Pressing On

Have you been dropped into homeschooling out of the clear blue? Amidst all the chaos that's going on and managing your own anxieties, are you secretly freaking out about middle school math? Are you angry that this is now on your plate? Are you concerned about your relationship with your child, and how in the world you are going to get them to do school on top of the other stuff you already can't get them to do? Totally been there. Last week. Last month. Last year. And those years have turned into fifteen years of homeschooling four kids. We've schooled through, moves, deaths, cancer, attitudes, babies, teens, and now I can add a pandemic to the list! It doesn't always look pretty, but it can be done! So, where do you start? Do you just crack open the computer on Monday and let them go to it? Welllll, I suggest maybe not quite . I've put together the top three emergency tactics I would employ if I suddenly had a child at my table needing an education, but...

With my senior, struggling finishing her year, I feel like we need a quick change of tack. Again, I realize that the main job of homeschooling is not really schooling. Unless you define "schooling" as motivating. We mistakenly assume it's all about books and ideology when really, those are the LAST pieces of the puzzle. If I find the most PERFECT math curriculum, but I can't get my 10 year-old to sit down and do it, who cares about whether it's a good fit for my student, whether it's advanced, or correlated to some standard? As they say, the best tool is the one you actually use. Homeschool, as it turns out, is for the manager, the people expert, the motivational guru.  If you've checked my resume, you know I am none of those things. But I think if I had to do it all over again, I would spend less time on the latest-greatest phonics approach and much more time on "How to Win Friends and Influence My Students". You can lead the kid to the w...

Planning for the new school year––for the 15th time. 15 YEARS Every year has been a little bit different, of course. We peaked around 2012 when everyone was in school here at home encompassing K-7. Talk about busy! Since then my oldest was in and out of a private school for a few years, and of course that K'er is now entering grade 7 herself and has needed less and less of my time with every grade. This year we will have a graduate, one grade 9 and one grade 7; I feel like I'm going to be slacking off, to be honest. As I was cleaning out school stuff today I realized that planning for the new year is equal parts enthusiasm and depression. A new year holds all kinds of promise, but the last year holds buckets of guilt. Ok, maybe not equal parts. Today felt heavy on the guilt side. Books, games, workbooks, maps, programs, paid for but not used, or half used and abandoned for one reason or another, notebooks once shiny-new, now filled with angst filled pencil marks and X...

Anyone who tells you that homeschooling is not stressful is lying, or they have perfect children, or they know everything about education, human beings, and the government red-tape that goes along with it. Or they have no idea what they are talking about. I do not know how NOT to be overwhelmed at times at the choices and responsibilities I perceive are mine, being the sole provider of education to my children. Many, make that many, many, many times I have needed to deep breathe for a moment to avoid freaking out (anyone remember that scene in Jerry Macquire?), or collapsing in despair, or physically hurting myself or others: when it seems like all the wheels have come off at once and no one - and I mean not one person in the whole house - is doing remotely what they are supposed to be, including me; when the baby isn't napping so we can't do science; to when I shouldn't still be hiding in the bathroom pretending it will all go away. It is not a stretch to say that was a ...

Another post strictly for those highly invested in homeschool.  CURRICLUM!  The magic bullet of homeschool guaranteed to quell bad attitudes, remedy skills that should have been mastered already, create eager learners, and make school FUN! Even though I know better now, it's fun to live in the utopia created by homeschool curriculum marketing for a little while as I plan school every year.  In reality I've found it depends almost entirely on your student as to whether a wonder-curriculum is going to go anything as promised. If your kid does not want to learn anything, if he/she is consumed by an incredibly narrow field of interest, or if work is not his/her forte, good luck. I've already sung the praises of Saxon math in a previous post, so I won't spend time on that; suffice it to say that it's going swimmingly again this year. In fact we don't have anything brilliantly new and exciting this year, except for "Byline" writing, which I reviewed in ...

Or can you? Due to a number of changes to our school year, we had to abandon our plan of an "Institute for Excellence in Writing" (IEW) writing class for my high schooler. Now, we have been fans of Andrew Pudewa and all he offers with IEW for a decade or more and still are, so I was very leery of taking a different direction with my grade 10'er; however I think we found a solution! This child is not so much a fan of school, but if she HAS to sit down and put things in writing she gravitates toward journalism and creating newspapers and magazines and the like. So, when our supervising English teacher brought Byline , by Clearwater Press , to our attention, it seemed like a no-brainer! She gets to spend the year writing a newspaper! The curriculum is by the same folks who produced " The One Year Adventure Novel" and  " Cover Story ", which allow students to spend the year writing either a novel or a magazine as their English class.  "Byline...

