If homeschooling is just about education, we may as well not bother

The thing is, education can not be the paramount reason for homeschooling your children.  It is simply not a big enough reason to keep you going through the rough parts, and what is more, if this is your main reason you are missing the big picture. 
Of course homeschooling gives a superior education to public school.  Even private school cannot compare.  Your child learns at his own pace and has the freedom to actually dig into topics of his interest to his hearts desire.  Your child's teacher is deeply invested in how well he understands the topics (because it is you!).  As your child's teacher, you see problems that arise far more quickly than would be noticed in a traditional setting, whether they be of a spelling, math or character persuasion.  All of these are wonderful benefits of home education.  But if this is where it stops, then you have missed the vision. 
The primary benefit of homeschooling is the ability to build relationships with your children.  To lead them to be disciples of Christ.  To teach them to teach their children to be disciples of Christ.  It is a multigenerational vision of victory, as Vision Forum puts it.  If my grandchildren are heathens, then I will have failed. 
Being at home with my children all day every day provides an opportunity to work on their little hearts; it provides those teachable moments about seeking God's heart and praying when we need help, asking forgiveness right away when we have wronged a sister or brother. 
It is about letting them see you with your spiritual hair down; do you live what you preach?  When they see you walk what you talk, it is all the more real for them, because your relationship with God is real to you.  And when they see you mess up ('cause we do!) they get great examples of how to handle sin in a godly manner.  You can confess to them right away and ask their forgiveness.  Very powerful stuff!
You see, all of this world is ash.  It will all be burned up one day.  All you get to take with you are the relationships you make, the people that you invest in. 
I simply want to encourage you to invest in your children more than just their education.  I can promise that you will not be disappointed. 

How I made it Out of the FOG (homeschool and otherwise)

Some of us are better than others at seeing what needs to be done, what amount of work is going to be best for each child, which books to purchase for each level, what projects to complete and how to schedule our days.

I am not one of those people.

I decided to try TOG out of desperation. (more on that in a later post- putting it all in one seemed like way too much!) And then I was overwhelmed.  That is not true exactly. It was more like dazed.   I would often tell my husband that it was like I was walking through molasses.  (or as I read later in loose threads- the fog!)  Seems like I read and read and read, watched webinars and looked at the posts on forums and the loose threads loop, and still was missing something. Somehow we were not getting all that I thought we should from our curriculum.  Nothing seemed to be working right.  I have three levels to contend with, LG, UG, and Dialectic, plus a kindergartner, preschooler and a baby.  For now I will just discuss the older three.  I will come back to the younger three.

My UG dd is dyslexic and in fourth grade.  Her younger sis is two years younger but they both do fourth grade work. My oldest is in 8th grade.  NONE of them were brilliant at self directed work in the majority of their subjects.  I was pulling out hair.  No one seemed to understand that we had gotten onto the history superhighway!  They all needed to listen faster!

Here are the things that I began to implement in our homeschool that have made all the difference in our days and weeks:

First-I read and implemented the book Managers of their Chores by Steve and Teri Maxwell.  This helped tremendously with getting the house under control.  And surprisingly, gave me freedom to do the least amount of housework (to my husbands standards of course) that we could get by with and still feel confident that DHS would not be knocking on our door.  It took some time and effort and prayer, but it was well worth it.

workboxes for older kiddos

Second- I read and implemented most of the book by Sue Patrick: Sue Patrick's Workbox System.  I modified this system to fit what we were already sort of doing and what organizational drawers that I already owned. What I own came from Target, and are basically for scrapbooking- 12x12 drawers with lids attached that are stacked seven high.  The oldest has two sets stacked, the grammar girls share two sets stacked (this gives them each fourteen drawers), and then the K and preschoolers have a set like Sue Patrick talks about.  It is just a shoe organizer rack with plastic shoe boxes that are numbered.  The idea is you fill all the boxes the night before with their work (even including a sharp pencil or whatever is needed in every bucket), and voila, planning is done!  This has been KEY to getting the most work done everyday.  This was THE MOST bang for the buck.  Although I need to say here that we do not do typing with any regularity and we definitely don't run (I can see where it would be beneficial!).  Here is a link to view the drawers in the picture above at target.com: Sterilite 7 drawer craft cart

Workbox system for kindergartner

Third- I pulled out all of the Preschool Activity Bags that I had made the summer before, and all of the other preschool bags of activities that I had come up with myself to rotate through the the K and PreK-ers boxes to keep them busy.  Paula's Archives has lots of links to lots of ideas- just be aware that she lists lots of links and I doubt she can keep up with each one everyday of the year.  Pirating of a site can happen to the best of us.

