Feeling better. :) Not great, but better. Dh and I went to lunch today and then we came home and I went upstairs and took a 2 hour nap in the middle of the afternoon. I told the dc that I was completely off limits and told dh that if anyone bothered me he would have to make dinner. LOL! That guaranteed I was left alone. Several PP mentioned that this wasn't just a homeschool thing...I would have to agree. I think I need to change some lifestyle things. Eating better, increase my iron (something I tend to always need more of than whats in my regular vitamins), exercise more. I realize that I'm getting old and have to start paying more attention to things that weren't an issue even 5 years ago. I feel old and tired. The guilt needs to go. Guilt over not doing Latin, guilt over not staying on schedule for history, guilt over dropping our current science because no one likes it, guilt over letting my oldest watch Odysseus instead of reading The Odyssey. It isn't that I don't want to teach them...I just want to teach them differently. :) Someone else mentioned selling those programs that I don't want to use anymore, and I think that's the key for me because if they are sitting on the shelf they will mock me. The more I think about what it is I'm looking for with our homeschooling the more the idea of getting back to just living while we educate instead of educating in place of living keeps coming back to me. Does that make sense? It does in my head. Especially with my young dc. They are missing out on so much by us staying home everyday working through these programs one after the other. I think going to a year round schedule might be good for us. It will allow us more flexibility through out the week. Mondays are co-op days and afternoon science experiments (which I've gotten Steve Spanglers experiment book to use which we are REALLY excited about), I'd love for Wednesdays to become the day we focus on writing, literature, poetry, art, and music, and Fridays would be free days where we would do field trips, playdates, park days, or work on field studies. Tuesdays and Thursdays would be the days that we focus on more academics (core and content), and days that I'm available to the older dc to help them. Certain subjects would be done daily but in short intense study periods in the mornings...math, phonics, composition in which we also study grammar and usage, and structured reading time. Those are the subjects that I feel are the skills that I place highest priority on. I would love to stop worrying about the scheduling of the programs and just work at the pace set by our lives and my dc...as long as they are moving forward consistently it shouldn't matter too much when they finish program a or b, right? I want to get back to literature reading every evening and always having an audio book going in the van too...something we all miss but that had gotten pushed aside as the weariness and stress had set in. So, gotta run again but does the above sound alright? Keep in mind that my older dc would still maintain their current schedule since it is their own and they seem to be fine with it. I will obviously make arrangements for them get out more as well if they like. :)

I'm still reading and thinking. I'm trying to be introspective and step outside of some situations and view them as a spectator so I can better determine specific areas that are troubling me. Your comments and suggestions are helping me to separate real issues from things that simply need to be tweaked or tightened. A couple things that I wanted to comment on so that things are clearer: The older two dc are wonderfully self sufficient in their work. Other than being resistant to writing assignments they are not a strain on my time or energy. Obviously their are minor issues with raising teenage girls but nothing of major concern. My biggest issue with them right now is that I constantly feel that we aren't doing enough. I know, I know...there will be gaps no matter what. My goals for them aren't really out of reach and shouldn't be difficult to achieve...strong math, be able to read and comprehend anything they pick up, and be able to communicate well. BUT, I keep getting hung up on all these stinking credits in subjects they don't care anything about. All of the dc help out a lot with household chores. They are responsible for laundry, kitchen, and the majority of the cleaning. Now, keeping them all on task and reminding them of these responsibilities is a source of frustration, but nothing that a well organized system for keeping them accountable won't fix. The issue here lately is that when you feel overwhelmed and a bit depressed the idea of instituting a system seems to be too much to deal with. Also, homeschooling isn't the frustration...it's HOW we are homeschooling. I love homeschooling, ADORE my ideal of it! How we're doing it now (with my youngers) though is bordering on soul sucking. I don't know how it got to this point. Somewhere along the way we started box checking and stopped exploring. Wow...typed up all the above then forgot to post it the other morning. ;) Adding on: So, this week I've been trying to pay attention to things and I've noticed that a large part of the problem in addition to my unhappiness with our homeschooling seems to be that I, as a person, am invisible in my house. It's weird that once I stepped back and started to pay attention I could see it clearly right off the bat. There seems to be no consideration for me being tired, overwhelmed, needing quiet time, needing time for myself ... I won't go on; basically just all the things moms tend to put last from time to time, but it's become the norm here. I crave alone time and I never, never get it. EVER. I don't get up earlier than my kids and I go to bed at the same time they do. When I go shopping I usually have at least one of them with me to make it easier on the ones who stay home and also as a way to spend one on one time with different dc. Even when I try to do something for myself like a sewing project, painting, or reading I get interrupted over and over. I mean, there's 5 of them so someone always needs something. Obviously I need to set some boundaries in order to establish some time for myself. I have more thoughts about the homeschooling thing...some ideas that I'd love to get feedback on, but I'll have to post about that in a bit since I need to get a few things done this morning.

