Welcome New School Year!

Well I have written this post several times but none made any sense. To put it simply, I have NEVER started the year this unprepared!

I've been homeschooling or we have been home learning since Oldest Peep was 3. This was not my choice but many have heard me tell the story of our start. A just-turned-3-year-old insisted every day for a month straight that I must teach her to read. When I saw that she was serious, I had to do some quick research because I had no idea where to start. I wasn't a teacher. I had no training but here she was insisting EVERY DAY!!!!! I, fortunately for all of us, stumbled across The Well Trained Mind. I was sold instantly. We started formal lessons when she was around 5. She again insisted on planners and schedule. (I know...she's weird that way....first born thing I think!) Every year after that I would go to homeschooling conferences, buy books, order books, read the WTM boards faithfully, buy back to school supplies, and eventually sit down to plan out the year.

This year.................................

I am still trying to decide on some subjects. Other subjects (like Latin) the peeps have taken the reigns and I have no idea how to reinvolve (is that a word....it is tonight!) myself. Some things we are doing on the fly with no plan (music and art). Some planned things we haven't even started (History) because unplanned things keep coming up ( like this course on Justice by a Harvard Professor). We have two different science classes at home (Chemistry with Baby Peep and Conceptual Physics with the other 2 peeps) and 2 different science classes outside the home. The subjects giving me no headaches are being done online...... Classical Writing Diogenes: Maxim and Chreia (Oldest Peep) and Jacob's Geometry (Middle Peep). What a relief these have been! I don't have Oldest Peep in a puddle of tears because I suggested she rewrite a particular sentence in her story and I don't have to convince Middle Peep why writing just an answer to a problem is insufficient work at this level in math (not to mention teaching proofs to an 11 year old brain!)

So while I feel completely unprepared and I feel like a juggler on the first day of training camp, the peeps are actually producing work. They are learning. They are curious. They are progressing.

I guess the rest of the lesson plans can wait just a little longer. I have just this one sock to finish and this hat to knit up real quick and these new starts to plant and while I am at it, I might as well paint this wall because all this white is making me crazy, and.........

Well how has your school year started off? As planned?