Looking for Answers

Things still feel rough around here.  I still feel like I'm searching for answers.  I've made some progress on the track of practical solutions.  But I also have to admit that practical solutions are, at best, a temporary relief.  But (I should know this by now!) the answers that are of eternal good, that help despite the circumstances are the ones that transcend the circumstances.

Through a series of (super encouraging, life-giving) conversations with my brother and my mom, the Lord led me to 2 Corinthians 4.  I was looking for that "jars of clay" passage and I found more than I bargained for to nourish my soul.  This is what I am thinking on and praying today.


Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart.

[Having this ministry.  It's a mercy.  That's a new thought.  And it's a reason not to lose heart.  Interesting.  Help me not to lose heart, Lord.  And to think of this ministry to my family as a mercy.]

But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

[I'm here for the gospel.  It's not my job to train my children to perform academic parlor tricks that make me look like an expert.  It's not my job to convince others that I've found the right or best way to homeschool so that I can gain a following.  It's not even my job to arrange things so that I feel successful.  It's about the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.  Help me, Lord!]

For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.  For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

[I'm not here to seek my own kingdom.  I'm here to serve my children for the sake of Jesus.  Light of the Knowledge of the Glory of God ... in the face of Jesus Christ ... that sounds like it might be something important to keep in mind.  That sounds like the foundations of a purpose statement for our homeschool.]

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

[Oh, Lord!  Oh, Lord!  That thought both humbles me ... and raises me up.  I am a jar of clay, Lord.  Weak and broken.  And yet ... that isn't an accident?  The fact that you've entrusted these children, this task of proclaiming life-giving truth to real human beings, to someone who is so lowly, so insignificant and so, so frail herself ... that was a part of the plan?  I know what that means - as much as I don't like to admit it.  It means that I should stop holding my breath, stop longing for that day when I'm independent of your mercy, strong enough to cope without grace, too savvy to need to cry out to you in prayer.  I really do want the world to know that the surpassing power belongs to you.  And honestly, Lord, right now, the way you've got it set up, I don't think anyone would mistake me for the source!]

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.

[How much suffering can I handle?  How long can I last?  How hard is too hard?  It seems like there must be this delicate balance, Lord.  This tiny margin between "afflicted" and "crushed", between "perplexed" and "despairing".  How could I find that small space?  How would I know how to measure out my own suffering?  How would I know how much my body could handle to have Jesus manifest in it today?  If I am afflicted, Lord, let it be from your hand.  Let no one else strike me down, Lord, but you, whom I trust to work death in me, and yet hold me back from being destroyed.]

Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, "I believed, and so I spoke," we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

[This is the big picture, this eternal, kingdom goal - more grace to more people, more thanksgiving, more glory to God.  That is a big, big thing to be a part of.  That gives purpose and hope beyond what I can accomplish in a day, even in a lifetime.]

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison ....

[Is it overly dramatic, Lord, at age 37 to say that my outer self is wasting away?  Because it does feel like a wasting away.  And yet, if the counterpart to that is my inner self being renewed day by day, then no time is too soon to embrace that pattern.  Momentary.  Light.  Affliction.  Eternal.  Weight.  Glory.  I believe, Lord, but help my unbelief.  Keep me, here, from being crushed.  And then, in eternity, crush me with that eternal weight.  Smother me with your glory. I'll be ready for it.  I'll be desperate for it.]

... as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. 

[See, that's just where my struggle is, Lord.  The "seen" is so much easier to "see" than the unseen.  But I suppose you're trying to remind me that how easy something is to see has a lot to do with where I am looking.]

The Next Thing

One of the things that I have recently found to be a crushing burden of homeschool (for me, for now) is the feeling of needing to "finish" something in a given time.  I fear that if I don't finish it, my kids will be "behind".  I fear that if I don't finish it, I will have wasted the money I invested in it.  I fear that if I don't finish it, I'll miss out on that break I was hoping to take when it is all done.

For some (and even for me, in other phases of life) the structure is helpful.  It's nice to have someone else plan out what a year's worth of work includes, how much to review when and what should be included in a day of work or practice.  It feels very tidy to have five days worth of activity and begin again on Monday.  When we are able to get it done, it brings a sense of completion and closure.  But those days are getting much fewer and farther between.

Perhaps I'm less able to accomplish something that would be good to accomplish.  Perhaps the new pressures and constraints of life at this moment are revealing "shoulds" that never should have been "shoulds" and I am now releasing myself from them.  But whatever the case (and in some ways, it really doesn't matter) there is only this: what can we - at this stage, with this present grouping of children and this present, tired mama - accomplish in one day?  That is it.  What has God given us to do on this day?  Let's do it.  Let tomorrow worry about itself.

And what if we get to the end of the day and it wasn't all done?  Then not all of those things were things God meant for us to do today.  Yes, maybe there was time wasted.  Maybe we could have been more efficient.  But on this day, at this moment, whatever the causes, the task is still the same - trust to the Lord what wasn't accomplished and wake up tomorrow to start on the next thing.

