Is anyone else in denial about the upcoming year?

[easypeasy]

My kids are mostly outsourced next year. Hmmm... actually... I think they are 100% outsourced. I can't quite remember everything we settled on, though. Books were ordered, and deposits paid (except for one class, which I guess I really do need to take care of).

I'm getting emails from co-ops (ugh). One kid has one class at one co-op. The other kid has one class at another co-op. It's the same flipping subject, but the two kids' schedules conflicted with one another, so we had to find the classes at two sources. So, the emails for orientations and volunteer sign-ups and all that jazz have started and I... am just ignoring them.

I'm usually the first to sign up. I usually have the calendars all updated and ready to go. It's my zillionth year homeschooling - my oldest currently-hs'ed kid is a senior, but having a scheduled gap-year, so we don't have to deal with college applications until next year... and the "baby" is ready for college classes, so I don't. want. to. read. any. co-op. orientation. emails. DS is on an advisory board and those emails started today. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaackkkkkkk!!!!!

Surely, I can't be the only one who isn't ready for August to be here already??!!!

[JoJosMom]

Yes.

 

Now please be quiet. I would like to return to my oblivion.

[homemommy83]

I am usually very excited about each homeschooling year, but this year I feeling pretty worn-out.  I am not upset or anything.....just hoping our new routine allows me the energy to keep up housework and play with my littles.  My  oldest is working pretty independently in MFW and he absolutely LOVES it.  He is really enjoying the writing assignments......writing has been his nemesis.  My next 2 kiddos are reading so well now and are enjoying this new freedom that reading textbooks/livingbooks is bringing them.  My younger three I am really hoping on spending more quality/quantity time with this year.  OK, maybe talking about the new year is making me more excited???.

 

Brenda

[Reefgazer]

No, I am not ready for fall; not for my own teaching classes and not for the kids' school.  Summer flew by - I feel I didn't really have time to rest and re-charge.

[freesia]

Yeah. I'm a actually dutifully completing my to-do list. But last year was so so crazy with college apps and a new co-op(in a different state no less!) that we had to join bc of a situation with dd that necessitated a new social group, plus nurturing new social group plus both older kid's jobs plus plus plus. It was all so exhausting. I am trying to tell myself that next year will be different but I am just not engaging with the thought of actually doing anything bc my stomach twists. 

I do actually enjoy homeschooling. I don't enjoy spinning multiple plates at once. I like doing one thing preferably without interruption but that is totally not my life right now. 

I think I'll go take a nap in the hammock. 

[prairiewindmomma]

I alternate between wanting to prepare diligently and wanting to go hang at the beach for a few more afternoons. The full-on panic has arrived but my coping methods are somewhat schizophrenic (see above).

[freesia]

12 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

I alternate between wanting to prepare diligently and wanting to go hang at the beach for a few more afternoons. The full-on panic has arrived but my coping methods are somewhat schizophrenic (see above).

Ooo I'll go to the beach with you!

are there any on the prairie???

[Ravin]

Yes. We aren't homeschooling. It's only started to dawn on me that I can relax a little bit!

[Sebastian (a lady)]

This has been a spring and summer that has been emotionally and mentally full.  There have been things I haven't prepped, like my AP Euro syllabus.  On the other hand in looking forward to outsourced stuff starting so we get into a formal schedule again.

[Roadrunner]

This is the first time I feel no joy at all starting the school year. I wish I could afford a good school.

[Mbelle]

I do feel weird this year.  DD is going to college.  DS1 is outsourcing everything and doing DE in the spring.  DS2 is going to 1 day a week of hybrid school so I will only be doing half old fashioned homeschooling.  I just sat here today ordering books.  It is very weird to not have all that planning anxiety anymore.  I believe DS2 will be more of a hybrid schooler for his school career.  He will miss out on some things, but gain in other ways.  I hope to work part-time with only 1 child at home and I think DH will be working from home several days a week by then so it should be manageable.  It's a time of change in our family.

[easypeasy]

3 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

I alternate between wanting to prepare diligently and wanting to go hang at the beach for a few more afternoons. The full-on panic has arrived but my coping methods are somewhat schizophrenic (see above).

