21centuryhomesteader

Well, here I am in the middle of my first year home-schooling a 9^th grader. I have been home-schooling for about five years now. I have to admit I was scared stiff. But it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. We started early this year, back in the middle of July, so that when the school year was in full swing we would have the kinks worked out. Jay is doing very well and wanting to graduate early. I guess I will plan on it and cross that bridge when I come to it.

The hardest part was putting together his class schedule for the next four years. It took some research to balance the requirements of our Umbrella school with the requirements of the public school. I know that here in Tennessee I didn’t have to worry about what the public school required, but since they required a few more courses that our umbrella didn’t, I thought what would it hurt. After all I think an American Government class and a Personal Finance class really aren’t that bad of an idea.

Get out of that slump! Go on. You know what time it is. It’s the new year! So let’s look back at the last semester of home-school and focus on what worked and get rid of what didn’t. After all, even the best laid plans may need a little tweaking.

So what did I do right last year? Frankly I didn’t do a lot. I don’t mean that I didn’t do much right. I mean I didn’t have much to do, period! The boys are now in 7^th and 9^th grade. I pretty much plan the curriculum and let them at it. I’m feeling pretty useless. It’s like they don’t need me anymore. And I think that it probably is the best thing I’ve done in home-school so far! When I first started home-schooling, one of my goals was to teach my boys to teach themselves. So I guess I don’t have too much to complain about.

What did I do wrong? Well, it’s always something isn’t it? I guess if I had to pick something derogatory I would say that I didn’t check up on the boy’s work enough. I need to start grading daily, instead of weekly–so I can catch their mistakes early. I’d say I also assigned too much reading for Jay. He wasn’t able to keep up. So I cut the reading back and made a home-schooling resolution to check their work daily.

How about you? Have you made any home-schooling resolutions? If you have why don’t you share them with us, so that we all can be motivated and encouraged to have an even better home-schooling year.