Re-evaluating for next year, would love feedback/encouragement

[hlee]

(cross-posted on the General Discussion board as well)

 

Hi,

 

I have three boys, 10, 8 and 5. I use a combo of My Father's World, WTM-inspired language arts curricula and subjects (i.e., First Language Lessons, Writing With Ease, Latin, etc.), and Singapore Math.

 

As I come to the end of this year, our fourth year of homeschooling, I am feeling TIRED. Nearly although not quite to the point of thinking, "The boys might be better off in public school!" So, to help bring me back from the edge of the cliff, I would love to hear what has worked for those of you with elementary/early middle school kids, boys in particular. If you're willing to share, I'd love to get a sense of how long school takes for you and what your schedule is like. One of my biggest struggles this year has been feeling as though our school experience is not instilling a love for learning, as I had hoped to instill when we began this journey, but is reflecting more of a "let's just get the work done!" ethos that perhaps is necessary to some extent, but that has taken the joy out for me, certainly...and probably for my kids, too, I imagine. I am hounded by a feeling that we are not doing enough, and yet I cannot figure out how to do more. I look at the impending Common Core standards, which I know are being criticized for not being rigorous enough, and yet my head spins wondering if my kids could even meet those yearly goals!

 

So I would love some input and insights into some of the questions I've mentioned above. Thanks in advance for any advice you might have!

 

Best,

Helen

[FO4UR]

Just b/c schools *teach* certain standards does not mean that the children actually *learn* those standards. There is a difference. Don't get into comparison traps.

 

 

Mine are 10, 8, and (almost) 7 and we have a newborn. I think the bleh feeling is common...the ages (10yo's are not so easily enthused with Mommy-Led fun and games.), the time of year (It's May. I'm tired. And I usually am excited to plan next year at this time...but this year, I'm just tired and want to go to the beach.)

 

 

Take a good break.

 

 

Our school day used to be done before lunch. Gone are those days. :crying: With 3 dc who need my help, it just has to stretch on into the afternoon. School from 8:30-12:00 (With a 30-45min break for each kid, not necessarily at the same time) lunch/quiet time until 2pm and then another hour or two of school. And, we never finish with what I had planned for the day. We do a good rigorous math/LA, but there is so much more I want to do with them. I just have to stop and end the day though.

 

As I plan for next year, I'm scheduling in weekly nature walks, I bought Nutshell Kits to make sure that hands-on science happens even if I'm busy nursing (or chasing) a baby, and I'm *finally* going to surrender to a daily schedule that we follow to the minute.

[laughing lioness]

Over the years I have shifted paradigms from "Instilling a love of learning" to "knowing how to learn well." They might or might not love it- ce le vive. Dh and I have had to learn TONS of stuff to cope with life and we haven't "loved" learning it but, we have known HOW to learn it and we LOVE the results of knowing how to learn- kwim?

Coming to this place has taken a HUGE amount of pressure off of ME.

I make GOOD use of whatever help I can find- academic class days, co-ops (for 4 years we've had out kids in both - usually on 2 different days-- this puts a bit more pressure on the days that we are home, but mostly it's very "good" pressure (as in, get your stuff done if you want to go to the park after co-op). Co-op is chorale, art and a unit study. Class day classes assign homework, have tests, we pay the teachers, and has included classes like science, writing, history, latin, gov, etc.

We also listen to TONS of CD's - SOTW, Poetry, CC CD's and videos- Great Courses, history, etc. Some, like "The Help" or "Gone with the Wind" aren't educational in the traditional sense but we spend a lot of time talking and processing them and use them to follow up areas of curiosity or interest (dd 10 is appalled/fascinated by the concept of slavery right now).

 

We do a lot of stuff on -line- Adventus Music program- Shoolhouse Teacher, some on-line classes , Super Charged science, Youtube,

Our academics contain stuff that is effective and non-fluff- mostly Memoria Press and PHP- they get the job done, they are gentle and incremental and they are skill building programs. I am so done with making sure my kids "have fun." My goal is to educate my kids and FUN comes wtih mastery and skill.

