I need a homeschool reboot and wisdom from those who have BTDT

[fairy4tmama]

We have had a tumultuous year and I am feeling LOST...I feel like I have completely lost my groove and I don't know how to get it back. We ended up taking the last two months off even though I had planned to go through the summer and I had hoped that I would come out of it feeling less burnt out and more inspired. While I do feel less burnt out, I feel like I have no idea how to restart...I usually love planning, and I want to plan but I feel like I have no direction; I don't really know where we are or where we are going (this is in part because we moved to a new state in October, I also tried using a mostly all in one curriculum OM 2,4,6 this year which ended up being a total flop and I have a marauding toddler). Has anyone here gone through something similar; how did you pull out of it? How did you find your path again? What steps did you take to redefine your direction? HELP

[stm4him]

I don't really believe in planning anymore. I kept going with Saxon Math for my oldest three who are good readers and decided to just have my non readers learn math facts with flashcards. I got a workbook with phonics and handwriting for my non readers and a grammar/spelling /vocabulary workbook for my readers. Other than that they read (or I read to them) and narrate from our home library. We rotate between Bible, fiction, and nonfiction. At night, they report about what they learned from their reading. The simplicity of this keeps us consistent and I don't need to plan anything. I have to keep up with checking work and that is it.

 

I do want to add in some memory work this year and I forgot to say that my oldest is also learning music theory (and my boys will study music theory this year too). For art, they draw something from their reading.

[OneStepAtATime]

:grouphug:  :grouphug:  :grouphug: 

 

Agree that maybe what you need right now is to commit to maybe half an hour to 45 minutes of math every morning, plus plenty of reading or read alouds or audio books and just pick topics of interest to explore for the rest.  

 

Is there something you have always wanted to learn?  Some area of interest for you?  I think it is healthy for our kids to see US learning something or acquiring a new skill, too, as well as it being a good boost for ourselves.  

 

What math have you used in the past?  Is it fairly independent?  

 

Do any of your kids have special interests you could help them pursue in a very targeted way?  So many kids actually start taking off in learning when they are given the chance to really hone a skill and dig deeper into areas of interest specifically for them.

 

Are you feeling rundown because the move was exhausting and you haven't gotten your groove back yet?  Are you sleeping and eating well?  Are the kids?  If not, what you might do is make this fall, health fall.  You all work hard at researching and implementing a healthier lifestyle.  Take walks, build a garden, study how other countries handle being healthy, experiment with healthy foods from around the world, work hard to implement a really good sleep schedule that works with instead of against everyone's internal rhythms, etc.

 

[....]

Has anyone here gone through something similar; how did you pull out of it? How did you find your path again? What steps did you take to redefine your direction? HELP

 

We've had a similar year.  In fact, we've taken most of the year off as a break or they did independent study.  Our homeschool was on life support and one day, I decided that we needed to completely stop.  We started back up again 2 weeks ago and we are in full swing.  We are accomplishing so much more than we were previously.  The break helped.  Organizing our household helped - we did a ton of decluttering, food planning, chore charts, rearranging outside activities to free up more time, etc.  That made a huge difference.  I also started from scratch with our homeschool plans...I did some combining of kids/subjects.  Anything to make things easier...  

 

Good luck!

[8filltheheart]

My advice is counter-intuitive.  When I get immobilized like you describe, forcing myself to face the elephant and conquering it one bite at a time is the only way I can move forward.  For me that means tackling planning and doing what I know needs to be done.  The more I put off doing what I know I need to be doing, the worse the inertia becomes.  

 

One way I motivate myself is by finding something new and interesting for us to study.   I would also get the kids excited about studying something.  Enthusiasm is contagious.  If they get excited about learning something, it will improve everyone's motivation.

[Julie of KY]

I boil it down to bare bones - what has to be taught to keep moving. Usually keep doing math, reading, writing can be postponed temporarily, but not too long.

 

I then do the bare bones priority schoolwork and take the rest of the day to explore learning opportunities - do physical activities, go on field trips, play family games, read-aloud books together, go to the library, do science experiments, build creations, watch educational shows, home improvement projects, housework, etc. You can find that you can learn a lot by doing life together - just don't let the kids waste away in front of a screen doing mindless activities all day.

