January is typically a panicky month for me. I know it begins a new year, we make new resolutions, we clean up our homes, and we try to do better things.....whatever those things may be. In a homeschooling home January is typically a time for mom's to look at what has or has not been accomplished and begin to panic. We look at the books we have been using and wonder what made us think this would be good for our families, we look at our schedules and pull our hair out remaking them, sure that this NEW one is the key to success, we get up earlier or later depending on our past habit, we really are a mess.
I have not really panicked this year, being as this the year for letting go of things that don't matter and leading a more joyful life. I am looking at our schedule and wondering if I really like putting all the kids together for school or not. That sounds strange, of course we all do school together in our house, but for most of our homeschooling I have used http://amblesideonline.org/index2.shtml and my kids study different histories, science, literature, etc. Last year I decided to combine them in history and science and geography, well, the youngest three. It has been ok, but they really are on such different levels, and I can see they are missing out on some things. My son loves to read alone and absorb the information, and there are books we had to skip that I just loved because of moving them all to one time frame in history. My youngest is missing out on some great stories because she is listening in on our other books. My middle girl is also missing out. So....I am tweaking our schedule just a little, not much, and I feel much more comfortable I am going back to Ambleside's suggestions and working towards beginning next year with them all in the correct years. I am excited about what they will discover in the pages of these books, the discussions we can have, and the relations they will make with other ideas from other sources. For most of you this makes no sense and that's ok. I just needed to share it with someone. Anyone, my mom, sister...I think that's all who read this anyway. And that's ok too.
And I just realized this post is really about I, I, I......very selfish of me when I think this homeschooling thing is really about THEM...isn't it?
thanks for reading,
Reb