 

Oh, this is so easy.

Get thee to the beach!! What are you even waiting for? If we had a beach nearby, my toes would be firmly in the sand and my ears tuned-in to the sounds of the ocean. Not a care in the world.

Planning is over-rated. ? (seriously - I look back at my tendency to over-plan everything and roll my eyes at myself a little. If I had to do it over? More beach days during the summer for sure.)

[RootAnn]

8 hours ago, JoJosMom said:

Yes.

 

Now please be quiet. I would like to return to my oblivion.

Ditto. At least for a couple more weeks.

2 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

This is the first time I feel no joy at all starting the school year. I wish I could afford a good school.

Aw!  DD#1 is looking forward to hearing all about your beautiful weather (while we are dealing with Dec/Jan snows) from your son in German. And flip flops. And sun burns. In German. Cuz, you know, you should be able to say all those things IN GERMAN by German 2, right?

[Noreen Claire]

We actually spend quite a few days at the beach after the public schools go back, enjoying having the whole thing to ourselves! 

We won't start until the first full week of September, so I have a little bit longer to procrastinate before I have to get down to work planning. I made an outline in the spring, and I think I have all our materials set. Maybe I'll start next week...

[Roadrunner]

4 minutes ago, RootAnn said:

Ditto. At least for a couple more weeks.

Aw!  DD#1 is looking forward to hearing all about your beautiful weather (while we are dealing with Dec/Jan snows) from your son in German. And flip flops. And sun burns. In German. Cuz, you know, you should be able to say all those things IN GERMAN by German 2, right?

 

❤️❤️❤️

But you just reminded me he hasn’t opened a German book this entire summer. Monday it is. We will start reviewing. ?

[prairiewindmomma]

3 hours ago, freesia said:

Ooo I'll go to the beach with you!

are there any on the prairie???

See the note under my name. I left the prairie!

[freesia]

1 minute ago, prairiewindmomma said:

See the note under my name. I left the prairie!

Ah, I missed that! 

[8filltheheart]

We actually started 3 weeks ago. Dd is at German camp and we have been immersed in one historical tour after another on our vacation here. I am counting it as one big field trip experience and not time off bc we have learned and experienced so much. 

We started early so that we can take off days for fun in the fall when the weather is gorgeous. Lots of 4 day weekends.

[prairiewindmomma]

Ok, I am back to processing veggies for the freezer. I borrowed a Cuisinart food processor from the library and it's due back tomorrow.  

I moved somewhere not far from the beach AND with a fantastic library. This has been a fantastic relo. ?

[freesia]

That is my dream location!  p

[Targhee]

Yes, but perhaps distracted is a better description than in denial for me.  We have been finishing house plans and are breaking ground this week (fingers crossed) and it has taken all my attention and research/planning/decision making executive skills.  Monday I started with plans and the term begins in less than two weeks (I have kids in public or part time in public so we go by school district calendar).  The summer flew by, and while I plowed through plumbing fixture catalogs I threw frozen waffles and pizza at my kids in a distracted way and pretty much let them do whatever.  It has been so completely unstructured that I am debating on which would be better: our usual ramp-up style to the fall, or just cold-turkey bring in the full routine so we can get back to normal faster.

I need another month ?

[Alte Veste Academy]

I am. Periodically it occurs to me that I need to turn the pile of books and resources I’ve collected into actual plans. We don’t start until the 27th, and I told myself that I need to get serious at the beginning of the month, which was today. So naturally I woke up nice and early this morning and started a massive reorganization of my pantry. ?

This is my pattern every single time we take a break and restart.

[JoJosMom]

5 minutes ago, Alte Veste Academy said:

I am. Periodically it occurs to me that I need to turn the pile of books and resources I’ve collected into actual plans. We don’t start until the 27th, and I told myself that I need to get serious at the beginning of the month, which was today. So naturally I woke up nice and early this morning and started a massive reorganization of my pantry. ?

This is my pattern every single time we take a break and restart.

 

Osmosis. Osmosis should work. The child should just absorb the knowledge from the resources...

 

[cintinative]

I'm waffling between feeling somewhat confident and wanting to hide in a closet. Normally by this time I have every duck in a row, but this year, the ducks are more like kittens and there are no rows whatsoever.  

