Compromise

In any good relationship, it's all about the compromise. And home schooling is no different. You compromise when you'll do school and when you'll play. House work and school work. It's a relationship of agreements and compromise.

And sometimes when we compromise, we have to give up something we'd hoped for and be happy with something else. 

I really wanted to have all of our subjects completed to the required 80% by May 22nd. But with a few days off for spring break and for general spring fever craziness, we've fallen behind. Now, with testing next week and a writers' conference for me, we are very stressed trying to get all of our work done by the 22nd of May.

Enter, Compromise, and let the stress-free living begin!

Though it was my hope, I'm perfectly content to concentrate on Math and Language Arts alone for the next few weeks and work on History and Science through the summer. I had expected to do some schooling through the summer months, so really, this was an easy decision.

Now we can relax a bit, concentrate on Math and Language Arts and enjoy our History and Science at a more reasonable pace through the summer.

Next school year, I will understand much better what I need to do to help our school year run more effectively and enjoyably for all of us. I'm excited about that! I really enjoy home schooling, but I don't enjoy feeling stressed out and like I'm failing all the time. This first year has definitely been a challenge, but we've learned a lot and can look forward to a more fun and productive experience next year.

Hurray for Compromise!

Crying In My Soup

It's rainy and muddy outside and that's about how I feel inside too. 

Yes, that's right. I'm frowning. I'm whining. I'm crying in my soup.

I am feeling as dumb as my kids say they feel. I don't know how to teach them some stuff. I'm stumped, I'm stupid. They're stumped. They feel stupid too. We're having a stupid-fest here.

I even had to break down and call our teacher to ask for help. Which tells you one of my problems right there--I shouldn't feel like calling our teacher for help is a matter of "breaking down." She's there to help us, I should use her. Umm, no.

Charlie is having trouble reading directions on his tests. He can't seem to follow multiple directions.

Xander doesn't understand front-end estimation--he wants to answer the questions properly, rather than estimating them. I have no idea what front-end estimation is either. I swear I never learned that.

The BIG TEST is next week and we haven't practiced for it at all. I suspect my guys might totally blow it. I've made them stupider this year. Or so I fear.

Of course our teacher, wonderful, awesome, Mrs. Baggely, encouraged me and tried to placate me, but I'm still worried.

At this moment, I can't wait for school to be over and to be free of this enormous burden of guilt and stress--at least for a short while.

I'm not giving up, I'm not giving in. We will home school again next year. But for the moment, I'm going to enjoy a good ol' pout. So there. (she says with arms crossed on her chest and and her foot stomped on the ground.)

Spring Break!

We are taking an extended Spring Break--not on purpose, but entirely by accident. I *think* our principle took into account a spring break in the figuring of our completion percentages but even so, I'm sad to think we might not make it now. We were so close. And it's not over yet, I know. We may *yet* be able to get it done. But I'm not sure. It could go either way, lol.

Thing is, we've just SO needed a break.

And so . . . a break it is.

Officially we were only going to take this Thursday, Friday and Monday off because that's when the neighbor kids are off. But it's turned out that we've only worked a handful of part-days and just plain took today off.

Oh well. C'est la vie, right?