I’m sitting here, trying to find ideas and resources and get my ducks in a row for next week. And I’m frozen. I just can’t figure out where to start. Let me explain:
I have a now 7 year old who does 2nd grade math and reads on a 2nd-3rd grade level. I have a 4, soon-to-be 5, year old who insisted on starting kindergarten work this year despite her age. I ditched the boxed junk this past September because of differences with the company I was using. We decided, meaning I decided and DH supports me, to try doing our own thing this year. I made that decision because the oldest one effectively taught himself to read last winter during some dark times in our family’s last year. We’re eclectic for the most part. I still have some workbooks we use for Math, the 4 yr old is about half way through hers. The 7 yr old HATES workbooks, so we’ve taken more of a real-life experience with him (ie: keeping track of his own money, and estimating prices at the food store, and helping with the cooking and fractions). For language, we mostly just read, anything and everything. The big guy has a hard time writing, so I don’t push it. He’s very creative though, and will draw out stories and create his own mini books that way. We love lapbooks actually. ThePinkDiva, as I call her, is learning to write her letters with very little prompting from me. She plays with a Princess book I found, and suddenly she’s writing her name and short 3 letter words all on her own. The 3yr old is picking things up from the older two, and doing a good job of it. All three are complete computer geeks. The 3 yr old has been running the computer and his own games for almost a year now. GeekBoy, my 7yr old, is on a lego league team, but we’re really more of a glorified playgroup at this point. We’re in a co-op for PE and Field trips, we have a subscription to GeeArt that I need to use before it expires, and thePinkDiva is in a weekly ballet class…
That said… I know I’m lacking in history and science. I feel all mentally constipated. For some ideas and guidance, I’ve looked over the SOL’s for the grade levels they should be in, and I know where we need work. I just get all frozen because I’m not used to this! I need to *de-school* my own head. I’m still stuck in the “if we don’t spend XX amount of time at the desk, we’re failing” mode. How do I get past that? I feel like I need someone (or a curriculum) to hold my hand, but I know in my heart that if I can just get past this mental hurdle… I’ll do just fine. Besides, I really don’t want to shell out the bucks for something that is just going to be a list of suggestions basically, esp not when I can find that online readily.
Please, someone tell me that I’m not alone… That mental blocks happen to other people too…