This is Part 3 in my Homeschool Experiment Results series. Read about Why we started, and the JOYS.
(This photo brought to you by a homeschool honeymoon moment in Florida)
In all things, we take the good with the bad, and we have certainly experienced hurdles this year in our Homeschool Experiment.
Academically, math is simply a subject I would rather have erased from our lesson plans. C could probably teach it to himself, and I probably should have let him, since he’s so stubborn. And D learns math exactly the way I did. Work really hard, nearly understand it, then stomp your feet and break your pencil. No, Math hasn’t been our friend this year. Interestingly, my polar-opposite children have had a similar experience with writing. D does it on her own, and has showcased some of her work in Tales of a Fourth-Grade Guinea Pig, but C would rather eat bat guano than write a five-sentence journal entry every day.
But a greater barrier for us has been the inconvenience of everything. Trying to provide academic, cultural, and social opportunities for our kids in a location with relatively few, means a lot of time spent in the car. The kids had such bad feeling about the school we pulled them from, we had to enroll C in a soccer program 30 miles away. This meant some game nights lasted more than three hours, between the commute and game time. Music lessons and museums were a long drive as well — in addition to the fact that the kids had to come with me for every single business or family errand.
The loneliness/lack of socialization, which began to take its toll around March, was somewhat unique to us, in that we’re in a very isolated location, we recently moved here, and we aren’t near family or year-round friends. I did not see this as much of an issue for the other homeschool families we’ve connected with over the year. This problem did rectify itself by May, when we really started to connect with excellent local homeschool families, and our seasonal friends began visiting their cabins more often. But I have found that even great-fit, proximate friendships require parental commitment to orchestrate the playdates.
And the homeschool honeymoon ended sometime around March, when my daughter (D) — who had previously seen my son (C) as a perfect playmate — discovered she was a 10-year-old girl, who brushes her hair a lot, and has an annoying brother. C, in response to his loss of a constant and accessible playmate, turned his neediness toward me — and I just couldn’t ever quite give him enough attention. While D was completely satisfied reading books for days on end, or watching sitcoms, C was interested in neither. He is a do-er, like his dad. He needs active play, wrestling, and RECESS.
This leads to the root of many of our challenges this year. I have too much on my plate. Our decison to homeschool wasn’t something we spent months considering. We jumped in with no curriculum or plan of any sort. I figured I could work around my business schedule — I sell educational products — and although my writing career had begun to gain momentum, I would just stop writing for magazines until I got my elephants in a row. In January, however, I was thrilled to find out a book I’d proposed to a publisher last April, was accepted. Of course I could make this happen. Becoming a published author is a life-list thing for me. Needless to say, until I submitted my first draft May 1, life was a little crazy for us. A lot has been neglected this year — bookkeeping, housekeeping, maintenance — and, although my kids have had really cool visits with grandparents, I have scarcely seen the rest of my family for a year.
Please stay tuned tomorrow, for part four in the Homeschool Experiment Results series — Our Future, as well as the homeschool blogger “tips and advice” collaboration the end of this week.
Thank you all for joining me for results week. And if you’re a homeschooler, please remember to write your advice post and put your link here on Friday. Thanks!
HOMESCHOOL EXPERIMENT RESULTS SERIES:
WHY WE STARTED
the JOYS
the STRUGGLES
the FUTURE for us
UPDATE after we Quit Homeschooling
Family out of Sync
Other Homeschooling Experiment milestones:
The Beginning
Week One - Starting with a Frazzle
Five Steps to Drive Yourself off a Cliff
Week Two - Just when I thought I knew what I was doing
Week Three — Let there be CRAFTS!
One-month Review
D’s Review at One Month
Week Five - Stress and frustration
Week Seven - Flip-flopping curriculum
Note to self - Consider having low expectations some weeks
Two-Month Review — Some aha moments
Three-Month Review — Not all peaches and cream
Four-Month Review — Loving ancient history
Five-Month Review — What I underestimated
Six-Month Review - Let’s Just Skip this Month
Seven-Month Review — Curriculum Review
D’s research paper — Save the Earth Saturday series
Tales of a Fourth-Grade Guinea Pig
All posts about the experiment — including WAY-COOL FIELD TRIPS!
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Tags: challenges, curriculum, home school, homeschool, homeschool experiment, homeschooling
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6:12 am
Hmmm…interesting. You brought up points I hadn’t thought about yet. The kids going on EVERY errand, for example! LOL
And, EVERY SINGLE BOOK out there that I’ve read, browsed, or devoured about homeschooling is SO quick to argue against critics who claim h-schooled kids aren’t socialized properly so it was interesting to hear about your socialization issues.
And, mine are so little still that it’s difficult to relate to subjects giving us trouble yet…or the “playmate lost” issue…hmmmm. More to think about…
6:46 am
Hi Beth - I really don’t think socialization is an issue at all — AFTER you get your playmates organized! We have really excellent homeschool buddies around here, but it took us about seven months to make the connections, because of the other issues. It all depends on your circumstance. In the suburbs, for instance, I think socialization would be a piece of cake — there are so many opportunities for the kids to be involved in stuff, plus there are neighbors.
Really, I think the socialization issue is only a problem if you don’t address it. There are many ways to offer your kids excellent social experiences, but it does take effort. This is the part that has been hard for me.
7:26 am
[…] This week I’ll share the results of this year-long experiment with homeschooling. I’ll write about the joys, the struggles, and the future for us. And I’ll end the week with a collaboration of efforts between homeschool bloggers. We’re all posting our best advice for new homeschooling families, and including it in a Mr. Linky, for easy future access. I hope this will provide valuable insight to parents who are considering, or just starting to homeschool their kids. If you’re a homeschooling blogger, please join in! And let me know if you announce the project — I’ll link to you. For details, click here. […]
6:41 pm
[…] This is Part 4 in my Homeschool Experiment Results series. Read about Why we started, the JOYS, and the STRUGGLES. […]
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[…] HOMESCHOOL EXPERIMENT RESULTS SERIES: WHY WE STARTED the JOYS the STRUGGLES the FUTURE for us […]
12:33 pm
Thanks for sharing the struggles - it’s good to read about the challenging times as well as the joys!
10:17 pm
[…] HOMESCHOOL EXPERIMENT RESULTS SERIES: WHY WE STARTED the JOYS the STRUGGLES the FUTURE for us […]
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[…] I think the decision to homeschool this year is one of those pivotal moments in life that none of us will ever forget. Stay tuned tomorrow for part three in my Homeschool Experiment Results series — the STRUGGLES. […]