That's not to say we don't have fun- kwim?

[Mandy in TN]

Lisa is wise.

 

True happiness comes from taking care of responsibilities. Fun may last a little while and bring only sorrow in the end. This isn't to say that you can't have fun while you are taking care of responsibilities, but sometimes that just isn't the case. Washing clothes isn't fun for me, but I sure am happy to have clean underwear.

 

I also agree with Paula. 10-year-olds often do not find joy in the simple things the way a 5yo does. If your children are the audience for the stand-up act of motherhood, then 10yos are often the hecklers. lol And they are bad hecklers in that they think they know what's going on, but often lack the cognitive skills to come in out of the rain iykwim.

 

HTH :D

Mandy

[Walking-Iris]

I think it's normal to feel tired and done by this time of the year. Even for the kids. Some things I do to alleviate the feeling of "just get the work done" is to make some subjects that are fun a higher priority. Art for example. I clear Fridays and we just do a small math lesson and art projects and appreciation and a Braverwriter Friday Freewrite. You may also like to look into the Outdoor Hour Challenges for nature study.

 

Somedays are fun, but some days it's all can do to get them through the lang arts and some math. Also i wouldn't really worry about having to get things like WWE or FLL "done." My understanding is that they are leveled more than graded and I don't feel anything terrible will happen if you take a break from them. Or even skip a day or two in the week from them. You may like to add some more creative writing or grammar lessons to alleviate the dullness of the WWE curricula.

 

Also just a thought. If your children like to draw, they may like a copywork/dictation journal. My ds looks forward to dictation because he writes in a nice unlined sketchbook and then he illustrates that scene underneath with colored pencil or marker. He love sart of all kinds, so any chance to draw and keep a collection of his drawings is a motivating tool. If he used the WWE student pages or just plain notebook paper he may have given up in boredom a looong time ago. Heck so would I.

 

Add some artistic element to your subjects and you may find them going over better.

[m0mmaBuck]

Over the years I have shifted paradigms from "Instilling a love of learning" to "knowing how to learn well."

 

 

I love that. That is how I feel about our schooling.

 

I only have 2 but we focus on the 3 R's. Every day, no matter what, the kids do math, LA (writing, grammar, penmanshipm spelling, vocab), and reading. We get that done by using workbook-format programs for LA (CLE for DD7 and LLATL for DS11) and math (CLE for both), and by assigning reading to each child to be completed before they can have free time. Sometimes the reading is from science or history to help facilitate whatever "fun" we have planned.

 

Once those are done, we throw in the more laid back/"fun" stuff like SOTW, science, foreign languages, art, music.... Sometimes SOTW only gets covered in so much as I read the chapter to them and then we discuss what they remember. Other times we do maps, coloring, projects.... It just depends on how much time and interest we have. Science is sometimes assigned reading and other times it's experments and field trips... It depends on the topic and time. Sometimes our Latin reverts back to singing along with SSL and other times it's translating sentences. Music can be composer studies or listening to Beethovan's Wig or picking apart a popular song they like or playing the piano depending on the day. Art might be an artist study or trying to replicate a famous piece, and sometimes it's just free time with supplies to do whatever they want. They are definintely learning even if we aren't moving lesson by lesson through our curriculum in these areas.

[Mandy in TN]

Oh, about our day-

 

This year my little guy turned 10yo and my joyful learner left the building. Second quarter started almost the day he turned 10yo. We didn't find our footing until after winter break. Now, I realize that he just isn't going to get excited about learning a new skill. I also realize that he likes being academically ahead of his age level peers. He likes hanging out with older students and for this to continue being an option he cannot play all day. It was a rough transition moving from enjoying learning to enjoying the opportunities that learning provides and we aren't through it yet.