Part of it is that I am doing a different lab-intensive science at home than I am doing at our co-op. Why did I think this was a good idea? I don't know. I must have been under-caffeinated. 

Oh, and similar to Alta Veste Academy I have started up a major project to sort and resell my kids Megablocks which has taken over our homeschool room. Some days I am like a dog in a room full of squirrels when I should be focusing on this school stuff.

 

Edited August 2, 2018 by cintinative

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

This is my first year with a high schooler. I’ll also have 7th, 6th, and 4th grades. I’ve been homeschooling from the beginning but this year seems bigger and more overwhelming. My kids aren’t little anymore and we can’t “play around” at school anymore. 

I’ve done all my research and ordered all my materials. I feel great about what I picked and I’m excited about all of it. We have some new things I can’t wait to try. But x4?!...oi....Nothing is outsourced; I’m teaching it all. How is that supposed to happen?! I need to pull it all out and start getting plans together but I don’t know where to start. Does that osmosis thing work? Maybe I’ll go with that.

 Part of the problem is figuring out when we’re starting. I don’t usually like to start school until the 2nd full week of September. (I like having one week after all the other kids go back to school to enjoy tourist type stuff.) This year, though my dad has rented a beach house for the whole family right on the beach for the last week of September. It’s a few states away and my DH’s days off don’t line up with it well so we’re going to do a little extra traveling before we get to the beach. All of that’s awesome but that means we’d get one week of school in before vacation. I can’t just wait til October to start. Our summers are so short here that I like to wrap up school by the end of May so that we can enjoy every minute of warmth and sunshine. I don’t think I can fit in everything between October and May. If the kids were younger I’d do it without a second thought. Big kids are complicated!

[RootAnn]

2 hours ago, Alte Veste Academy said:

So naturally I woke up nice and early this morning and started a massive reorganization of my pantry. ?

This is my pattern every single time we take a break and restart.

Your pantry must be really amazing. 

14 minutes ago, 2ndGenHomeschooler said:

Big kids are complicated!

As someone with a couple of 'big kids', I recommend starting the last week of August with something in the pile of resources for this year that you think will be fun/exciting for the kids. Just do that with them the first week of school. Then, take Labor Day off & the rest of that first week of September, do the fun/exciting subject & add one more subject (per kid) that is not the one you are most dreading, but one that will take a bit to get figured out. Knock the dust off & take it for a ride. That next week (the one you normally start homeschooling for real usually), just do those two subjects for each kid & see how things go. Then, enjoy your two weeks off, content that you've got three weeks of one subject done (even if it ends up dropping by the wayside at some point, you got a few weeks of it in) and you worked on figuring out another subject. So, when you come back to restart school, you won't have to start from scratch.

[8filltheheart]

Definitely agree with RootAnn's advice.  It is one of the reasons we started back so early even though I was in no way mentally ready to start. I knew this week was German camp. I know older Dd is heading back to college in a few weeks. Labor Day and dad off work will be here. I wanted to work out all the kinks of what was workin and what wasn't before camp so that I can just focus on falling back into our routine afterward. Glad I did it that way bc right off I recognized that something I had planned for my 3rd grader was not working. So when we start back next week, it is jettisoned and I already have a replacement planned.

Then, full speed ahead with lots of extra days built in at the beginning of the yr, so I never have to feel like we are playing catch-up or can't just take a random day off for fun.

Edited August 2, 2018 by 8FillTheHeart

[Miguelsmom]

We're not excited here. There seems like to much to do. We dropped down our co-ops to half day. My son is excited to see his friends but not for school. We ordered all of his books we'll get then this Friday. We're not starting until the 13th. This semester he's doing Drawing I, exploring media tools, Interactive web media tools and Client side javascript at the local CC. At home he's doing trig., Maya, game development. and putting together a portfolio. He also has to put in 100 hrs. community service. I don't know where that's going to fit. oh and he has to finish driver's ed. I don't want to over load him. He needs the drawing and maya for his game animation portfolio and he needs his game development classes for his game programming portfolio. He needs his portfolio's done by next July to start applying for colleges. It's all just too much

[mirabillis]

We always wait until after Labor Day. That makes me feel all ready. By the time September rolls around, we are ready!