Lots of great advice. Thank you. I have a few comments I'd like to make...some questions too but they'll have to wait until morning. I just wanted to let you all know that I am reading and appreciate the responses. :)

I had to laugh at this because it's what my husband said to me. I told him that at least he gets paid for hating his job and at 3:30 he gets to walk away from it. Try as I might I can't seem to clock out at 3:30 everyday. ;)

I would LOVE to do this, unfortunately it isn't in the budget. I do have a wonderful friend who is doing science with both of the older dc in exchange for me doing art with her dc. It is nice not having to worry about that subject. :) I've been looking at unit studies for my younger dc. It's just really hard to walk away from all the other expensive curricula that I purchased for this year. I feel like that is money down the drain - and with finances tight that is a really hard decision to make. How do you put your purchased stuff on the shelf and ignore it?

For the first time in years since I've homeschooled I feel dangerously close to complete burn out. Serious enough that in the back of my mind I was considering letting 2 of my kids do a half year of ps. I am absolutely NOT a good teacher when I feel like this. There is no joy in my life right now...it's become this monotony of math, reading, writing, a chapter of history, and a science experiment, dishes, laundry, vacuuming, groceries, cooking, and sleeping...then it starts all over again. Day after day. Week after week. Nothing to look forward to...ever. On the rare occasion we do a field trip I feel overwhelmed with the guilt of lessons not getting done. On the rare occasion I decide to do something fun I end up just telling the kids to go do their own thing because I feel mentally cooked. We even started a field study and it's been a complete failure because I'm so uptight about the whole thing. I don't want to live like this. I don't want my kids to live like this. I've done what I've preached to others not to do...become a slave to a curricula or a method. I want the joy back in my life...the joy we had when all my kids were younger and their was less academic pressure. Small changes won't work; I've tried those. So, what have you done to drastically alter the way you homeschool in order to bring joy, discovery and amazement back into your life and the lives of your kids?

I'm using the light blue for dd10 (4th grade). She has used MM since 1st grade. Up to about the middle of the 4th level it has taken about 30 minutes to do 2 pages, however since that time it seems to run closer to 40 minutes for the most part. Some pages take much less time due to the small amount of work on the page, such as the geometry sections.

We're expecting severe thunderstorms and high winds (tornado possibilities) so I'm glad that the county Sheriffs department has asked people to postpone their ToTing. The problem is our particular city is just saying "parent discretion" so I guarantee there will be idiots driving around in pouring down rain, wind and lightning letting their kids dash from their cars to the houses. My porch light will be off but I'm sure, as happens every year after I run out of candy and turn off the porch light, I'll have kids banging on my door and ringing the doorbell anyway. Especially since tomorrow they will have just braved a monsoon of cold rain to get to my door. I feel like the Halloween Scrooge this year. Bah Humbug!

