So Discouraged

[mrsrandolph]

Are you guys tired of hearing me whine?

I made a post about whether or not schedules are necessary. I decided that since I am attempting to teach 3 kids on 3 different levels as well as mind a 3 year old, I needed some kind of schedule, at least for school.

Our day is as long as a public school day!

My kid's days are not that long individually, but I teach from morning until 3:30.

I have one just starting LHFHG. I have 2 in Bigger. The problem is that I can't combine my daughter and son that are in Bigger on most things. I combine them for History and Science...the left page stuff. But I have to separate them for everything on the right side of the page, and neither one of them is independent enough to "go off and do" anything by themselves.

My son has learning and auditory processing issues. So, I modify his work for that reason. If I keep his sister in the school room doing the same work, but not "modified", he says that he is doing "baby work" and he cries like crazy and talks about how stupid he is. (NOT SOMETHING WE INSTILL IN HIM)

So, I feel I have no choice but to separate them.

Additionally, I feel like I am slighting my oldest daughter who is capable of more. I don't do the vocab. or timeline with her. She is capable of that. But school is already taking so long!

Then, as you guys know, there is meal prep, laundry, and a 3 year old to spend time with.

I have seriously considered putting them in private school next year and then teaching at that same school. I am at my wits end.

Help?

[mskogen]

Shannon,

I don't have much time right now, but I wanted to encourage you. I was combining my two oldest in Bigger, then I realized it was not the best. Long story short I seperated them. I had my oldest finish Bigger as is and my second did it 1/2 pace. Now my oldest is in Preparing Unit 22 and my second will start Preparing in two weeks. We finish with school faster then we did when they were combined. It is the best thing. #1 was being held back and #2 was being dragged along.
I really have to go but wanted to share with you. If you have any questions let me know and I will answer later when I have more time...it is time to get kiddos ready for bed. Hope this helps!
God Bless!

[moedertje]

Shannon,

I also want to encourage you at this time. This is a season that you are giving so much and it sounds like you are left in a tight spot with your son. I will keep you in my prayers. Just know that Bigger is a very meaty program and that most boys would do better falling in the mid-end age range. I started at half pace with my than 7 year old son, who was in 1st grade. He started at age 4 with LHTH and moved right along up till we entered Bigger and the requirements exceeded his skills to be able to do it full pace and get out of it what he needs to. He is now 8 and has grown leaps and bounds. We had been doing 1 unit in 10 days, now we have moved to doing 1 unit in about 6 days. I still do only the 3 R activities on some days as to not overwhelm him or myself. We have co-op once a week and piano the day after, and field trips on 2 Fridays out of the month. We are continuing at half pace to have him mature even more before he gets to Preparing. This way he will be in 3rd grade and almost 9 when we start Preparing.
So what you are feeling is not strange as the PP mentioned, that separating her 2 boys helped both of the them to be placed in the right guide.
My suggestion if I may: Perhaps it would help to go full speed with your daughter and drop your son to half pace, without making a big deal out of it so he does not feel bad. I believe Julie mentioned before that if you were to grade Bigger it would fall more into a 3rd grade program. (Julie, please correct me if I am wrong on this). So that is one way you could approach it with you ds to prevent more discouragement.
Much success and I approach the Lord and ask for an abundance of grace on a daily basis to help you get through this difficult season.

[mrsrandolph]

I confess that I am not falling upon the Lord as much as I need to in all this. I know none of this is beyond His control.

He Sovereignly planned the ages of my kids, He knew what their abilities would be, He knew what my abilities would be.

One of my favorite verses is, "A man plans his steps, but the Lord determines his paths."

I appreciate all of your encouragement and suggestions. Keep them coming!

[4littleones]

I have seriously considered putting them in private school next year and then teaching at that same school. I am at my wits end.

Help?

I have exactly the same option available to me. Then I think of all the "hidden" curriculum they will pick up at school and that at the end, I would feel exactly the same burnout but for teaching others' people's children....

So I'd rather stay where I am.. This too shall pass. They will grow..

Sorry, not a lot of encouragement, just sympathy and the thought that you are not alone!

[Alison in KY]

Maybe you can rotate some subjects instead of doing them every day. Your kids are really young, and it does take quite awhile to get those basics down. I have 3, that are two years apart and are now 11, 9, and 7. None of my kiddos have been accelerated at learning to read...so I was having to read instructions to them, have them read to me, etc (still have to do that with my 7 year old).

