What am I frustrated about?

I have definitely encountered some challenges that I hadn't anticipated.  I am working my way through them but, boy, is it time-consuming!

My first big frustration was science!  When researching homeschool science curricula, it seemed like they were all religion-based science books.  I ran into another homeschooling mom at the bookstore one day and asked her about it. She said it is a common problem for people who are not homeschooling for religious reasons (aka "secular homeschoolers" -- a term that I think has some drawbacks).  I will have a separate post to discuss my struggle with the whole science issue.  Here is a link to an article on that topic. I don't agree with everything in the article, and I think some of their numbers are suspect, but the point is valid -- it is hard to find science texts, appropriate for homeschooling.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100306/ap_on_re/us_rel_home_school_evolution


In general, finding materials is a frustration.  The Core Knowledge curriculum (especially at the middle school level) gives me a list of topics to cover, but doesn't lay out which materials to use.  As mentioned before, that has its pros and cons.  I have finally found a list that was created for Core Knowledge, but it's still isn't easy.  For example, on the 6th grade science list there are about 20 different books to choose from.  They are all single-subject books, so you have to order many books, rather than one text.  This is mostly the fault of Core Knowledge.  They don't do only physical science in one year, only biology the next, etc.  It mixes it up in each year, which I like.

Another frustration has been a surprise.  In general, Fionn is very self-motivated and focused.  We've had quite a run of setbacks lately, though.  First, the snow (and a sick sister) kept the entire family home for almost 2 weeks.  It is hard to accomplish a day of school when the whole family is home making noise, and there is a snow fort to build! ;-)  Then she had a week-long visit to Oregon to ski (could we call this PE?).  I knew she wasn't going to accomplish a lot on the trip, but coming on the heels of the snow "vacation" at home, we were starting out behind.  THEN, when she got home, we jumped right into two weeks of everyone being sick.  Through it all, Fionn has been fighting me quite a bit more than normal on school.  She isn't motivated to work hard on things, wants to get by with as little work as possible, doesn't seem interested in what we need to work on.  We had one long talk about it (really not fun) and I thought maybe things were improving, but today I got quite a bit of attitude from her again.  Some of this may be just normal adolescent push-back, and since school is a major part of our day, it's where the push-back occurs.  It is hard to figure out whether to just chalk it up to normal stuff, or whether to be concerned that something isn't working.  I have to say, though, that I'm getting nervous.  Without her usual quick pace through a lot of material, I feel like we are stalled.  I am hoping we can actually finish the 6th grade curriculum by mid-June instead of having to work into the summer.

I am sure I will encounter many more frustrations along the way.  And they are probably not new frustrations.  Luckily there is a strong network of homeschoolers I can turn to through listservs for help.