By Genevieve, on April 13th, 2011
Where to start?
This has been, I am pretty sure, my most un-organized homeschool year. We homeschool through a charter school that is made up of all homeschooled students. There are several of this type here in California. Several, in fact, based in our area. We homeschool this way for probably equal parts accountability and help funding books/classes.
I am the antithesis of organized/orderly. Having to meet with a teacher who sort of oversees us, is probably the only thing that keeps me on the straight and narrow- otherwise, I would have vague plans to get to a subject, but would keep pushing it off another day/week..until all the stars align correctly and I have all the desired supplies..something like that.
So, today was meeting day. Enter picture of me frantically putting everything in orderly fashion and making sure kids have finished everything they should. 1 of 4 is working on History questions I never got around to typing up for the reading she did last week, cousin Oliver is working on Math without my hovering, since I am busy with 1 of 4 and running manic everywhere making copies of maps I forgot, pulling out last month’s work and putting the new stuff into our binders.
I hate being that homeschool mom.
I really enjoy picking and choosing interesting books/programs to use. But now, a decade into homeschooling, I keep wondering if I should have just picked a boxed curriculum: 1 grade across the board, easy to use. I find myself flipping through a catalog of homeschool classes online. It schedules everything and grades everything. This would be bliss, I think.
I’ve always loved the quote,
“education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire”
-and I’ve chosen our books and programs to reflect this philosophy. But lately, I find myself wanting to have a subject “poured” into my students as opposed to presenting it to them for delight-driven exploration/learning. I don’t know if I am making sense..but what I am trying to say is that I have this urge to have education ‘applied’ to them, so I can check off that it’s been accomplished as opposed to offering up a buffet. I have been surrounded by too many unschoolers, perhaps…while not an unschooler myself, it has been easy to decide that even with my failed days, I am doing more than they- because I at least attempt a scope and sequence, have specific workbooks/books/programs. I wonder if I could have done better. Heck, I know I could have done better. I wonder if it will matter in the end, or if it will all come out in the wash. My high-school student is excelling. Proof I am doing well in the end, despite my loose ways, or proof she’s naturally quick?
Lately I don’t like my brooding thoughts. Here’s the catalog that is tempting me -Monarch online it’s all on sale right now, too.
By Admin, on April 8th, 2011
I decided to come visit my poor, neglected, secret blog. Then I decided my poor, neglected, secret blog needs new friends to make it happy. So, where to get a bunch of new friends fast? The Ultimate Blog Party hosted by 5 Minutes for Mom- of course. So, yes, I am jumping in way late, by-the-skin-of-my-teeth…it’s how I roll.
So, welcome to my secret place. This is the blog I started after regretting telling my family about my real, legitimate blog. Here, I am hoping I can be a bit more me, without worrying about backlash. Mostly, on my real blog- I feel like an ambassador for home-schooling…and fear if I get real about my bad days, my lazy days, my angst days- that I will give home-schooling a bad name, or worse, be talked about on a forum message board or something.
I’ve neglected this spot a bit. It’s hard to home-school, take care of the family, and blog on TWO blogs. I’ve been a bit conflicted. But, here is my new resolve to blog more in my secret place.
Welcome new friends!
My name is Genevieve (not really) and I live in sunny San Diego (maybe). I home school our four darling children and my nephew. Here are the cast of characters in my life:
- Genevieve (me): mad blogger extraordinaire
- The Captain: my devastatingly handsome husband who is more than I ever deserved
- 1 of 4 (daughter the eldest- 15 and in 10th grade)
- 2 of 4 (daughter the next eldest -13 and in 7th grade)
- 3 of 4 : son – 10 and in 4th grade
- 4 of 4: (baby princess daughter of family and in 2nd grade)
- cousin Oliver :my nephew (has some learning disabilities: we are homeschooling him because frankly we realized in 2nd grade it was either Military School- best positive hope, or Juvy- really it was going that way)
- The Dogma -the family mutt
Welcome to my guilty secret place.
I hope we can be friends, and I hope you will be back .
By Genevieve, on September 11th, 2010
 Our first two weeks back to homeschool are complete.
The verdict? It’s going to be a great year, I think. But the driving to lessons just might kill me.