Back to School! What an over-used phrase. Every flyer, every back-lit school sign and my blog, lol.  We have started strong this year!  Possibly the best start ever.  As much as none of us wanted to pack up the flip-flops, and come inside, we’ve done it and we are off to a great start.  Why? A number of reasons that could not be re-created in other years:  My mind is catching up with my body in healing. I feel like I can take on the stress of providing an education for my deserving learners again. I, with a surprising amount of enthusiasm this year, did a lot of prep work and research, which don’t let anyone ever tell you is a waste of time - but that’s another post. This led to me feeling somewhat more enthusiastic about what we were going to learn this year and gave us a smoooooth start as we actually opened the books (which I had prepared ahead of time, like a good cooking show) Secondly, my oldest started off the year in school this year. Las...

Well, why not make blogging an annual event along with our Year End Slurpees? A whole year and more has evaporated, but not blogging was somewhat intentional. First I decided I did not want to spend any extra time on my computer during the summer and secondly, during the school year, I decided it just wasn't going to be one of my priorities as I had many other places I needed to spend my energy. A third major reason is that the computer is really bothering my eyes, so I've saved my eyeballs for school-related and other vital activities. I guess I could tack on that I have no real purpose for my blog these days either, other than just my own personal record keeping and the joy of writing. All good reasons taking time off! But I felt like I wanted to process the school year by wrapping some words around it : ) This was one of our more interesting years. I started out with four students and ended up with three. I started with two "little" girls, and ended with one. I s...

I cannot believe I actually fed my children slurpees, or rather FRZNCLDS, AGAIN. But after 10 months, great grades, and 11 years of the same reward, I couldn't say no.  I did suggest smoothies and most agreed that those would probably taste better than slurpees, but the novelty of the slurpees was key to the "reward" aspect of the whole event. Why oh why does the iPhone distort the corners of photos? I'm very proud of my kiddos this year.  It was a year of recuperation and just "getting it done" most of the time, and they all pulled through amazingly.  It was a thankful year. A very wonderful part of every year is our read-alouds.  I make a lunch that will take as long as possible to eat and I read for as long as it takes - usually a couple of chapters of some (hopefully) juicy book.  We laugh, we are shocked, we are surprised, we are sad to say good-bye to the friends we've met in each book when we are done. Since we have done so much Sonligh...

This may be either the most inspiring post you've ever read or the most inane, depending on whether you are a homeschooler or not.  Math is one of those subjects for homeschoolers that rarely gets solved without sweat, tears and sometimes blood. Another would be writing - but one miracle at a time! Seriously, who knew math could be so easy!  We have tried nearly every math curriculum available to us, both American and Canadian over the last 11 years, but it wasn't until last year that my 5-9th graders hit the sweet spot, and by that I mean a visible lack of sweat, tears and yes, blood. Of course it came in it's least expected form, or else I would have found it earlier. The zeitgeist of math (and other subjects) these days is that it must be taught intuitively, in that the child should discover for himself the algorithms and principles in order to understand and be inspired.  What this looks like in practice is teaching 3 different ways to do subtraction.  Or giv...

Ah, to be buried in throes of wrapping up the year and planning next year.  What a privilege! I've been completely ignoring my blog, but thoroughly enjoying doing the regular old stuff I wasn't sure I'd get to do again, this time last year. Here's the start of next year's school taking place in my basement: It's so fun to open up bins of books that feel like old friends and to be thinking about introducing them to another one of my students.  It's not so much the math books, even though Rightstart Math is brilliant, it's largely the years and years of Sonlight books that flood my memories when I crack open a bin. The great snuggles, the laughs and plot twists, interesting discussions, just the adventures we've been on together all over the world and every time period, give me a little thrill as I pull out a stack of readers and read-alouds for this year. We are studying North American history/Renaissance and explorers over the next couple of ...

