Homeschooling is NOT working... - Page 2

[PGTlatte]

I am in a situation in which homeschooling our 8 yo is challenging with our 5 yo being who he is, and us keeping a very busy calendar of activities.  But it is very important to me to feel that I am meeting all of the requirements.  I will respond quickly with what I do:

• Establish a set bedtime and stick to it.  Establish a set waking up time and stick to it, even if they are mad about getting up.  Have an efficient and non-negotiable morning routine.  Then get schoolwork done as early in the day as possible. 
• Dump any curriculum that seems cumbersome and impossible.  For the 3Rs, go with materials that are open-and-go, get it done, no teacher's manual, teach-on-the-page workbooks, and affordable.  Personally I have resorted to buying Spectrum workbooks for our older son's grade level for math, phonics, language arts, and writing. They actually are not bad at all.  I also use Spelling Workout, Scholastic Daily Word Ladders, and some Evan Moor books (Language Fundamentals and Vocabulary Fundamentals) although I will be switching to Spectrum for these.  I also use Flash Forward Reading workbooks from Barnes and Noble - cheap and really great !  Not all of these every day; but enough variety to put together a nice packet of language arts work for every day that isn't always the same.  MCP Math also has good workbooks.  Singapore Math has good books for word problems.  Critical Thinking Company has some good books for brain puzzles and pre algebra (Balance Benders).
• For history/social studies and science, buy materials that you can use to read aloud or together with both at the same time 1-2 days a week.  I am going with Story of the World for history, along with the history maps from Knowledge Quest to work some geography in, and Real Science 4 Kids and Magic School Bus books for science reading.  I am not getting into complicated projects in these areas with lots of craft activities or experiments.  Those are great, but will have to wait until things are less hectic.
• Our state also requires PE/Health and Fine Arts.  PE and Health are met by participation in sports and a weekly gym class for homeschoolers, along with an occasional library book on a health topic.  Fine arts is violin lessons and practice.  I am working on collecting some books on famous paintings and poems for kids. 

This is a very basic, streamlined approach.  For me right now this is what is manageable.  It does not take more than a couple hours a day of focused work to keep making good progress in all subjects.  When it is time for him to work, I keep him on task.  Taking quick 5 minute breaks every 20 minutes or so really helps him chug along.  When he is done with the work I gave him or lessons with me, he is really done for the day.  We are not dragging school work out all day because that is totally exhausting and draining.  This way I have time to take care of all the other stuff I need to take care of, spend time with the 5 yo, and be out of the house for whatever the activity is for that day.  He is making good progress with this and staying on track.  We don't stop for summer so I'm fine with his school day being shorter since we get about 60 more days in per school year than our public school does. 

The other thing that helps me is tackling housework head on before others get up and keeping food simple.  I am usually doing something involving dishes, laundry, and garbage at 5:30 every morning.  If I don't get those three things under control, I feel overwhelmed by them.  But they are easy to make a big dent in very early in the morning.  I also don't spend much time on food preparation.  Our meals are very repetitive and boring most of the time. 

I hope some of this helps. 

Edited by PGTlatte - 4/9/11 at 9:12pm

[sapphire_chan]

Re: your 3rd DC's speech:

http://lester.rale.k12.wv.us/articulation%20norms.htm if he's only 5 there are lots of sounds that it's normal not to say clearly yet.

http://members.tripod.com/caroline_bowen/acquisition.html has even more details.

[pigpokey]

laundrycrisis and I have a similar approach, though I only have 2 kids and they are pretty close in age so I have it easy.

Currently we are all in 2nd grade ish workbooks, as they can read, plus Rosetta Stone for Spanish which is on a laptop.

I can take everything on the go by grabbing workbooks, the pencil box and the laptop.  I like the Kumon series for math.  We are also using spelling and cursive workbooks, a change from printing out cursive sheets because the end of the year is always so crazy. 

This means any work not completed in a reasonable time in the morning, some child can easily take in the car on the way to an activity or do while waiting for a sibling to finish an activity.  Rosetta Stone is particularly good for the car (except often they need to skip the purely-speaking lessons and do them later, because of the road noise).  The first History of Us book plays in the car with my Audible app on my phone, but if you don't have that you could burn it on CD with no issue.  http://www.audible.com search for Joy Hakim.  I hope they are also recording her Story of Science series.   

Meals just need to be simple.  For dinner tonight my kids had cold ham, bread and asparagus.  I try to put multiple things in one side but it is basically what they are guarenteed in a meal is one side of usually a vegetable, or a fruit in the worst case scenario (as these are usually eaten more between meals and breakfast) and a protein source (meat, cheese, mac and cheese, peanut butter sandwich, etc.) 

[luv my 2 sweeties]

Wow, some really great advice here!  I just want to add my support to the idea of backing down from the school stuff and getting the rest of your life in order first.  Your girls are young enough that a couple of months won't matter in the long run.  Declare summer vacation and plan to start lessons again in the fall.  Use the summer to have some "visioning" sessions with your husband and after that, some family meetings with everyone to get input on how to implement the vision.  Try out some routines, and chore and meal planning strategies while you don't also have to be teaching.  Look into the various homeschooling options that have been suggested here and decide which one you will try first, second (if need be), etc.

You mention that you are not naturally very organized.  I am not either, so I understand!  What I have discovered about myself is that my natural inclination to not like schedules and structure are the reasons I *need* to have some schedules and structure!  When I'm working within a basic daily schedule, I am at my most productive while at the same time (rather counter-intuitively), I also find that I have more "free-time" than when I wing it.  I think this is because I spend a lot less time fretting about what I *should* be doing. 

Best of luck to you!  I think many people find the first year to be very hard!