I focus on the basics for the younger ones. I've also used the computer for school...study dog phonics, time4learning language arts, starfall, math u see math facts, etc. So when I'm rotating one on one time, I can have someone doing some computer time, and they are still learning something but it's usually a fun way of learning. Your youngest can be building with puzzles, blocks, etc and/or watching some great learning shows here and there (leap frog DVD's were a great help in our phonics at home).

You could also loop your left side subjects, or your right side and have a quitting time for YOU every day...say by 2:00 you are done and all the kids have a quiet time for 30 minutes to build or read. You would just make out a schedule and set your subjects up and if quitting time is at 2, then the next day you would pick up where you left off. You wouldn't really be starting fresh on your next HOD day, but you would have more time and be less hurried.

I'll say it again, your children are young and for those basics it will take time. You could also do basics on one day, then history, science, craft projects, painting, etc on the next. I'd definitely stretch out Bigger, no matter what way you work it.

One thing about homeschooling that has been hard on me is making plans, having this great schedule...and it either doesn't work for the kids or doesn't work for me. I've had to learn to accept those things and I'm a better mom and teacher because I've made adjustments that works for OUR family. You can make a plan that works for your family also, it's just that your plan will not necessarily look in the end like what you had in mind. I was sure we'd all be speaking latin at this stage in our homeschool, but it didnt' happen .

Hang in there, it will get better.

Alison

[daybreaking]

The first thought that comes to mind is that your current day will seem short to what it would be if you went back to teaching. From my experience as a public school teacher, not only would you have a similar or longer teaching schedule, but you'd have hours of paperwork, planning, correcting, meetings, contacting parents, etc., etc., plus you'd have to get all your children ready to go in the morning, juggle spending time with them in the afternoon with the housekeeping tasks that couldn't be done during the day, help them with homework, etc. You mentioned in another post that you've read MOTH, but you felt it was too structured. May I suggest it might be worth it to you to read through the book again? I really think you might find things much more manageable and peaceful if you utilized a schedule. I can tell you from my experience that a schedule has made all the difference for us. For one thing, it showed me that I was trying to jam much too much into my day. For another, it allowed everyone to know what to do and where, throughout the day. For instance, I need to have my little girl occupied when I working 1:1 with my son. In the past, I would" wing it" and on some days she would peacefully play and on others, she would interrupt a great deal. When I set up specific activities for her, in a separate room, what a difference it made. She thrived on the consistency of the schedule and I was able to get some excellent teaching time in with my ds. On the other side, I used to let ds do his independent work at our dining room table, while I did activities with my dd. He frequently got distracted and also would also want to do the "fun" activities his sister was doing. I changed the schedule to have him do his work in a specific room, apart from us, and once again, we had great results. He got his work done in a much more timely and accurate manner and I got some quality 1:1 time with my little girl. Having a schedule has allowed me to fit in everything I want to accomplish - homeschooling, time with my preschooler, special activities (ex. craft projects) with my children, laundry, cooking, cleaning, etc., plus my children have thrived on the routine. Most of our blocks are 1/2 hour or 1 hour and that seems to work well with us. Less than that and I felt stressed by the schedule and constantly behind, as any little interruption threw the schedule off; more than that and the benefits of the schedule were lost. (i.e., If I tell my son that 9-11 is homeschooling time, much time would be lost in dawdling. Instead, if I tell him 9-9:30 is the left side of HOD (minus the rotating box), 9:30-10:00 is English and ERS, 10:00-11:00 is math, etc., he is more diligent and there is greater accountability.) The only time I feel stressed is when I'm not consistent with the schedule. Anyhow, I don't know if any of this will help, but since we have found great success with MOTH, I thought I'd throw it out there for you, just as a suggestion.

[psreit]

I probably won't be much help, but I can relate as far as the processing difficulties. My dd(7) has had problems, which has resulted in delays with her learning. She seems to be coming along, not in leaps and bounds, but she is progressing. I think maturity helps, too. That said, when I was deciding in which guide to start dd this past fall, I was set on BLHFHG. But, especially when someone on the board mentioned what was included in Bigger, in the end I decided to begin with LHFHG. DD will be 8 in May. I am glad I made that decision because I know dd would not be ready for Bigger this fall. If you have done Beyond already, I would take the advice given by a pp and go half pace with your ds in Bigger. It may just be a little too much for him full speed. Don't give up. HTH

[water2wine]

I have been thinking about your post and wanting to help. Not sure if this will but here goes.