So, people are generally quite curious about what life is like in the world of homeschooling. I was reminded of this today at my SECOND TO LAST CHEMO TREATMENT (!)  More than one person there identifies me as "the woman who homeschools her four children".  I totally get it, and I think it's great.  It's a hard lifestyle to fathom when you've never had any first hand experience with it. Actually I remember being completely mystified and fascinated and listening to anyone who would talk my ear off about it. I'm not quite so fascinated anymore; the "magic" is largely gone - kind of like with Christmas or New Year's resolutions. It's still a great privilege and I LOVE that I get to do this with my kids and I am impressed with how well it's worked out so far.  But, the magic left a while back when I woke up and realized: a) we were not travelling the world immersed in experiential, non-traditional, whole-family learning and b) there is no ...

As of this year I have survived  completed 10 years of homeschooling!  My flagship student is now in grade 10, meaning, including kindergarten, I have just entered my 11th year.  Gosh. I'm going to be homeschooling longer than it took me to graduate... hmmm. I remember just getting started, thinking that surely someone would step in and save us from this terrifying prospect.  I had no intention of homeschooling.  I had many intentions of hiring a tutor and travelling the world. Worst case I would homeschool for a year or two until such times as a tutor was realistic. Apparently a tutor was then and continues to be, highly unrealistic.    I would still hire a good private teacher in a heartbeat. The obvious question is why did we not just take advantage of local schools when kindergarten rolled around? Well, it's got to do with my delusions that life is what you make it and you can make it something great - or at least more of what you want it ...

School days, school days,  Good ol' golden rule days, Reading and writing and 'rithmetic, All to the tune of a hickory stick! Anyone else's mother used to sing them that little song?  Of course my mother was raised by nuns in a convent, so she may have been more familiar with the "stick" than most. I can guarantee that none of my mom's first days of school looked remotely like the one we had here this September.  We always try to make it special and fun; I mean it's a little bit of an anticlimax to 'go back to school' in your own living room. So what's a homeschooler to do? Well... It starts off like this: In the bags a homeschooler this year will find some very junky breakfast food (a huge treat here), some monster erasers, colour co-ordinated notebooks, either a cool t-shirt or Pokemon cards (dependent on his/her interest), gum, soda and various other odds and ends specific to the receiver. Also stacked high on the tab...

Or "Frzn Colds" as they are called at the Chevron station ;) And why did we need crushed ice with soda syrup? BECAUSE.... We are done!   The 2014-15 school year is now history. We did it!   And we always go for Slurpees/Slushies/Frzn Colds on the last day of school.  (Ice cream is for the first day of school). Back in September, when I got my diagnosis, I didn't know if we'd finish this year, or if the kids would be in a school someplace; but we did it!  The kids have been champs, working while I've been at soooo many appointments, or in bed.  Some of the hardest days were when I was plagued by what-if's and couldn't concentrate on the task at hand. When I was waiting a test result or consumed by a decision we had to make:  mastectomy or lumpectomy? Chemotherapy or no treatment at all? Or just dread... who can concentrate on phonics?? How did we get school done this year, practically speaking?  Well, I schedule my two youngest in the mornin...

What a Blissful day. A satisfying, frustrating, joyful, busy, productive, boring - normal - day.  Today felt almost like I never had cancer.   It rained outside, I hate the rain.  I was tired after staying up too late, I hate homeschooling tired (everybody hates me homeschooling tired).  School started off chaotically, chaos sucks the life out of me. And yet I was only feeling "regular" tired not chemo tired, I didn't have to go out in the rain that I hate, and the chaos didn't come from managing calls from the cancer clinic or racing out to Dr.'s appointments, it was only too many kiddos doing too many tests at once... Bliss! The Bliss also stems from this wonderful window I'm in of 18 days FREE of any treatment or appointment. I have not had 18 days in a row free of medical intervention since August. It seems like I just won a vacation!  And to feel almost normal today was just the capstone : ) NO, no, WAIT!  The capstone was that this was the 2nd day...

Spring is planning time for the next year, homeschool conventions are looming (where I can purchase what we need and save the shipping) and last year I left it too late and spent way too many summer days working school stuff. I'm on a mission this year to get it all done *before* the sun makes its brief appearance. This time a much more philosophical review as to why we are "home learners" (as the gov't calls us) than the desperate lists I make during the hard middle months of the year to motivate myself. This my chance to create the perfect year!  How tantalizing is that?! I can completely re-think every subject for every kid. This is my opportunity to re-make our daily existence bound by... only what I can imagine. So here I sit surrounded by catalogues, blogs, forums, dozens of notes scratched on dozens of scrappy pieces of paper (inspiration strikes at the oddest times - have to make do with the writing materials at hand), reading, praying, trying to catch a ...