Fourth- I reimplemented a lot of the "tricks" I had read about when researching for my dyslexic dd.  She would likely be diagnosed ADD in a "real" school situation; she definitely has some difficulty filtering noise and distractions, and has trouble sitting still.  Some of these tricks Molly Evert's recommends in her site counterculturalschool.  Some I read about in some other books, and some my chiropractor had told me about.  They seem to be fairly common among ADHD/Dyslexic/sensory integration issue kiddos.  Here is a list of a few things that helped us:

• an exercise ball in a size appropriate for them to sit on and do their work.  The fact that core muscles are constantly engaged helps the need to wiggle and expends some energy.

• provide some kind of tactile stimulation- a small ball with spikes, some silly putty, some small cut of silky cloth, etc. Anything that can be manipulated and is small enough not to be a huge distraction for everyone else.
• cross-crawl exercises everyday- these include some exercises on the ball as well.

There is a ton of info on this out there, but it seems that it can be hard to find.  I will list some of the books and sites I have read on this issue that were helpful to us.  Look for it under my pages.

Implementing these strategies took a good portion of the fog away!  Then I was able to concentrate on the curriculum issues we were having. They did take time however, and it didn't happen overnight.   

UG.  And then reading level is not across the board- ie some LG reads are harder than UG.  But the content may not be quite as engaging.   I finally ditched a lot of the core UG, kept the core LG, ditched the LG readers and kept the UG in depth and really more of the alternates listed. So far it is working.  I found SOW on cd, and Molly's site myaudioschool.com  is a great resource for audio books that can be streamed right from the site.

Also one of the main things is that we are taking TOG at half pace, taking two and sometimes three weeks to do one weeks work.  This allows us the time for the hands on projects that we want to do, and to finish readings at our pace.  My dialectic dd also wanted to include lots of alternative titles as well as the main listings, this accommodates her desire as well.  

We are now in a groove if you will, and making forward progress everyday.  My house will never be in Better Homes and Gardens, but neither will DHS have a leg to stand on with regards to an unkempt house.  My children may not be Rhodes Scholars, but if they love to learn I am extremely pleased with that, and so (most importantly) is my husband.  He is very adamant that the most important thing is not their education, but their relationships with us and each other.

Lord, help me remember what this one is supposed to be

Ever had a great thought you knew you should write down, and hurry off to get a piece of paper, only to have the thought fly right out before you can get it down?  Happens to me daily!  I take lots of B vitamins!  Good ones!  Shaklee!  SO this shouldn't be happening to me!  But when you are running over 1TB (terabyte not Tablespoon) of info through a 10MB processor, what do you expect?  (I like to say my processor isn't even 10MB, I run on VINYL{33's not 45's!})

A few days ago, last week most likely, I had a thread of thoughts that didn't get written down.  I was not obedient to drop what I was doing (in the kitchen) and scramble for a pad to write on. Even my phone!  It was a topic I was supposed to  blog about; now instead I am praying that God shows me His Grace and prods my little brain into remembering what it forgot.

Homeschooling through grief

This is a difficult topic.  Grief is like a worm, or a virus.  You never know what button will cause it to rear its ugly head.  You are fine one minute, the next having a melt down because you are taking one of the last Tylenol from the bottle your mom bought for you when she worked at the hospital (of course the employees can buy those huge bottles for just about $2).  For those who may not know, my mom died of lung cancer this past July.

I don't think all grief is equal.  If the loss were a child, or a spouse, I think it would be a whole lot worse.  I had an entire year to "prepare" for the passing of my mom.  Whatever that means.
And still, I felt like I was walking through a fog.  I desperately wanted my kids to feel some stability, but at the same time allow them to see that it is ok to mourn, and go through a grieving period.  We don't have to be super moms and do it all perfect all the time.  Homeschooling gave us the freedom to have a really lousy year. We made up for it with some double lessons later.  But it gave all of us the chance to grieve and have the down time needed, and just to be around one another was a comfort.

My mom had a gambling problem, and so did the man she was married to, so they never had any money.  I have nothing of hers to remember her by.  I have a very few things she gifted me with (her love language); the pan she used to bring over some treat- "just keep it", the cookie press she loaned me- "you will use it more than I will", some really nice pampered chef place mats, napkins, napkin rings and table runner.  I think she must have won a few thousand that time.

I don't exactly know what to tell someone else going through a loss.  It is hard.  You feel alone.  Others let you down, either by not doing what they said they would, or not doing what you think they should.  They don't know what to say, they say the wrong thing, or nothing (maybe worse!)

Love on your kids.  It helps.  Try and stick to some amount of routine, it helps them and you.  Don't push to hard at school.  There will be time later.  Spend the emotional time bonding with them through the worst of it- they will be strengthened by it. Try and have some fun with them.  Maybe take a break from the real school and do a non fussy unit or just read some good books. You just might be surprised at what good therapy good books can be.  And cheap!  The Lord will supply you will all your needs, if you can trust to lean on Him.  Sounds cliche, but having been through a bit of it myself, I feel that I can say that.