I think I have been where you are in HOD as far as having one with special needs and all customized on the LA and Math side. In fact doing the same two programs. It is the stage they are at in part that makes it hard. They are not yet far enough to be independent and in some instances capable of some independence but that sometimes that requires more hand holding than it does independence. When I did Bigger, I did it with two in third grade, One in sixth (because we needed the time period so she had to be beefed up) and then a young K and a 1st grader in LHFHG. One of my third graders was really old enough to be in 6th but is so far reading and math delayed and just over all delayed she had to be held back and still is behind almost all of them because my little ones will soon be passing her up. I have written posts and got help during that time on how to not make her feel like a baby even though her baby sister was passing her up in reading and the younger children in Bigger got it so much quicker than she could.

I found that scheduling and alternating my time helped a lot. In other words, my with them time teaching as a group with my one on one time to help the other. So I usually got the Bigger read aloud time done. Introduced their math and LA in an alternating fashion and then read LHFHG. Then I went back to the Bigger kids that needed help and after that helped the LHFHG kids. With my child that has special needs I realized I could not let the day center around what she lacked. So therefore every morning she came to me first before we even started and I got her math explained and had her read aloud to me a bit and also scan the story to see what words were new for her. That freed me up tremendously. She got her help before she was frustrated. Also sometimes having her preread what was the activity of the day or most often I had to read it to her but we did it before we got started. So she had a clue of what was to come and therefore was not frustrated at the time. For the kids that could do more they got the extension pack. I did also read some of the extension pack aloud for my dd with special needs benefit. But that will put more on you so if you are overwhelmed I do not recommend that.

This is what I did that worked for me. Your solution is probably going to look different. But first I think you need to know that it is really the stage you are at with your kids and next year will be easier. I took on three programs the year after Bigger and LHFHG and that was actually easier because they were developmentally more independent. I worked a little to get them to independence by having them read the boxes and then narrate back to me what they would have to do. That helps as well. But the biggest thing is I did one day as we always did and wrote down every delay and every frustration. Form that I realized that I needed to prep my dd with special needs before she got frustrated and put some responsibility for her getting it back on her. If it took more time then she would have to start first. If I had to put in more time ahead that was fine but she had to use my time wisely. And in this way she got the help she needed without being babied in the process because she did not need more babying just more academic help. So I hope all this makes sense. I have a cold so if it sounds wacky forgive me. But basically I am saying make a hit list of the rough spots and then follow that with a fix list. It may take trying a couple of ways to see what the winning mix is for you. But I bet if you did that and got the exact moments and specific things that were tripping you up and making your day hard the solutions will become a little clearer and if not this board is a wonderful place to get help.

Anyway hope there is something there that helps! Hang int here this journey is so worth it. I would say hands down the year with Bigger and LHFHG was the year my kids really got real relationships with God and began to see how God moved in their life. And from there it just keeps getting better. You are building a lot of skills but it will be worth it!

[tnahid]

Hi there, I know how you feel a little bit about the schedule thing. Honestly, just some food for thought, I think teaching at a school AND having all your own children there would be very difficult and a LOT more trouble in my opinion. All the getting up and getting everyone dressed, rushing, fixing lunches, staying late, being tired, THEN having to help with homework on top of your own school planning for the next day...WHEW! I really don't know how people do it.

Now, that is not to say that homeschooling isn't grueling at times, YES, it is emotionally draining, but I believe after seeing both sides of the coin that being with our children is going to impact their lives far more than their academic excellence. This is just my thoughts. I totally understand where you are coming from, because I actually did this. My children were in private Christian school for the last 2 years, and I was offered a job both years to teach English. But I didn't do it. Yet, just the daily grind of the institutional school life setting was enough for me! Even on the worst days, I just have to go with it and look at homeschooling as my only real option, because I know that the alternative is not any better, actually worse for me.

Leaning on the Lord's grace is CRUCIAL in it all. It is non-negotiable for me. I cannot even begin to think that I can do ANYTHING without His Spirit guiding and filling me. I will only fail and totally mess it all up! Yet, we must TRUST in His LOVE and GRACE for us as mothers, and not allow FEAR to rule us. We must cast out all fear and persevere. I want to encourage you and encourage myself! Let us stir ourselves up to endure the hard and difficult days. (as I had yesterday). I acted like more of a child than my children DID! Ugh! But, He forgives and our children are very forgiving.

I hope this helps you...the TIME you are investing into your children is eternal and it does matter. TIME spells LOVE to children. Maybe you can consider yourself more their "tutor" than their teacher. That is what I am doing, and it is helpful. Even set a timer for how long you will help each child each day.

Blessings,

[mrsrandolph]

Thank you all for your wonderful tips and encouragement. Keep it coming!