our Homeschooling Journey: September 2009

The reason I haven't blogged in a while is nothing surprising - we have been busy! Life can be that way as you all know, and with 4 little ones at home, it doesn't seem to let up. And then just for fun, after all my hard work lesson planning and getting organized for our homeschool this Fall, we decided to make a major switch 8 weeks into our school year. When things just aren't working, it is time to fix what is broken. Our homeschool year was perfect on paper, but in practice it wasn't working. So make a switch is what we did. My dear 7 year old who is anything from typical, was not being helped with the 3 younger ones' constant interruptions in our school mornings. My well-planned out Classical curriculum and lesson plans were great in my eyes, but they just weren't working for our family at this time. So with much prayer and research into EVERYTHING possible, even putting him back in school this year, we decided to switch gears mid-track. So, what are we doing now? We are using Bob Jones distance learning the remainder of the year. So far, we love it! It is not like being in a classroom as some distance learning programs we have seen. The teacher is speaking directly to the at home student vs. filming a live class of which you are a part as in Abeka DVD. The curriculum is solid - from a Biblical perspective and academic, I believe. The lessons are fun, and for the first few week he even asked to do the lessons over something else - which is pretty remarkable for my reluctant student. The main thing for us is that it allows me to deal with all the "distractions" of my preschoolers and toddler while not disrupting his flow of lessons. And I still get to keep him at home! I am there to help as needed but am not constantly needed. There is a lot of teacher planning despite the online lessons, but the nerd in me loves this aspect. I can spend more time organizing and planning. Inviting an online teacher into our home acts somewhat as a buffer between me and my son as it is not always me telling him what to do in his lessons. He knows there is another authority out there asking him to do this stuff vs. me making up endless requirements (in his mind). I will keep you posted but for now, if you find yourself in a similar situation or with a similar student, I highly recommend BJU Press distance learning.

They have courses K4-12th. K4 - 6th grade come in packaged curriculums, and for 7th-12th, you can purchase individual subject modules. For the younger grades, you can switch out a few subjects depending on their grade level. For example, he is taking 1st grade Phonics and Math but 2nd grade Bible. We did this as I felt he needed some foundational review in Phonics & Math before moving forward. He also has classes in Heritage Studies (their name for History/Geography), Science, and Spelling. I let him choose the order of classes most days and give him plenty of breaks in between so that he still retains a little control. Most classes are short - 15 minutes - before doing the independent work. Math is 30 minutes of class time and Phonics & Reading is 45 minutes to an hour. This does not include the independent work. A 15 minute Bible class can easily extend into 45 minutes in our case, but it doesn't need to. He is actually spending more time doing schoolwork than before, but he is enjoying it more. And it is easier for me to set goals and rewards up b/c there is an objective standard by which I can measure whether he has finished his work. When I was the sole teacher, this was more difficult to do.