We’re in our 5th year of homeschooling. You’d think by now I’d have this all figured out, but that’s not the case. The game keeps changing, and I feel like I’m scrambling to keep up.
Our Educational Journey So Far
Take Bookworm, for instance. We started with Kolbe Academy in 4th grade, which wasn’t a great fit for us. While I loved the employees at the school who were available to answer all of our questions, the program itself was too Classical for us.
Then, we switched to Sonlight. We both loved it! Bookworm completed all of Core D and Core E. Since the religious aspect of Sonlight didn’t match with our religious beliefs, we switched to BookShark and completed the Level 5 (equivalent to Sonlight’s Core F).
Honestly, I thought that we’d do Sonlight or BookShark for his entire educational career. Bookworm and I even sat down one afternoon and laid out all of the Cores he’d complete from 5th grade until graduation.
Experienced homeschool moms are probably rolling their eyes or giggling about now because they know, life is always changing.
Farewell to a Friend
Last year, Bookworm started going through puberty, and my book loving, eager to learn student started changing. He was finding reading all of the novels too time consuming. He didn’t really want me to read aloud to him anymore, but he didn’t want to add all of the read alouds to his work load, either.
The time had come to part ways with Sonlight and BookShark, and, I’ll confess, I was really sad! All of my best laid plans were pointless, now.
Struggling to Find a New Curriculum
Bookworm was in 7th grade. My husband and I wanted to “try out” a program that also had a high school curriculum, so we could see if it was a good fit before committing for high school. We tried out My Father’s World, but Bookworm was uninspired.
Then, we tried out Heart of Dakota. He acknowledged that this program was “not that bad,” but he wasn’t inspired. He went through the motions of doing school, but his motivation was not there.
My husband and I seriously considered sending him to school. We went to two different schools over this summer, met with the principal, discussed whether they were a good fit. While we haven’t officially made a decision on whether Bookworm will go to school or not, right now, we’re leaning toward another option–online classes.
Two years ago, I never would have thought our homeschool journey would take us to a place where a.) we’d consider sending him to school, and b.) we’d outsource most of his homeschool to other online teachers.
If you’re a new homeschool mom, my advice to you is to not become too committed to your homeschool plan. Life changes. Kids changes. Needs change. If your homeschool is to be successful, you need to change, too.
If you homeschool, have you been through many evolutions of your homeschool?
I swing wildly about too. My problem is the inconsistency of curriculums. One year the material will be great and the next year it’s boring! Then it’s back to the drawing board. I also have struggled with the lack of friends my kids have. We live around no kids, so the only kids they meet are at the park, church class, and co op. Which is great, but when those things are out of session then we are in no man’s zone. My kids are people persons so this is a constant state of guilt for me(you know Catholics and guilt:). So I too have flirted with the public school idea. Did I mention I am not a huge people person? So I struggle to understand why my kids need so much exposure to kids. I should have had tons of kids so they had built in playmates I guess…
You and I have so much in common! I’m not a people person, either, and the inconsistency in curriculum really is difficult!