We are fast approaching the end of another school year, and I have to say, I think this has been one of the better ones. Usually, by this time, we have all but given up on any type of "formal" lessons and have slowly spiraled into laziness and apathy. This year we have kept on going and although we have dropped a few things since the beginning, we are still plugging along on the basics. For instance, when we started I had EVERYTHING you could have imagined, planned and slotted for specific times and days, but as of right now, we get through Math, Vocabulary and Bible reading and maybe just maybe some little "extra" thing like a History Video or some sort of Science project. Im not sure why we dropped off the planet. I think it might have something to do with life. Life happens. There are holidays and Birthdays, dad might get a day off during the week, someone or several someones are sick, maybe a unexpected invitation to spend the night somewhere or a snowstorm that makes it necessary to send kids to Grandmas house to help with snow removal. Whatever it is, this is called life. This is why I love homeschooling. You can have the bumps and holes and still survive. You can take a day off or a couple days off and not get behind. You can say yes to that sudden sleep over, and not worry that your child will miss something, because hey if one is gone we all wait for them to get home!
Every families home school is unique. One family might have 8 subjects per day and another might have 1 or 2 per day. There are really no hard fast rules to this, which is very appealing to me. For instance, I was sick on Monday, I told my hubby he had to do school with the kids because my head was going to explode and I was going to go back to bed, and then I left the room. Im sure I had put him on the spot and usually it would just be a day off, but I thought it would be good for them. Anyway, a couple hours later I come out of my room and they are all watching a movie. Im like, um, this doesn't look like school work to me, and then the comment came...." I told them if they watched this movie they didn't have to do math today", and my youngest daughter pipes up with " yeah, we like Daddies school!", to which my response was, "you would". Granted, it was a Christian movie, but what happened to all the worksheets and vocabulary and stuff I'm supposed to do??? Since I was sick, I did not see how this was in the least bit fair, and my grumpiness showed through. Looking back on it though, now that Im feeling better, I'm so glad my husband and kids were able to spend some time together without frustration over a math worksheet or vocabulary words and spelling. With my hubby working in a log truck, they only see him a couple hours a day, maybe, so instead of being resentful because I have to do all the hard stuff and he gets to be easy on them, I should just be happy he had time to be with them at all.
So, did they get any school work done, no, did they get to spend a little time with daddy reading the Bible and watching a movie, YES!! This is our life, imperfect though it may be, and I'm happy with it. This is why we home school, not so we can be lazy and do nothing, but so we don't miss opportunities to be with our kids. They grow up so quickly, I dont want to miss to much, I want them to get their ideals from me and the Bible , not the world, and not some liberal teacher in the public school system who doesn't care about them.
So, with this school year winding down and coming to a close, I want to take some time and think about what worked and didnt work this year, and maybe even make a list, oh wait, that would be way to organized for me, maybe I will just skip the list and jump off the edge and go for it!
