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Wednesday, March 14, 2012

What am I really teaching my kids??

So it is now 10:30am and I am still in my bed. Blogging from my warm comfy blankets. The kids are being super quiet so as to not "wake me up". Because that means we have to start school. Who doesn't love a day off? Sorry kids, snow day was yesterday. Today we must work. Now I'm not a morning person by any token. I usually let the kids sleep till 10 am but today, we are obviously "late for school". I hate when my alarm goes off at 7:20am. I turn it off at that point. Don't judge me, at least I don't pretend I'm actually going to get up by hitting snooze 10 times lol! I tend to do my best thinking in the morning silence, even during the random barking from my 3 lovely animals. Yes 3 dogs... God help me! So I'm pondering how I can change our schooling schedule so the kids get more out of it. I feel like I'm just doing the bare minimum. I mean I'm a creative person. I can teach them arts/crafts all day long. But I can't incorporate that into grammar or math or that awful boring history/social studies. Remind me why we NEED to know that stuff again? I've never had a moment where I thought, "man I should've paid attention in social studies so I could write this stupid grocery list or do laundry or make dinner. Or so I could get this floor mopped the right way!" I just don't see the use other than knowing a few presidents, who took credit for discovering America, names of continents and some other important events. All those wars and treaties etc.... BOOORRRING!! Useless information. I stand by my opinion that I've never used that knowledge enough to have needed to take that class all those yrs. Theres always google when you get stuck lol! Anyways, I've always thought the Charlotte Mason approach was good so I spent some time on that site this morning picking and pulling from different areas. I think I have a good schedule now. Sometimes I just feel like I'm not doing enough. Like what are they really learning. I wanted to provide them with a fun school environment. It's not turning out like that though. I feel like they would be learning so much more back in public schools. Which unfortunately some of what they learn would be bad. Sometimes I question our decision to homeschool. Was it the BEST idea for our kids? In some ways I know it is because I can see how close the girls are now and Michael too. Also I am becoming more in tune with their lives and styles. Mariyah is really advanced in math and loves to wear sweatpants everyday. Jocelyn needs someone to hover over her while she works and she gets it 100% when you do. Sometimes she would prefer to do math under the table. Strange but I've gotten over the fact that it's not good lighting under there because she seems to concentrate better under there. I know what kind of books they like to read and how long their attention span is. My poor son, I've really been slacking on him. He knows the ABC's but couldn't name them or tell u sounds. He likes to read his Bob books and occasionally do work from his workbook. He's not motivated at all and I run out of steam quickly. He asked about going to school next year so I signed him up. School is only 2-3 blocks away but it will give us time to work. He is a constant interruption during the day which makes for long days of school work. He sits with us sometimes and will want to do work but mostly he likes to drive his sisters crazy. Next year we are going to try a different math curriculum. We like apologia science so we will continue with that. I'm looking for a new grammar/language arts text. We've been through 3 this year, blah!
Well it sounds like my snuggle buggle is coming upstairs to cuddle. Time to get my lazy butt on the move so we can do our work and play outside! Maybe even do our work outside??

2 comments:

  1. I'm ALWAYS worried that I'm not teaching them enough. I'm sure that my kids would learn more if I sent them to public school but that's just a sacrifice that I'm willing to make.

    I know some some people would die if they heard this, but I feel like there are more important things in life besides education. Like God and family. I try and tell myself that as long as I'm doing my very best and they're happy, then we will be fine.

    PS
    Most days we don't start school till 10:30 :)

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    1. I completely agree! God and family are far more important than superlatives and types of angles in a triangle. I just feel so pressured to teach X Y & Z. They will learn what they need to learn eventually. Some of it is just uneccessary though.

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