 

Ds takes private violin lessons 30 min 1x/ wk, plays violin in the junior orchestra 5:45-7:30 1x/ wk, and takes private mandolin lessons 30 min 1x/ wk. Music practice takes up over an hour and sometimes much more each day. It is discipline. He does a lot of math, but this year he has dawdled along and has not been excited about any of it. I have totally dropped the ball on silent reading. The same is true of cultural geography. These two were tied together and we are not going to make it to Australia and Oceania before the end of May. I think we are 4 weeks behind my schedule and we dropped a lot of the material. I think science is fine, but it certainly wasn't the joyful experience I had planned. We dropped foreign language altogether after first semester. I second semester I invited people to our home one day each week to do poetry, botany, middle school geometry, and lesser studied ancient cultures. So, we added that and it has been good.

 

HTH-

Mandy

[Walking-Iris]

Oh, about our day-

 

This year my little guy turned 10yo and my joyful learner left the building. Second quarter started almost the day he turned 10yo. We didn't find our footing until after winter break. Now, I realize that he just isn't going to get excited about learning a new skill. I also realize that he likes being academically ahead of his age level peers. He likes hanging out with older students and for this to continue being an option he cannot play all day. It was a rough transition moving from enjoying learning to enjoying the opportunities that learning provides and we aren't through it yet.

 

Ds takes private violin lessons 30 min 1x/ wk, plays violin in the junior orchestra 5:45-7:30 1x/ wk, and takes private mandolin lessons 30 min 1x/ wk. Music practice takes up over an hour and sometimes much more each day. It is discipline. He does a lot of math, but this year he has dawdled along and has not been excited about any of it. I have totally dropped the ball on silent reading. The same is true of cultural geography. These two were tied together and we are not going to make it to Australia and Oceania before the end of May. I think we are 4 weeks behind my schedule and we dropped a lot of the material. I think science is fine, but it certainly wasn't the joyful experience I had planned. We dropped foreign language altogether after first semester. I second semester I invited people to our home one day each week to do poetry, botany, middle school geometry, and lesser studied ancient cultures. So, we added that and it has been good.

 

HTH-

Mandy

 

This was my oldest as well. He just wants to know what he has to do to get done and then get on with "his" life. LOL. Math is just a slow crawl because he isn't really interested in it as much as he's interested in getting it done for the day. History and geography also got lax attention because of the grumbles. Science is okay. He likes to do things more than read about it. Language arts are solid though. He really loves those subject areas the best.

 

I've just had to abbreviate my ideas about what we were going to do this year, and just be happy with basic exposure to content areas.

[LBoogie]

No advice from me-- just wanted to say that I feel like I could have written your post! Trying to figure out what to do next year to bring in some joy...

[heritagelearningacademy]

I have a 13 year old son (just finishing 7th grade this week) and a 9 year old son (finishing 3rd) and my little girl Kindergartener. For my junior high son, school just takes longer. He has been working on a math unit review for an hour now. That's life. Subject challenge increases with age and level of work. And, I know things step up more for my 4th grader next year too.

 

I find, one way we shake things up, is between subjects, I send them outside to run, take the dog for a walk, go jump on the trampoline for 15 minutes. It does amazing things for their focus and attitudes.

 

I think the kids do experience more joy when I am less stressed with all the other things we do. Another way we do "joy" is by sometimes just saying you worked so hard this morning, we are not going to do LA today. I don't do that often, but sometimes, it is okay to reward them.

[cmac]

Based on your curriculum, it sounds like your children would meet the majority of the common core/public school standards. I use some of WWE. If we did it all, it definitely wouldn't be fun for us. My son definitely complains about school time, even though I have tried very very hard to make it interesting to him. But in the end he read science books and his 39 clues book (which is fluff but mentions historical figures) in his free time. He asks/talks about black holes, George Washington etc. Even though he doesn't like "school time" and the topics we have to cover, I still feel as if he has a love of learning, much more than if he went to public school. He brings up what he learned during our school time, even though he has complained about it. Maybe you have instilled a love of learning even though it doesn't feel like it?