How is it working?

We have now been homeschooling for almost 4 months and we love it. DD#1 is well-rested, has plenty of time to read (has read TEN books in 4 months!), has earned a lot of money babysitting, and spends time with the family. The flexibility has been wonderful. She can work ahead or rearrange her schedule to allow her to babysit, spend time with friends who have a day off school, and even go on trips. She just returned from a week-long ski trip with her grandmother.

DD#1 is focused and hard-working, which makes it easy. At age 12, she is capable of working independently for a number of subjects. It makes it easy. I usually plan her lessons a month at a time, and have it typed into a table - one for each week. She can just open her binder and see her plan for the day. She can rearrange the schedule if she needs to. With a 3 year old brother around, it isn't always quiet. If she knows that she needs it quiet in order to concentrate on a particular subject she can just save that for when I am gone with her brother. If she knows that she wants to babysit tomorrow, she can work ahead.

It is definitely a learning process for me. It is hard to figure out pacing. How long we should spend on a particular topic, how much information can she absorb and retain in a day? What level of difficulty is appropriate? What format is best for which topics? Do we do videos and worksheets, research and writing, simple discussion and examples? Can I find material that is understandable yet challenging? It is hard for me to figure out a good balance. If I make it all complicated projects, it is hard for her to stay focused. If it is all easy stuff like worksheets, then she isn't challenged and isn't prepared for high school.

One recent challenge was figuring out how to assign an essay on da Vinci. She's done a unit on the Renaissance, read a couple easy books on da Vinci (Magic Tree House -- quite below her level, but lots of good material), toured a da Vinci exhibit at the Maryland Science Center. I assigned her an essay on "How does da Vinci personify the idea of a Renaissance Man?" I soon realized that the whole concept of the essay was overwhelming for her, so I realized that I needed to write up a sheet showing her steps, helping her outline, pointing her in the right direction. Also, after my husband told me he thought the topic was much too hard for a 6th grader, I checked with my next door neighbor who is a teacher. She agreed that it was much too hard, more on a high school level, and gave me an idea of how to bring it down to a 6th or 7th grade level. When I looked back at my sheet I realized I had, in essence, already done what she said ("give me three reasons why...") so felt better. But the whole experience taught me to listen to DD#1 when she is frustrated and try to figure out if I am asking too much. I don't want to err on the side of being too easy. I want her to be stretched and challenged, but constant frustration is definitely not the goal. Once I took the time to sit down with her, help her focus, walk her through some sources and ideas, she was able to take the idea and run with it. I spoon fed her some stuff, but when I read over her draft I was impressed with the amount of original content she added on her own. Now we can move on to revision, and use the essay as a vehicle for teaching more on punctuation, grammar, sentence structure, passive vs. active voice, transitions, etc. She has already learned about research, outlining, and drafting.

In general, we figure it out as we go along. It would be much easier if the curriculum I use (more on Core Knowledge in a later post) had specific material to go along with it. I love Core Knowledge but all the teacher guides and material seem to go away once you hit middle school. So, it is time-consuming for me to search out lesson plans, materials, activities, preview videos, etc.

So far, so good. I definitely keep evaluating as I go along to figure out what to change. At this point, our plan is to homeschool for two more grades (7th and 8th) but if we hit a point where we can't make it work, we can re-evaluate the decision.