[mirabillis]

4 hours ago, 2ndGenHomeschooler said:

This is my first year with a high schooler. I’ll also have 7th, 6th, and 4th grades. I’ve been homeschooling from the beginning but this year seems bigger and more overwhelming. My kids aren’t little anymore and we can’t “play around” at school anymore. 

I understand all too well. Isn't it like that though, playing around for those K-8 years? LOL! We've got incoming 11th, 9th and many younger ones next year. So from experience with my oldest 9th grader, you will get in your groove. I 'played around' a bit still starting in 9th - for a couple months, then we got our groove. We outsourced much too, which helped lighten the load for me and made a smoother transition to high school level work. We also made an online planner so I could help him map his week out - that has worked amazingly. We use OneNote so it syncs on all computers.

[happypamama]

10 hours ago, Alte Veste Academy said:

I am. Periodically it occurs to me that I need to turn the pile of books and resources I’ve collected into actual plans. We don’t start until the 27th, and I told myself that I need to get serious at the beginning of the month, which was today. So naturally I woke up nice and early this morning and started a massive reorganization of my pantry. ?

This is my pattern every single time we take a break and restart.

If it makes you feel better, we decided that starting a massive kitchen remodel while starting a new school year was a great idea. Did I also mention that I’m about to start frequent prenatal appointments too?  We are so smart, but that’s how life goes sometimes. The next fifteen weeks should be interesting. It works out on paper. I have the work planned, except for one minor subject for my little guys, and all the materials. I organized each child’s school shelf. I just need to whip the rest of my schoolroom (and house) into shape as much as I can, given that half of our kitchen stuff is sitting in the schoolroom. I’ll get there soon. 

[Alte Veste Academy]

14 hours ago, RootAnn said:

Your pantry must be really amazing. 

Amazing in that it is like the clown car of pantries. How much stuff is actually in there?! Not including the empty boxes the kids leave in there...  It is a smallish pantry, but it was a huge mess. 

6 hours ago, happypamama said:

If it makes you feel better, we decided that starting a massive kitchen remodel while starting a new school year was a great idea. Did I also mention that I’m about to start frequent prenatal appointments too?  We are so smart, but that’s how life goes sometimes. The next fifteen weeks should be interesting. It works out on paper. I have the work planned, except for one minor subject for my little guys, and all the materials. I organized each child’s school shelf. I just need to whip the rest of my schoolroom (and house) into shape as much as I can, given that half of our kitchen stuff is sitting in the schoolroom. I’ll get there soon. 

Congratulations on the new wee one!

We are probably starting to have a new house built in the winter or spring, so, yeah. It is what it is. 

Today we are going to a water park. I plan to spend the day on the lazy river. Symbolic? ?

[Alte Veste Academy]

16 hours ago, cintinative said:

I'm waffling between feeling somewhat confident and wanting to hide in a closet. Normally by this time I have every duck in a row, but this year, the ducks are more like kittens and there are no rows whatsoever.  

Part of it is that I am doing a different lab-intensive science at home than I am doing at our co-op. Why did I think this was a good idea? I don't know. I must have been under-caffeinated. 

Oh, and similar to Alta Veste Academy I have started up a major project to sort and resell my kids Megablocks which has taken over our homeschool room. Some days I am like a dog in a room full of squirrels when I should be focusing on this school stuff.

Ha! The bolded describes me perfectly! During the past two months I have been culling shelves and contemplating selling some of the more pricey items online vs just taking it all to Half-Price books or donating it.

[happypamama]

38 minutes ago, Alte Veste Academy said:

Amazing in that it is like the clown car of pantries. How much stuff is actually in there?! Not including the empty boxes the kids leave in there...  It is a smallish pantry, but it was a huge mess. 

Congratulations on the new wee one!

We are probably starting to have a new house built in the winter or spring, so, yeah. It is what it is. 

Today we are going to a water park. I plan to spend the day on the lazy river. Symbolic? ?

Sounds good to me!

 

Life.  That's one of the hardest things about homeschooling, that Life gets in the way sometimes.  