The confession bit- (you know that’s why you are here…!) Well, I was really determined in my mind- to be very organized this year and have my learning area all nifty- with some posters of things we are going to be mastering, and a schedule poster all written out my 3 youngest students.
ah- well, predictably it didn’t happen. My stuff was all organized and spic n span, but I never made it down to the teacher store to buy supplies/posters, what-not.
I did write a schedule on the white-board for the kids- I think it helped.
We tore through Math, Grammar, Reading and Writing. I met with my nephew’s special ed tutor- and she seemed very pleased with what I have planned for him, and she had some extra cool training this Summer with the Lindamood Bell learning system…so I was really pleasantly surprised and pleased with what she has planned for him. I’m a sucker for a well-researched and systematic program with lots of support workbooks/flashcards, etc- this program has all that. It was way too expensive for my sister to put in him into- she did really look at it. So, to have the charter school we homeschool through- pay to train the tutor in it, is just awesome.
So, Daughter the eldest will be taking two classes at a private school program. I went to the orientation, and I was so pleased at the set-up, the teachers, the planning. It’s going to be a great year for her, and a great year for getting her prepped for college. We are now planning on putting each child into this program as they hit highschool.
This is the year I am aiming to push my nephew over his learning wall- and hopefully propell him to learning at either his grade level, or very close to it. He has some learning disorders..we’ve been coddling him a bit as we sorted through repairing the mess that was public school- but I am hoping and praying that this will be his year to shine.
The others are all on the right path.
Let’s just see if I survive all the driving.
How was your back to school?
By Genevieve, on August 25th, 2010
We haven’t even started our new homeschool year, and I have to admit to you all that today just kicked my trash can. I wrote in the last post about being willing to drive my kids so many places…well, today was just too much for me. I met The Captain for lunch (that part was nice and relaxed) and then took Daughter the younger to buy some shoes and pants- it really needed to be done, her shoes were looking pretty bad! From there we had a music lesson, and then the kids had been begging me to take them somewhere, so I took them swimming at the grandparents (they live in the neighborhood, so I figured it was the least time commitment option) from there it was 2 more music lessons, and then another lesson in another city. We were running late and I was out of gas. sigh.
I am so fried.
the kind of fried when you should be doing constructive things on the computer, or laundry…but you just want to sit down with a bowl of ice cream and watch mindless girl t.v.
(which is what I will be doing next…!)
I am re-considering the “driven” thing. I don’t want another day like today.
How about you? Do you feel driven to let your kids experience classes and opportunities you didn’t have?
- I kid you not, my kids are on their way to bed right now, and one of them just asked me “so, what are we going to do tomorrow?”
ayyyyyy!!!!
By Genevieve, on August 19th, 2010
I am not my mom.
I am not my mom, and so- I drive.
I drive them to playdates, to classes of an enrichment flavor- or of a social flavor…to places of adventure, to appointments they need to be at. I drive them around, even though I am more of a homebody…because I am excited to let them sample the world, and because, when I was young,I knew better than to ask my parents to do so.
I’m also the “nice” mom. So, it seems I do a disproportionate amount of driving. And yet, I do it, because I want my kids to have that playdate…
Sometimes, a mom will understand, and offer to go ‘halves‘. As in, I will Pick up Suzie for playdate and then her mom will come get her. I like halvesies- I understand that we are all busy…working it out works for me. But, I don’t usually get even halves.
The other day, a new friend could not make our beach date…but, her daughter was crushed- so, she asked, could I take little Annie with me? Of course! And then I asked for directions to her house. No! Her mom insisted in dropping her off…and then, be-still-my-beating-heart!!…she insisted in picking her up later that day.
I decided then and there that this mom is my new best -ever- friend.
She’s from Norway.
I don’t know if that plays into the difference I found. But I like it.
I must learn how to say BFF in Dutch.
By Genevieve, on August 12th, 2010
 I visited with some old family friends recently. They were the kind of friends that were at our house at least twice a week, or more- and we at their house. Until this trip, it had been 3 years since I last visited with the kids.
They all grew up.
The son, had changed- to me, overnight. At 14, his voice had deepened, he had thinned out and grown taller.
He is now taller than I.
I listened to the rumble of his voice, and tried to hold on, more tightly-in my heart, to my little boy.
And then,
he came bounding into the room, sat on his mother’s lap, and let her put her hands all over his face.
Both mom and son, all smiles.
Suddenly
My heart was at peace.
My boy will always belong to me.
By Genevieve, on August 11th, 2010
 It’s Wordless Wednesday!
