What is the hardest part of homeschooling?

What I love about homeschooling is the flexibility.

It's a pretty day today and tomorrow is supposed to be awful. I think we should stop early today and do a little extra tomorrow.

What I hate about homeschooling is the guilt. I think every mom deals with some level of "Mommy guilt." We seem to see every bad thing that our kids do as a reflection on ourselves as mothers. "My kid eats crayons-I am a horrible mother. My kid won't eat her veggies - I am a horrible mother. My child wasn't the first to be potty-trained in her class - I am a horrible mother. My kid said a bad word in front of the pastor - I am a horrible mother." And on and on and on . . . .

As a homeschooling mom, there is all the normal guilt plus the added guilt. If Daisy's friend doesn't know how to read in 4th grade than all her teachers have failed her. If Daisy is a struggling reader and her only teacher is me . . . .

So we are afraid to admit our struggles as teachers because then it feel like we have a scarlet letter "F" on our chest.

A year and a half ago Daisy's reading level was about at 1st grade and she was going into the 4th. I felt horrible, like a failure, and I only told 2 people about it. If I said anything it was more just that she was "struggling." Now she is 4th grade 4th month level. While I have given her props for her improvement, I still see the F on my chest.

So what are we doing now with her reading? She is reading a chapter (or so) a day from her choice of chapter books (she just finished a Magic Treehouse and is starting Beezus and Ramona). In addition to that, we spend time with her reading aloud to me, and going over the phonic rules.

She doesn't do well with pressure and it is still fairly easy to get her in deer-in-headlights mode. While she no longer says "I can't read" she doesn't have as much fluency as I would like for her to have. But she is attempting so much more on her own. A few months ago she would hand me her fortune from the cookie, now she tries to read it all and only asks for help with the big words.

Why do I think she has had such a hard time? I think that the first reading program that we purchased was too hard and I pushed too hard. She was left with feeling that reading was too hard and she wasn't smart enough. We tried program after program and didn't have very much success with those either. She was bored with the part she knew (or felt like I thought she was stupid because it kept being re-taught). She would make progress and I would think "yeah! a breakthrough" but then the progress would be gone. We have finally made progress and are no longer seeing the progress disappearing. It just took a long time to knock down the walls she had built up.

Our Homeschool experience

I suppose first I should say that not everyone should homeschool - which is completely different from the "anyone can homeschool" that is usually proclaimed.

Anyone can homeschool - although the barely literate may need some outside help.

But I am not one of those that thinks that only horrible parents send their kids to public school. My thought is, if a parent isn't committed to homeschooling then they shouldn't bother. More on that later but I completely respect people knowing their limitations.

I also think that there are some excellent public school teachers out there (including my sister), there are some that make the classroom fun and kids learn alot. I just don't know that those teachers are the majority. I am afraid that many teachers are overworked, underpaid, under-appreciated and under-supported. We throw them in a class of 20-30 kids, some who belong in reform school, and expect them to work with a largely apathetic group of kids.

That said: Why do we homeschool?

I could give you a laundry list of reasons but the main one is that I feel like this is something God called me to do. Before I got pregnant, I was already getting books to share with the children I would have. Hubby and I were discussing homeschooling even while I was pregnant. Ten years later, I am still pulled to homeschooling in a way I can't describe other than I feel like this is what I am supposed to be doing.

Those of you that know me, know that I have never stuck to anything else that long (other than my marriage). My usual modus operandi is to immerse myself in learning about something (knitting, crocheting, CSS, HTML, etc) until I get bored and move on to something else.

I can give you statisics and studies - many of which reinforce that I am doing the right thing for my children - but I don't think that you are here for that. If you homeschool, I am preaching to the choir; if you don't homeschool they mean very little.

I wouldn't say it is a "religious reason." In fact if I was filling out a survey on why we homeschool, I would check the box marked "academic." Because of being in classes of 20-30, I was either bored (in the classes I was good at) or confused (math). I left school with the idea that I was pretty stupid and then proceeded to prove it the next several years.

My goal with my kids is that they don't feel stupid because of getting behind in a subject (not that I do that perfectly). Also for them to able to research and learn something that they don't know about. For example if I somehow manage to completely miss teaching them anything about WWII, they would know how to find out about it in the library.

Why is this one different from my other blogs?

Well, I am once again going to try to have a blog that is just homeschooling and then one that is personal/family. The difficulty is so much of the family stuff has homeschool applications and visa-versa. Many of my other blog followers are not homeschoolers so a discussion of curriculum or my latest planner design will not interest them. On the other hand, I haven't been posting very much about homeschooling so homeschoolers don't have as much to interest them.

I have been wanting to post more of the info I am finding about homeschooling but as I said, many of my followers are not homeschooling.

