School books arrive...

One of our cats, Pepper

Every year I start to stress about next years curriculum beginning in February.  It always takes a lot of energy and time to look over everything and decide what I want to do.  I have always had this picture in my mind of what the perfect home school looked like.  Perfectly calm and happy together mom who always smiles and eager children who want to learn something new.  Pffffftttt...NOT!   I would love to use lap booking and unit studies and use Apologia science and Mystery of History and spend hours snuggling on the sofa and reading all day long.  The reality of it is that when you are schooling two children who are different genders and so far apart in age ...well its impossible to do those things without loosing your mind.  I know there are moms who do and I am in awe of them.  It is time consuming and it takes oodles of planning.  I know its fun and I know I enjoy it because I used it when I was schooling Jenna in the beginning.  It was wonderful but school took all day and my house was a wreck most of the time. 

I have always loved A Beka Book since the first time I saw it waaayyy back when I attended my first home school conference in 2001.  It is colourful and so well laid out for both the parent and the child.  I just can't say enough good things about it.  It has always been my core curriculum.  It gives my home school structure and it is so much less stressful on me.  Seriously!  I look at my teacher's book and set out the books...it tells me what to say, what to teach and at the end of the day when I put everything away, I know I have accomplished something and over the course of the year I see fruit.

Jenna has always been great at math since day one.   I am horrible at math and don't tell her but I actually hate math...you know one of those necessary evils :)    A Beka has made her love math and she is good!  She is in grade five and we are doing Streaming Video through A beka Academy and she is mostly a straight A student. 

She was so excited when her books came in that she did the first lesson in all her books for grade six!  Every subject and every lesson plus her regular work for the day.  The kid was exhausted! 

I do second guess myself everyday because I still long to do what I used to when she was little...all the fun hands on stuff that homeschoolers are supposed to have time to do...but I remember my stress level and all the planning that I did...I'm sad that I can't do it.  But alais I just can't.  So I have all those good books in my house...the apologia science and the mystery of history and lapbooking and unit studies...I leave them hanging around and my kids read the books...Jenna remembers lapbooking and she does some on her own

For now A Beka is my answer to prayer.  Jenna is going into grade six and will be a full time student at Abeka Academy.    She is excited and I'm happy.  I have found a good fit for us for now.  I now have time to keep my house somewhat tidy and time to teach Tanner and still time to snuggle up with a book now and then.  We still have time to go for a walk and play in the dirt.  We still have time to take a day off and go play with friends.  I am less stressed.  However deep down i still long for those days of creative freedom.

Here are some random pictures of school...just for fun...

Tanner showing off his phonics book!

Science collage by Tanner

Jenna's penmanship

Tanner's Language book

I am happy to say that the 2011-2012 school year is planned, payed for in full and packed away for September.  Whew...huge load off my mind and Pepper gets to keep the box!  *smile*