The First Week of Homeschool

Thursday, September 6th, 2012 at 11:12 pm

I thought nothing would make me as tired as teaching other folks’ kids. Then I decided to teach my own kids. Turns out, teaching anyone’s kids will wear.you.out.

No word of a lie.

Between the kids, and babies, and planning (without planning – unschooling, you know) and the house and everything else, I hardly recognize myself.

It has been a busy week. We’ve painted a wall in our kitchen and it is a now a giant chalkboard – I am in love with writing all over it. I think I’m more jazzed about it than the kids. They grew up with interactive whiteboards. Chalkboards are a novelty like atari systems and tape decks. But we can now thrash out big ideas in a big way.

We just gotta find some ideas big enough to thrash.

It has also been a hard week. Nyree wants to get going but has the attention span of a magpie. Anything shiny or noisy will drive her off course. Lord knows we have some serious distractions in this house. William only wants to do what he wants to do. That means he only wants to do science. This week we are building an ancient Greek temple out of uncooked spaghetti and marshmallows. He was all over that. Math? Not so much.

And there are still the usual struggles of family life. The baby still fusses, the toddler wants to “work” too (and usually with his face and hands covered in chewed up biscuit) and the olders still argue and bicker over silly things, like who get’s to cut the first marshmallow.

But it is just the first week. There are going to be teething problems. We need to find our groove.

I keep telling myself to keep swimming.

After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

This homeschool thing is No Joke. Lot’s of bloggers make it look all shiny and happy, their families all loved up with togetherness and freedom. I am here to tell you that this IS A LIE. It is raw, and gritty and utterly draining. The students never leave. I am in constant motion. There is no down time, no time even to do the other things a house wife should do, like unload the dishwasher or fold laundry. My mind, when I can find it, it focused 100% on my kids.

Motherhood just went into over drive.

I just hope I have enough gas in the tank to get me – and the kids – where we need to go.

I’m just not entirely sure I know where that is yet.

We’ll just add that to the list of things to do….if I could only remember where I put it.