I am trying something new this year with my home schooling. I am not a structured person, so in the past years I have schooled year round. In this way, we can take days off whenever I need to. I also believe in letting my children learn at their own pace. Sometimes this means things go slowly and other times rather quickly.
This year, I have decided to school the same days as one of the local school systems. I decided to try this because my oldest is in the 7th grade and I think he needs to do "more" this year than he has been doing and also because I don't have any "little ones" running under my feet. That gives me a bit of an advantage time wise.
So you ask, how is it going? Well, to be honest, better than expected. I am making myself have school days on days I might have taken off otherwise. That is good for me. Also, I see the progress of the kids more quickly. I have run into one problem though. There are days when it seems we are just so busy with schoolwork that I get tired of schoolwork. In the past when I got like that, I would take a day off. This year I don't want to do that, so instead I am throwing in what I call "easy day". We just do basics, nothing extra. This means they do math, writing, and some sort of literature study, whether reading on their own or reading together. They don't get behind in what I call the mandatory subjects, and we have a very short day.
My philosophy on home schooling has always been that if I can teach them to read and they learn to enjoy reading, everything else will work out fine. I do believe math is one of those subjects you just have no choice but to "stick into the day". (I don't normally start an actual math curriculum until third grade though).
What do you do to help when things start getting overwhelming?
God bless and happy home schooling!
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