Our area is supposed to get thunderstorms and strong winds. The county has suggested that people postpone Halloween until Friday but my particular city is saying it's up to parent discretion. So, I imagine some people will try for it tomorrow night (those die hard Halloween must be on Halloween types) and some will wait until Friday. I'm doing a couple sugar skull face paints so I really, really hope enough people decide to pass out candy on Friday so that it makes it worth while for my kids. It will be really disappointing for them to go out and see row after row of dark porch lights. I tried very hard to play up doing our own thing with candy, icecream sundaes, movies, games and such but they weren't having any of it. ;(

dmmetler - could you give me an idea of the types of activities that the dvds suggest you do to reinforce the topics? What types of activities are the parents doing in the co-op classes? Sorry for the hijack but I think these would be perfect for the middle schoolers at our co-op!

Looks like Getty-Dubay Italics maybe? Very nice for 2 weeks in!

I'm not even going to address the program issue. Please don't let your idea of how you think your dd should feel about math interfere with allowing her to find her own happy medium with the subject. I would post more about this but I've got to run...just read and re-read that sentence.

We don't do every subject every day. (I'm only including my 5th, 2nd, and PreK in this schedule since my older two make their own weekly schedules) Monday we have co-op in the morning and then I run a mini science co-op in the afternoon where we do our experiments for the week. Tuesday is all of LA, Latin for the 5th, science reading, history, and math Wednesday is all of LA, Latin for the 5th, math, logic, and I run mini art co-op in the afternoon Thursday is all of LA, Latin for the 5th, science reading, history, and math Friday is all of LA, Latin for the 5th, math, logic, and then project based exploration in the afternoon (right now we are trying to do a field study of our creek and surrounding area) I agree with others that if it's taking you until 3 everyday just to get through the basics, science and history then you might need to re-evaluate. One thing that saves me a lot of time is to use certain subjects to do double duty. For example, we don't use a separate writing program - we write across the curriculum . We don't do a grammar program with ds yet, and dd learns grammar through Latin (we will do AG in middle school). Spelling, punctuation, and usage is done through our writing. I also limit certain lessons to an amount of time, not necessarily until a whole lesson is finished. Math for ds is 30 minutes; it's 40 minutes for dd. Penmanship was, up until recently, done while doing our normal writing but they each requested a workbook so I'm not willing to spend a lot of time on it. I set the timer for 10 minutes for it. Phonics for ds is set for 30 minutes. Independent reading is set for 30 minutes for dd; it's set for 20 for ds. **Edited to add after I went back and re-read your post: How about moving the hour of reading time after lunch to the evening. Part of why I don't schedule more than 30 minutes of reading time for dd during the day is because she always reads for about 30 minutes before bed too...same with ds but with different times.

would you do it between the 2nd and 3rd volumes or 3rd and 4th? Thanks :)

Oh gosh! I just saw this...I am so sorry Joanne! I hate that this has happened to you. I mean, after everything you've been through in the years since I've been on the forum....why you! Praying for support, love, strength, and an amazingly speedy recovery for you. :grouphug:

I'd try it for a semester, especially if the only commitment from you is sitting in the cafeteria with your younger two kids (I'm teaching 3 project heavy classes at our co-op right now so your scenario sounds lovely to me. ;) ) I can think of lots of fun stuff to do with younger kiddos in the cafeteria...in fact my 4 yo would be in HEAVEN if I had even 1 hour to sit and do something with her. :)

Well, this may not be what you want to hear but I use my TM's to press flowers. :) Seriously, I spent close to a month trying to plan out how to incorporate just some of the information in the TMs with the stories in the text. In the end I found it was just far too much and much of it was overkill for what I was trying to accomplish, which was a basic understanding of literary elements and how to recognize them in a story, the exploration of different authors and genres, an introduction to being able to discuss and do simple analyzing of a story, exposure to vocabulary, and just a love of reading. We've been extremely happy with simply working through the text and using the workbook. I personally don't feel like we're missing anything dd needs by not using the TMs.