 

I'm cracking up at "clown car of pantries!"  So true.  

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

14 hours ago, RootAnn said:

Your pantry must be really amazing. 

As someone with a couple of 'big kids', I recommend starting the last week of August with something in the pile of resources for this year that you think will be fun/exciting for the kids. Just do that with them the first week of school. Then, take Labor Day off & the rest of that first week of September, do the fun/exciting subject & add one more subject (per kid) that is not the one you are most dreading, but one that will take a bit to get figured out. Knock the dust off & take it for a ride. That next week (the one you normally start homeschooling for real usually), just do those two subjects for each kid & see how things go. Then, enjoy your two weeks off, content that you've got three weeks of one subject done (even if it ends up dropping by the wayside at some point, you got a few weeks of it in) and you worked on figuring out another subject. So, when you come back to restart school, you won't have to start from scratch.

This is a good idea. Thank you! We usually do a bit of school in the summer anyway. Not as much this year since we moved this summer but  it wouldn’t be foreign to the kids to pull out some “real” school work in August. Some of our subjects are pre-scheduled for 28 and 30 weeks so I’m not too worried about those but there a couple of others that I could get an early start on and see how they go. We have enough new stuff this year that starting it all at once probably wouldn’t be a good idea anyway.

[SilverMoon]

My head is still stuck in the sand like that ostrich on Looney Tunes.

The local public schools already being at full speed are not helping my resolve to stay there.

I did start telling the kids they have to read a mom-approved book and do math every day. Does that count? I don't have to think about that unless someone gets stuck!

(I might have to rummage around in the school closet and tell the high schoolers to pick one for science...lol)

[readinmom]

I'm not ready...just came from the zoo and circus at Target (school supply section).  Too many whining, screaming kids for my taste.  I couldn't push the cart because it was so crowded.

Dd wants to try hybrid program at my school (ind. study in the morning, electives in the afternoon).  I don't want her to, but she does need to get out and  socialize.  We are moving closer to both of our jobs (fingers crossed) mid semester, and it will give her an opportunity to be closer to activities/new friends.  In my mind, we should all reset the calendar, put on some pjs, turn on the Hallmark channel.   

[prairiewindmomma]

Can I borrow your clown car pantry? I have this huge box of science supplies that just arrived and I have no idea of where I am going to store these things.

My Youngest is starting kindergarten this year so I literally have 12 curricula years of stuff stored in my school room. I have 1/8 of the books that I used to but my school room is also about the size of Harry Potter’s understairs closet in this house. 

[prairiewindmomma]

Hallmark channel: We’ve been watching The Good Witch and When Calls the Heart on Netflix while I sketch out lessons. 

I have some beach days on my calendar! Thanks for the push!

[idnib]

It's my first year with high school and we're outsourcing Great Books and Greek so that got planned fairly early, even though there was a ton of discussion around it back in Jan/Feb/Mar and some revisits of the same stuff. We school year-round and DS's Greek teacher has already given him stuff to do before the first day of class so it feels like we didn't get much of a break.

DD's plan for next year has been somewhat neglected until now, which I feel bad about but she can do another month of "do the next thing" until we get high school up and running. I'm just now starting to figure her stuff out.

[BakersDozen]

We started officially today and I'm still not ready. My high schoolers began with one subject each week starting mid-July (they had 6 weeks off in April/May for an East Coast tour/vacation). So they are off and running with some help from me. My "middles" and "littles" are doing OK...it's me who isn't doing OK. On Sunday night I realized I have not had a break or any kind of actual summer since 2011. Life has been on overdrive and I am trying to stay ahead of things so I don't get run over. I don't exactly know what to do or even what I want and so I just keep doing what I've been these last years, hoping something will click and I'll feel more settled/focused.

 

[Meriwether]

On 8/1/2018 at 6:50 PM, Alte Veste Academy said:

I am. Periodically it occurs to me that I need to turn the pile of books and resources I’ve collected into actual plans. We don’t start until the 27th, and I told myself that I need to get serious at the beginning of the month, which was today. So naturally I woke up nice and early this morning and started a massive reorganization of my pantry. ?

This is my pattern every single time we take a break and restart.

