Back to School

A very wise friend of mine once said something I took to heart in explaining why she had so many books at the end of her homeschooling career. She was selling off her used curriculum and I was impressed by how much she had accumulated after just a few years. She said something to the effect of, “It is easier to purchase the book than it is to teach it.”

That is how I felt when I opened my new order from Hexco containing a spelling and geography tutorial. It didn’t on first glance appear to be exactly what I was hoping for, a curricula that teaches itself, but upon a little getting to know it I am beginning to like it and am looking forward to using it with the children today. It has many features that will work well with the way my children learn and at this point in my homeschool career, any short cut is worth the money.

This is the hardest time of year for most of the homeschoolers I know. We are tired. We’ve had a wonderful vacation. Hitting the books will be about as easy as running a 5k in the snow. But I began to get excited when I found a few free resources on line that will help me to combine a few of the children’s classes. The first is called Bricks and Mortar. It is an absolutely free reading program using mnemonics to help the child solidify the information in his mind. The second is a unit study on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. This will be our science for at least four of my children in the coming weeks.

As for the homeschool burnout syndrome happening to so many this time of year, I am going to try to take some of my own advice. “Be still”. “Only one thing is necessary.“ There are so many things my children are quite capable of doing if I simply get out of the way. But, being still is not in my nature, so this will have to be a new habit for me to try to acquire. Perhaps I’ll put my wrist band on to help me to remember and report on how things progress in the next three weeks.