New Things

My little guys and I are a couple weeks into our new homeschooling method. I had always thought of homeschooling as *the* way to make school fun. I imagined us curled up with books and making marvelous discoveries in the back yard. I almost had that dream squashed by starting our homeschool experience with a couple different cyber charter schools. My C seemed to enjoy it at first. I did too. Kindergarten was neat. He learned how to read. But there was a lot a sitting. Still not was expected of him. It was kindergarten after all. Then first grade. Oh how we both ended up hating first grade. Then through a series of blunders my first grader was reported to our home school district as truant. I had to sit through an online meeting explaining how important it was that we attend school regularly. I had to fill out a form and mail it in explaining why we had missed days and what I would do to see that it didn't happen again. It made no difference that we schooled on weekends and through breaks because we were always behind because I just couldn't have him sit at a table for 5 hours a day. We didn't go on their field trips because it would really mean a whole day of not doing work and we would get even more behind. It just mattered that we had missed logging into the system during the week. Yes, truant. Yes, still talking about cyber school. Yes, it was my fault. I'll say it again, it was completely my responsibility to make sure we were logged in and/or got the correct level of excuse in within the allowed time. And yes, I still think it is ridiculous. Luckily it was close to the end of the year, we finished the year without further incident and promptly withdrew. I faced my fears of doing this thing without someone else telling me what to do. And the fears of could we afford it? Could I still teach him everything he needed? Could I make it fun? Could he ever *like* school?

This first year has been full of ups and downs. Successes and failures. The good news is I think we're both excited again. I think the answer to the last question is no - he probably won't ever like school. But he can like learning. These last couple weeks have been a blast for both of us. I get up and find him in his project room already working on something he's excited about. This morning it was a minecraft mask which he so cleverly paired with a turtle shell constructed two weeks ago. I'm so thankful that we don't have to get everything right in an instant.