Latin’s Not So Tough for Stephen (our fifth grader). David (our second grader) needs audio CDs for pronunciation before moving forward. And Levi (our preschooler) is just not ready to do much beyond coloring pages. So, the younger two will be listening to some Song School Latin for a while. And… we’ve dropped Greek for now. (This was NOT at the request of the boys. It was my own personal preference.)
The plan? Read through three volumes of Story of the World.
The reality? We just now started Volume 3 (the second volume we are reading this year). Not sure that we will get to Volume 4 before the baby arrives. But that’s okay because we’re not really correlating reading those books with the history memory work.
The plan? Read all of the books on our reading schedule.
The reality? We did not like one of the books on our reading plan. It ended up textbook-ish, not living book-ish. So, we dropped World of William Penn and added Gabriel and the Hour Book (even though it did not cover the same time period). We’ve also dropped reading the Shakespearean tragedies and are only reading the comedies from Tales from Shakespeare. (Our children were traumatized by Hamlet, and there are simply too many great books to read to be traumatized by heart-wrenching stories.) As far as our schedule was concerned, we finished Huguenot Garden six weeks later than we’d planned, and we fell behind on some of our other “reading connection” readings, but we are back on track again now that I can stay awake.
The plan? Our second grader will attempt memory master proofing for the first time this year. Our fifth grader and I will attempt three-cycles of memory master proofing this year.
The reality? Only Stephen is preparing for memory master. David is not interested, and I’m not going to unnecessarily push him through it when he lacks the interest and motivation and thus destroy his love of learning. But… in the past, they’ve enjoyed earning stickers, wii time, M&Ms, or coins during the parent proof, so I may still do that. Stephen’s working to recite all three cycles of memory work (he’s already been a memory master for all three cycles). His mother, on the other hand, is having trouble recalling information right now for some reason. We will see how far I get… perhaps I can recite the Latin verb endings. (Haha.) Which reminds me… my original plan to work through an applied calculus book this year is not going as planned. (Haha again.)
I’ve reverted to checklists again because it’s my default. (I realize there’s more to learning than a checklist, but it seriously helps me to have a checklist. I can’t remember squat without it.)
Of course, history and science projects are just if we can get around to ’em…
A final, possibly surprising note: Stephen, our lapbook-loving boy, is no longer interested in lapbooking (unless it’s a Homeschool in the Woods study). Until interest is expressed, we will stick to notebooking. It’s easier and quicker.
So… am I disappointed with our reality? No way, Jose! We’ve had a rewarding year thus far. It has been wonderful to get back to the basics and simply read great books together as a family. And our family is growing (emotionally, spiritually, and physically), which is such a great blessing.
But… especially this time of year when so many homeschooling moms and dads get discouraged, doubt themselves, and consider giving up as they compare themselves to utopian ideals, I just want you to know that our days are rarely hunky-dory, by-the-plan, and picture-perfect around here. (That’s why I refer to them as School Daze.) And I dare say our days would not be hunky-dory, by-the-plan, and picture-perfect around here even if we didn’t homeschool.
I’d rather have my children with me through it all. Wouldn’t you?