Saturday, September 4, 2010

Homeschool, Day 16

Well, here we are....four weeks into our school year and I'm finally beginning to feel like we're in a bit of a rhythm. The kids seem to be enjoying it and - although I am continuing to find it extremely time-consuming - I'm really enjoying it too. Sienna does ask me on a fairly regular basis when they're going to go to a "real school" and I always answer, "I don't know".

We haven't committed to homeschooling for our kids' entire lives. We haven't even committed to homeschooling for a few years. But we made a choice to try it out this year and see how it goes. It's a difficult line for me. I feel insanely busy - more busy than I've ever been before - but part of the reason I'm so busy is because I'm also working. I know that my children are more important than working, but I'm also trying to create a business that will allow my husband to be able to work less. It's quite the conundrum, and we certainly haven't figured it all out yet.

After the first 5-day week of homeschooling, I decided to cut the school days down to 3 or 4 days per week. Five days was just...a lot. And since there are plenty of 3- and 4-day kindergartens out there, I feel that this is perfectly acceptable. I'm finding it really fun to relearn everything (and even learn some new things) as I teach my children. We did a unit study on the days of creation for the first few weeks of school and now we're onto a unit study on safety and emergency preparedness. I find the unit study method of teaching to be fun, but I wonder if I'm making more work for myself than is necessary. At any rate, it's working for now, so we'll stick with it for a while.

Today is Saturday, so I'm off to have some fun. But some of you (eh hem) have been wondering how school is going, so I thought I would update while I had a few minutes.