In spite of the hormonal pity party of my last written post, we are fine and back into the swing of homeschool. I have made a token effort to look for jobs-you know asking around, but not really asking where there may actually BE a job. I did make a stand for my kids though and told hubby that if God wants me to work and provides a job, I will send the kids back to school, but NOT until then. While things are extremely tight and we are eaking out every last cent of hubby's paycheck and then some to make ends meet, we are not looking at losing the things that are important-home, food, water, and electricity. If we have to let some things go, fine. He calmed down and agreed that we shouldn't do anything rash when the kids weren't physically or emotionally prepared to make a change. I know that women are supposed to submit to their husbands, but neither of us were being very rational at that moment and mine was less of a panic than it was just an overwhelmed, throw-up-the-hands-and-scream. Meaning: I calmed down first. So things are status quo for the moment except for one problem that has come up that has the potential to be huge, but I can't talk about it here. Please pray for us on that.
Anyway, school is off to a great start. We are getting so much done. I intend to take breaks often so we don't end up fading out at the end of the year. Last year, my son kept losing his books and we ended up having a hard time assigning him any work. This year, I have stuff for him to do and if he loses his books, the work gets harder. He does NOT want to do that. Daughter loves school and I have learned that I will never be able to unschool her. She has too much teacher in her. She thrives on the organization and scheduling. Today has been an off day for me, but thanks to planning the week ahead of time, I can have an off day and the kids still be on track.
The first thing we did this year is take the VARK test. It confirmed what I knew about my son-that he is a kinesthetic learner-but where I thought daughter was a read/write learner, I found that she is a visual and aural learner. She has always LOVED workbooks. So I assumed that she could pretty well learn on her own with those self taught courses. No, she does better if someone reads it to her or shows her how it's done. So we have been doing that and it has been so much less stress already. For my son, I give him something to color or fiddle with while I am reading to him or teaching. He is one of those who teachers will chide for not paying attention, but when asked what was being said, can reel it off almost verbatim. He has to be moving. So if fidget he must, then fidget he will. I think this is why his last teacher disliked him so much. He made a fool of her when he repeated what she thought he was not hearing. He thinks so too. He said she sputtered a bit when he would do that. He is actually getting his work done now that I allow him to "play" while I do the instruction part. How could he ever learn in an environment where he is expected to sit still and be quiet all day? Admittedly, youngest daughter would do just fine in that setting, but she does love to cuddle while we read. She would miss out on that.
My oldest son, after the incident I wrote about in my last entry, kept bugging me to go for a ride with him. He wanted to drive, yes, but the real reason was that he wanted to apologize. I knew that, so I managed to slip away with him for a few minutes. We had a nice talk and I reminded him of how when he got frustrated with his dad over not getting to drive his car as much as he wanted, he threw the keys and told his dad to just sell it cause he wouldn't ever get to drive it. We are JUST alike, he and I. We are both all-or-nothing kind of people. It takes alot to get us to that point, but when we are there, pity the people in our path. So I allowed him to eat a little crow in private and went home to eat my own in front of everyone.