Lavender could say much if desired, but it is modest.
By Genevieve, on August 5th, 2010
I founded my secret place so I could share, unfettered. Yet, I hesitate, still. Why? I’m not really sure. I’ve got some great stories, just itching to be shared, and yet- I haven’t. I think for women with a conscience too big, too sensitive- it’s a bit hard to step out and tell the tales you’ve been conditioned all your life to not speak of. Sure, step-mom was mean as hell and mom is soused much of the time these days…but we never say it out loud to anyone.
I ran across this story the other day,
I bad mouthed my Mother-in-Law on a blog-then she found out By Catherine Connors on Lemondrop.com
And, yowsa! -something resonated there! Mostly, I was glad it wasn’t me…
I would like to put it on record that the Captain’s family is pretty great. His mom is a great Mother-in-Law, she has always managed to be warm without butting into our lives. She never has a negative word. I love her. My only complaint would be that she is so busy we hardly see her.
Catherine Connors wrote a vent about a family member, she tried to hide it a bit by not putting it on her own blog, but she did sign her name to it..mistake in hindsight. When it was found, a few years later, she had to do some serious apologizing. Still, she also had this to say:
“But I also said this: that I wasn’t sorry that I had written it in the first place. I wasn’t sorry, I said, because I believed — and still do — very firmly in the importance of women sharing these kinds of stories, these difficult stories that we are so often told not to tell, not to share. How would I, a new mom struggling with depression, fighting through that depression to find her place in her expanding family, know that I was not alone in that experience if other women were not telling those stories?…. How would I know that it is not just me, if we never told these stories, if we kept them hidden behind the heavy curtain of familial privacy, inside the quiet domain of the private sphere?”
“… my obligations to my family do not extend to fully silencing myself, I don’t think. Because if we accept this as one of our duties, as women, to family — to keep quiet, to be silent on all matters concerning family — then we condemn ourselves to remaining behind the veil, our voices unheard, our stories untold, our world — or that portion of our world, large or small, that is the world of family — forever cut off from the public sphere. And that hurts us, I think.”
I agree with her words, at least as far as doing this sharing anonymously. Sharing/venting deeply personal things publicly, with our names attached and our husbands & children brought into it?..No, I’m not comfortable with that. Hence, my secret blog. Yet, I still feel a little guilty, a little traitorous.
How do you feel about transparency vs. privacy in blogging? Do you let it all hang out or are there some topics off-limits? Do you use your kids’ names on your blog? Do you enjoy more the blogs that spill it all out and shock a little? Or do you avoid those?
nosy me wants to know…
By Genevieve, on August 4th, 2010
 I will never lose 15lbs, now.
By Genevieve, on July 22nd, 2010
My thoughts are finally turning towards preparing for our new homeschool year. I am happy with our curricula choices from last year, no big changes to make in that department. I am, however, thinking seriously about how to set up a better routine- and how to improve on things that were lacking last year.
Here are 5 things I will be adding/changing to our school year:
- More fun. Dad is usually the more fun parent around here, but this year it was glaringly clear he was way above me in the fun department. I failed to follow a plan most of the year, the result was a frazzled teacher/mom hell-bent on just finishing the important stuff. She was no fun. I think I will fire her.
- More hands-on crafts and activities. Those sorts of activities are the ones that drive home learning, and give the kids something to show-off, something to be proud of. Math and journal writing are never really ever complete- but to wrap up a unit study with a map or lapbook is to have a concrete finish line. This goes hand-in-hand with “more fun”.
- A set schedule. As much as I hate them, we really need one. Doing- the- next- thing works only to a point.
- Physical Activity scheduled each day. The kids are active with different after-school sports, but we really need to have a time to get outside and moving together- go for a walk, roller-skate, play a quick game…to liven up our school day, to shake out the cobwebs so the kids can sit back down to their studies with renewed attention.
- MCT Language arts program. Of course I had to find a new curriculum to play with, er try out.
These are my thoughts, as we head into a new homeschool year. I am feeling excited at the thought of having a brand-new year to look forward to. I am looking forward to starting with a clean slate, having a new schedule/rhythm for the day, and having materials better organized for my students.
How about you? What are you looking forward to? Have you found any new materials/programs to try?
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About Me  Genevieve, homeschool mom who has found her secret place. Confession is supposed to be good for the soul. That, or just entertaining. Grab a drink, and I'll spill. |
