Another week has passed in our homeschool adventure. I have learned a lot in these last few weeks and I have enjoyed it. It makes me realize how very much I miss being a student. Quitting school halfway through my sophmore year really was the dumbest thing I have ever done. If I would have stayed….if I would have just stayed motivated….I had a free ride. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

But we work with what we’ve got, right? And right now I have a 6th grader who needs my guidance. So now I’m back in the ’school’ mode doing the very best I can to make learning exciting for him, to hold his interest and to prove to him that he really can do anything in the world he wants to.

I’ve had an ‘Aha!’ moment this last week. After planning out lessons to teach him the California standards required for this year, we came to a stunning realization that I should have actually noticed before. He doesn’t know his multiplication tables! How the hell could he continue being passed without knowing them?? How could I have missed it? We’re now stopping in the middle of algebra, taking a couple of weeks to make sure he learns them.

He’s had a problem with math in the last few years. He’s constantly complained that he hates math and he doesn’t understand anything. We have found that he does understand! He understands the concepts and the formulas, well into college level algebra. The problem is simply that his math is wrong, his answers are wrong because his multiplication is wrong. It’s that simple.

It makes me kinda sad, though. Since I had to relearn algebra in order to teach him, I’ve found that I really like it. It makes sense and it is logical. Algebra is what it is, with no surprises hidden around the corner. Numbers are always the same and 2+2 always equals 4. It’s very comfortable.

I really want to go back to school. I feel like there is a hole inside, something missing. I quit before giving myself a chance. And now I couldn’t go back without completely changing our lifestyle to pay for it. We’re not exactly rolling in the dough anyway and it would mean taking away from my family. I don’t want to take things away from them to fill something missing inside me when I am the one who did it in the first place. Why should they have to pay for my mistakes?

Oh well, life goes on. Maybe I’ll just fill the hole with chocolate. Now that, I can afford.

Free 20 lesson Unit study. Feel free to ignore the Bible links, otherwise it looks really interesting!

http://www.thenarniaacademy.org/course.php

Today we have our first meeting (finally!) with our Educational Facilitator. There were some kinks with the whole faxing in of the new application. Technology. Bleh. Whatever happened to the good ‘ole days of going to the office and filling out the papers and dropping them off? Well, I’m lazy for one.

We are really excited about this program and are anxious to get started. One of the things that we’re really excited about is the fact that I can teach, and my son can learn, however we want. He’s more of a hands on type of person and really doesn’t like book work and traditional worksheets. We have several packages for different learning styles that we can choose from. We are also given 700 Educational Credits, or ‘EUs’ per year that we can use for different things, which will be really helpful for the subjects that I will have difficulty with, or cannot, teach. FYI, I quit school at the beginning of the second semester of 10th grade. So algebra may present a bit of a problem. The solution is that they have a learning center in Mission Valley, about 5 minutes from me, where they offer classes on various subjects ranging from algebra and history to arts and music. You pay for them with your EUs and it doesn’t cost anything. Unless, of course, you run out of EUs. The EUs can also be used at various places throughout the county. The school also maintains a list of vendors who accept the EUs. This way I can find him a private tutor to continue his violin and that will be considered an elective which I won’t have to pay for. Or he can enroll in Tae Kwon Do for PE, since he’s already earned his yellow belt, and it won’t cost anything. Anyway, you get the idea.

So today we will meet with our EF and we will receive all of our information. I do believe I’ll be adding a homeschooling subdomain to my website, along with a homeschooling blog. It’s hard to find quality information from individual’s websites and I would like to share what we learn. I suppose that’s the next thing I’ll be working on.