[Targhee]

In 2013 I was feeling fully burned out, and burnt, after extending myself way out of my comfort zone to make connections after moving (with not much to show for it), discovering one child had a LD and three kids were ADHD, taking kids to VT/OT/Psych appointments regularly, and my once sleep-the-day-away infant was 2 and adventurous. I also left my umbrella school, whose choices were more and more limited and the reporting was not and more extensive, to homeschool independently. I needed something different - something to ease my burden why I recovered and refocused.

 

So, I decided we would do reading, math, writing, and let my then 6th grader start 2 online courses. The rest I left to my kids to be interest led. They had checklists of what needed to be done and once they did it they could do "project work." That could be Rosetta Stone Spanish, Thames and Kosmos science kits, Snap Circuits, programming with Scratch, listening to audiobook of SOTW while coloring, art projects, NaNoWriMo, documentaries, and other things they thought of themselves.

 

By about February I had got some energy/focus back and dug deeply into educational philosophy, ideas of classical pedagogy, and read/watched/listened to everything I had time and access to. By the end of that school year I was ready for the upcoming year! I did over plan a bit and got overwhelmed by the next February, but I knew I just had to slog through the rest of this year and be all the wiser for the upcoming year. I would not commit myself as much, and ease off a couple things with particular kids.

 

So, I guess I'm saying give yourself leeway and time to make these decisions. Breathe, and set your homeschool on autopilot for a while so you can determine what will be best for your family. Best Wishes!

[Another Lynn]

Sympathy, but no real advice for the emotional side.  It's good that you feel like the burn out has eased up.  Just having a 2yo will make all of that hard at times.

 

For the practical part, take a mental look at what you were using before OM.  Do any of those materials seem like the right thing to go back to?  Start with skill subjects and think about what each child needs.  I don't know if you like to think about things this way, but even if I'm brainstorming options I like to see it in a spreadsheet to see how the day would look if we did such-and-such combination of programs.  Or, read through some of the planning threads and see if there's a post or two where you're nodding your head in agreement.  (And stay away from the ones with long, long lists!) 

 

The most important thing is to keep it simple.  You don't want to burden yourself with too many curricula or things that are difficult to implement.  Also, consider where you want to spend *your* time.  What subjects should be teacher intensive and which ones are going to need to be more hands off. 

 

 

[HomeAgain]

I read the title of your thread and the first few lines and immediately the thought came to mind that you had an 11yo.

 

Then I read your signature.

 

:laugh:

 

11&12 were HARD years here. Different needs, everything felt like it fell to pieces...it took a supportive mom's group with others who had been in my shoes and changing up ALL of our choices.  The science curriculum we had used for years? Gone. Math? Gone. Language arts? We'd always bounced around there so we bounced to something new.

 

Talk to your kids.  Schedule individual conferences with them and go over choices they have for next year.  Make them take ownership just a little more...and take care of yourself just a little more, too.

[fairy4tmama]

Oh mama's, your posts are all just what I have needed to hear! Prior to our break we had gone to kind of a bare bones-math, independent reading, and some writing, for about 6 weeks and it is so nice to hear the reassurance that that's OK (dh and I don't always agree about hsing so I think I needed to hear that). I really feel like I need and want to get us back to a more cohesive routine and that's where I have been stuck. It's funny I feel like I have literally forgotten how to homeschool, but going and reading how to start homeschooling blogs has not been helpful.Believe it or not your responses have helped tremendously! Thank you, thank, you thank you.

 

I think I need to get us back into a groove with a mini family boot camp reestablishing a routine and regular chores (I have just been assigning things randomly to whoever is handy). I can't decide if we should ease back in a week or two of barebones reading writing and arithmetic while I dive into some planning and then ramp things up from there or if I should hold off a week or two focus on boot camp and get all my planning done and then start pretty full force. Both have there pro's and cons, what do you think?

[Guest livesnpursuit]

LOL, "marauding toddler."  So familiar, but passing.