Time for home school. Gag. I hope my children won’t read this. They won’t. I knew before my first child was born I wanted to home school. I guess you could say I was called to it. In fact, it was my obsession–I owned every book about it, and bought my daughter Hooked on Phonics when she was three. My mistake.
They’re ready when they’re ready and not a second, minute, or day sooner. I witnessed that with my middle son. He’s in third grade now, but though I tried to teach him to read in kindergarten he only became frustrated and felt like he wasn’t smart because he couldn’t get it. Then I felt like a bad mom, of course. The next year (or two) we started up the phonics again and were both becoming frustrated. Then one day the phonics just clicked and he got it–just like that. He was so determined to read once the light bulb came on, he was reading entire sentences by the end of THAT day. It was an amazing experience. Really.
Still, to school four children in different grades isn’t an easy task and I find myself loathing it. Of course, every teacher whether public, private or a home school mom gets burned out near the end of a school year, in previous years I found myself looking forward to the moment when school would start up again. I’d eagerly buy all the supplies and decorate just like we had our own classroom, and depending on where we lived, we had our own room for school.
Now, I wish we could put them in a Christian school but the finances just aren’t there. I wonder, too, if they’re missing out on stuff. When you home school, it’s up to you to run them around to get all the necessary lessons like art and music, or do it yourself.
Somewhere in the midst of the busy days, I have to come up with time to write and at some point the boys have become addicted to video games. How could that happen? They’ve even announced they hate reading, to which I proclaim “BLASPHEMY.”
So, tomorrow I begin the laborious task of dragging out boxes and boxes of books–yes, I have a library of children’s books all purchased from Sonlight curriculum. They were stored in the barn when we moved over the holidays. No more video games.
Somehow, I have to once again ignite their interest in traveling to different times and places through books like Where the Red Fern Grows and . . .and. . .well you get the idea. Can’t think of any particular titles and that one really moved me as a kid.
Can I ask for prayer? Pray for school and prayer for writing?