We hopefully start school on the 20th, and last week I started work on the storage room which means I also have to work on the schoolroom. I have...a mess right now. And I have the pantry scheduled for next week. LOL

[prairiewindmomma]

I have the first four weeks of school planned.

Now I just need to on updating transcripts, developing syllabi, scheduling SAT stuff, and the like. 

The schoolroom is currently covered in a swath of paperwork as I'm trying to finish out everyone's portfolio for the year and add in the testing results that came in the mail. 

I'd be watching Netflix, except we're out of ice-cream. 

[Holly]

We have already started back.  However, I have three biology programs and can't bring myself to decide.  My first choice is to enroll her online somewhere, but she's not a fan of that option. 

I am in total denial that our time is running short before I send her off into the world.  Earlier this summer, I was making some long-term plans, and it was so odd to picture homeschooling without my older ones in the picture.   Please tell me it's not as bad as I fear! 

[Tess in the Burbs]

I have been gone from home 11 weeks due to multiple deaths and almost life ending injury to my mom.  We cut school short.  And we may start late.  I am so behind planning.  I did buy some curriculum this week and hopefully it will be there when I get home.  My kids have been in another state with friends this last month, and DH is ready for me to be home.  I'm mentally not in school mode.  I may not be for awhile.  Hoping the kids will jump in and do what they need to do this year.  I'm just mentally exhausted from funerals and estate dealings.  I still have a house 3k miles away from me to sell....  So no, school and the fact it is Aug isn't on my radar at all.  I've been gone since May.  Missed all of summer.  I may not recognize my kids when I finally get home!

[8filltheheart]

Tess,I am so sorry! It sounds like shifting your school yr should be a priority.  

Could you take the rest of August and Sept off and start in Oct and have your school yr go from Oct- July for teacher intense subjects and let them work independently with just supervision on their other subjects?  That way your kids would have only partial days through Oct and then again in June and July.

[Tess in the Burbs]

6 hours ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

Tess,I am so sorry! It sounds like shifting your school yr should be a priority.  

Could you take the rest of August and Sept off and start in Oct and have your school yr go from Oct- July for teacher intense subjects and let them work independently with just supervision on their other subjects?  That way your kids would have only partial days through Oct and then again in June and July.

 

Well, we have a family trip the first week of October.  So we are doing a slow start when dd's online class starts this month.  Add 1 subject a week through Sept, take the vacation, and then come back in mid October full force.  The online class has to start, we might as well try to push through the rest.  Kids have been having a good time with friends...so I may be the only one not in school mode by the end of the month.  But I need to get back to reality.  My own life.  Too much time to just sit and think and I get too emotional about it all.  

[RootAnn]

Hugs, Tess!

So, we're going to start with one subject/day per kid next week. I have today & this weekend to put the school room back together. It is a complete mess! I didn't get any of the shelves or cabinets decluttered this summer. I did one bookcase (out of 3 1/2) already and am starting on the 2nd. The third has all the kids' school book cubbies and I think I'll probably end up doing that one last - perhaps during the afternoons next week. Then, I have the supplies cabinet to get through.

Eldest took care of her DE errands today:  paying tuition (DE is full pay for homeschoolers here), buying dining $ for when she's on campus all day on Wednesdays, picking up her parking pass, and finding the "commuter lounge." Hopefully, she'll get her chemistry lab manual on Monday (first day of classes) and figure out some of the different places to eat on Wednesday. Two of her online classes start next week as well. Shhh, don't tell her, but I didn't order one of the books for one of those classes until this week. Oops. 

[melmichigan]

We start back next week, and for the first time ever, I haven't planned ahead with the exception of the college classes for the oldest three.  I know all the materials are here somewhere, I just need to pull it all together.  We will ease in so I'm sure it'll come together in the next few weeks.

[Joyful]

I don't feel so ready. But ready or not, the online courses begin Aug 27. So I have an external push here.

I'm planning to start the other subjects the first week of September. Though I'm not so excited as prior years, I'm scrambling to get ready. It's one of those times when I'm running almost on sheer commitment. ?  It's a nice thing that my sixth grader is just continuing the same curricula, just one year up. One less thing to worry about.