Perhaps they don't learn the way your teaching? What would you say is your main method for teaching? Do you use lots of visual or kinesthetic teaching to help your kids experience a concept through many different learning abilities? I would consider changing the way you are presenting the information to see if it helps to make a difference. But, I think first and foremost.....they're 7 and this is your first year homeschooling, right? Gently...relax a bit. This isn't a race and the concepts you are talking about can sometimes take months...months to cement. Two of my other older kids took close to 6 to 8 months to finally remember consistently to capitalize a sentence when they were between 1st and 2nd grade. My current 7 year old took a whole school year to remember what e does at the end of a word. He still misses it sometimes. It's a learning process. Each time they go over a concept, each time they are reminded, it creates a more permanent file in their brains. Instead of looking at what you think they should know by the end of the week, month or even the end of 1st grade try to look at the big picture of where you'd like them to be by the end of 3rd, 5th, 8th and 12th. (Those are my milestone years...you could certainly choose your own.) I personally consider between the grades of 1st and 3rd to be the phonics years. If my kids are reading fluently by the end of 3rd I'm perfectly happy. It takes the pressure off of me to push them before they might be developmentally ready and allows them to learn at a pace that is more conducive to truly learning instead of being spoon fed information that is too easily dumped when it holds no interest or relevance for the child.

Research dyscalculia. Dd14 started out struggling with the exact issues your describing....knowing a procedure then suddenly forgetting it as if you've never taught the concept. I wish I'd known about dyscalculia when she was 7 instead of struggling until she was 13. Research dyscalculia...it may not be the answer but at least it would rule one thing out.

Would this be Seaman? We're doing BF Geography next year so these suggestions will come in handy. :)

Oh my goodness. Thank you so much. bolt., I think the description in your third paragraph is exactly what's going on, and thank you for being real. I try to be very patient with him even when I was thinking it may be a issue of him purposefully putting off going...but my patients wear thin dealing with this day after day. Going to read more about this.

This is a gross subject but please, please someone tell me that I can fix this. Son is 7 and for as long as he has been potty trained (which happened very, very late because of this poop issue - I think he was 5 when we finally said no more diapers) he has accidents at least 5-9 times a week. These accidents aren't full out vacating his bowels into his pants but more like leaks or tracks. At times it's just like he hasn't gotten himself clean when he wipes so I've bought him wet wipes to use, but at other times he hasn't even been in the bathroom and I'll get a whiff when he's close, check his pants and there is definite "leakage" in there. I'll ask if he was "holding" it so as not to miss out on playing and sometimes he will admit that that is what happened, but then other times he acts genuinely surprised that it happened and says he didn't notice. (How one doesn't notice poop squishing between their butt checks is beyond me.) So, I'm just tired of this...I'm tired of scrubbing poop out of his underwear, and yes, I have had him scrub them on more than one occasion. In the last 3 days its happened 4 times...all times when he was either playing with someone or having screen time. I took his screen time away and told him he was restricted from playing with friends until he could go 3 days without an accident thinking yet again that this was just an issue of him not wanting to take the time to go to the bathroom. Well, today it just happened again and he was just poking around in his room not doing anything specific. I asked him if he had an accident and he said no, he didn't think so but when I checked he had. I hate to think that my son is just flat out lying to me...not something he does about anything else...but what on earth is going on! I sat him down trying to talk to him about it, explaining that I'm not mad, but that we have got to put an end to this and he said that every time he eats he has to poop right away, and that sometimes when he's playing he'll notice that its "squishy" down there but that he didn't realize he'd gone. Is this a medical issue? What could be causing this and how on earth do I stop it?

Thanks ladies. :)

Anything out there already organized for me? :)

Dh just got the word that they are shutting down the base for next week. It's a testing facility so it takes them some time to shut everything down and finish up certain tests so they said they can't wait until the last minute. On the plus side his specific company is offering to advance it's employees 1 week of vacation (which will have to be paid back as they earn more). That means no lapse in pay since it seems this whole mess will be (hopefully) resolved this weekend\early part of the week. So, considering the situation this hasn't worked out badly for us after all - but I know there are those out there that have been out of work and won't be getting back pay or vacation pay. :( So senseless. Nothing was accomplished.