So we shall see how this experiment of (yet another) blog goes.

Do schools kill creativity?

I just thought this was interesting and thought provoking. Ok, and this guy is also pretty funny.

Reason 261 I love homeschooling

Yesterday we were able to eat lunch with my parents as they drove through town. They were going from the Houston area up to Oklahoma and decided to take a bit of a detour through our little town.

We met at H*bby L*bby and then went to have a wonderful lunch together.

I hadn't told the kids who we were meeting - or that we were meeting anyone - so the look of surprise and joy on Juniors face when he saw "Grandfather" was priceless.

As a side note, we read Heidi last year which started Daisy calling him Grandfather and then Junior picked it up. So it isn't that he chose a stuffy sounding name.

And this is something we couldn't do if they were in school . . . or at least I would feel guilty about it.

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

We had the opportunity to go to a star watching party on Saturday night. It was amazing.

We have had a telescope for awhile but neither Hubby or I can figure out how to use it.

Well, we know how to use it, but it is difficult to find what you are looking for when you aren't very good at it.

We got a star wheel and learned how to use it, directions to make an astrolabe and other tips. The two astronomers leading had brought 3 good telescopes and then would focus them on some amazing sights.

The moon with its craters is beautiful, it was like those pictures you have seen, but this was not a picture. Hubby and I had seen Saturn before in my Dad's telescope, but his doesn't give as close of a picture. Saurday, we saw the line of rings and one or two of the moons.

It gave us more ideas on how to get out there and watch what is going on in the sky. They are planning on doing it again in June and we are hoping to be there, as well as one in July.

There are more tips and tricks we learned and will hopefully be able to keep learning more. I will post these as I get time.

Cooking lessons

One of the things I like to do with the kids is that they get one meal a week. One meal to plan, making sure it is at least somewhat balanced, and then they prepare it with my help.

So I asked Daisy and she wanted to make "noodles that look like a shell, with the white sauce on it."

Ok, pasta with alfredo sauce, that's fairly easy. What protein?

Her first idea was ranch style beans. Now I love ranch style beans, but I don't know about loving them with alfredo sauce. After some more thought, she decided on chicken.

And mushrooms.

And onions.

(I know there was also a vegetable but I have forgotten what it was.)

It turned out well, she enjoyed it except it took so long to cook. Possibly it took so long because she kept bumping the burners down to low.


Then for Junior's meal he chose spaghetti with meat sauce. And Broccoli as a veggie.

Before we started cooking, I sat down with him and asked if he liked how I made spaghetti sauce. Then "are you sure you like it? Do you want to make it just like Mommy always makes it?" He said yes, and then I told him I always cook it with onions. Always.

He burst into tears because he "hates onions." He did decide that if I always cook it with onion and he likes it, the onions can't be completely evil. Sometimes I also use bell pepper, but I thought that would be pushing too much.

So we got out the mandolin and he put in the onions that were then fried up with ground beef. The pasta was boiling in a separate pot and he asked if he could put in the sauce.

Yes, I confess we use jarred sauce. Specifically Ragu Super Chunky Mushrooms (don't tell Junior, he also "hates" mushrooms).

So I tell him sure he can pour in the sauce.

And he did. Right into the pasta water.

I stopped him before he got very much in there but . . . apparently he really needs the cooking lessons.

Then the broccoli was just frozen broccoli cooked in the microwave, then we sprinkled salt and real parmesan cheese (not that stuff in the green can, real parm yumm).

Both meals turned out beautiful, and so each was satisfied with their efforts.

Try letting your kids cook, they might enjoy it.

And maybe even learn onions aren't completely evil.

Shooting sports

Since I knew nothing about what "4-H shooting sports" is, I am guessing that most of you don't either.

So I'm gonna tell you.

Pretend you care.

The kids learn weapon safety (i.e. don't point the gun at anybody, don't carry a loaded gun, stuff like that).

Then depending on their age, they have different positions to shoot in. Daisy's age they only do prone, which is laying on their belly. In a couple/few years she will be able to do all three: prone, kneeling, and standing.

Sounds pretty simple huh?

Except the targets are little. They are about the size of a silver dollar. The grown ups use binoculars to see if the kids are hitting the target.

And not just good binoculars. They use high powered binocular.

And you want to hit as close to the center of the target as you can (think of a dart board with its bulls eye. Except the bulls eye is smaller than a pencil eraser.)

And you are 50 feet away.

Wanna see?



I circled her targets with red. They have 3 sheets of paper with 12 circles - 2 practice targets and 10 real targets.

I am not telling you all this so you think "WOW! Daisy must be a great shot."

Cause she isn't.

She is awful a pretty bad shot on these targets.

Then again, I suppose being able to hit the piece of paper means she could hit a deer.