As much as possible, I have moved away from organizing our subjects such that they must be done on a daily or weekly schedule in order to "work".  I've tried to avoid setting up things such that if we miss a day we are "behind" and have to try to cram two days worth of work into one (or three into two).  Instead it has worked much better for us if Mama has a general sense of the next thing(s) she'd like to teach or work on with the children.  When we come to school time, we do the next thing.  And if we don't get to it, it is tomorrow's next thing.

Didn't read a chapter of our read aloud book?  It will still be there tomorrow.  Talked about place value but they didn't fully "get" the concept?  Talk about it some more tomorrow; try another approach.  Time to start school but not all the morning chores aren't complete? They can wait until the next slot of time for getting a little work done.  (Or, do a little more housework and some school things can wait until later.)

The only way to make this system a reality has been, as much as possible, to unchain activities from each other so that each piece can move forward (or not!) independently.  Since our math discussion and written practice are no longer directly linked, we can do one without the other, if needed, on any given day.  Since the children's Five-A-Days are all things that we have already covered and they are just reviewing, we can take more time than I expected to work on our current concept without interfering with the Five-A-Day work I picked for them.  Or, conversely, if we didn't get a chance to complete the Five-A-Days, they can wait for the next day and our morning math conversations can keep happening.

This week, my oldest was only able to finish three out of the five problems on his Five-A-Day one afternoon.  Rather than requiring him to "catch up" on those two and do five new ones the next day, I simply took those two problems, added three more and they were his Five-A-Day for the next day.  If we've determined that five problems in a day is what we can manage, then why plan to do seven?  There will always be more good things to discuss and practice.  What do we gain by "doubling up"?  What are we racing against?  More and more, for us, the answer is: nothing!

Note: The two subjects that still "need" to fall into a weekly pattern are History and Latin.  And for now, I'm going to let them stay that way.  I'm not at all convinced that Latin is something all homeschoolers must do, but I have a degree in Latin and, quite frankly, it's something I love to teach.  Plus, our pastor's wife and her two youngest come over on Tuesday afternoons to do Latin with us, which is a big plus in the be-with-people category (perhaps even more for Mama than for the kids!).  We began three years ago with Song School Latin and are now working through the Latin for Children series.  We are on Primer B out of C, so after next year we'll reevaluate what to do next.

Though it is not absolutely essential, our history program works best done in five-lesson-a-week rotations because every five lessons covers one topic.  I absolutely love the Veritas Press History for many reasons.  Content-wise, it covers history, including Church History, map skills and lots of historical context.  Each era of history has its own song which helps the children to have a mental framework for the order and relationship of historical events, as well as some key dates.  Another plus is that it is on-line, very interactive, and the kids can do it on their own (mostly) while I watch and listen from the kitchen as I make dinner.

Do the Next Thing

I just love this poem.  Some sites credit it to Elizabeth Elliot.  Others mention that she shared it as from an anonymous author.  I haven't been able to find out for sure who wrote it, so I'll leave it unattributed for now.  I have had a copy of this poem for quite some time and think of it often.  But recently it seems to have risen to the surface of my soul as a kind of "theme song" of our homeschool (or at least the theme song of my own processing of thoughts about our homeschool).

Do The Next Thing

From an old English parsonage,
Down by the sea,
There came in the twilight,
A message to me;
Its quaint Saxon legend,
Deeply engraven,
Hath, as it seems to me,
Teaching from Heaven.
And on through the hours
The quiet words ring
Like a low inspiration
 “DO THE NEXT THING.”

Many a questioning, many a fear,
Many a doubt, hath its quieting here.
Moment by moment,
Let down from Heaven,
Time, opportunity,
Guidance, are given.
Fear not tomorrows,
Child of the King, 
Trust them with Jesus,
“DO THE NEXT THING.”

Do it immediately;
Do it with prayer;
Do it reliantly, casting all care;
Do it with reverence,
Tracing His Hand,
Who placed it before thee with 
Earnest command.
Stayed on Omnipotence,
Safe 'neath His wing,
Leave all resultings,
“DO THE NEXT THING.”

Looking to Jesus, ever serener,
(Working or suffering)
Be thy demeanor,
In His dear presence,
The rest of His calm,
The light of His countenance
Be thy psalm,
Strong in His faithfulness,
Praise and sing,
Then, as He beckons thee,
“DO THE NEXT THING."
-Author unknown

Just a random picture that makes me smile.

Beginnings of a Beginning

These ideas still need time to percolate, but before I headed to bed I wanted to jot down some of the helpful bits of wisdom I've gleaned at tonight's class that I think will move us in the right direction.

1. Make a schedule "for now" not "for forever".  The schedule can be revisited again later.  Not including it in the schedule now doesn't mean not including it in the schedule ever.  Still hard to see some things sit out.  But it's time to face reality.
   
2. You don't need to study all subjects every day.  You don't need to study all subjects all year.  Sarah breaks her year into "terms" (six weeks of school followed by a one-week break).  She only plans for one "term" at a time because it takes the pressure off.  I like that idea a lot.
   
3. 30-45 minutes one-on-one time with each school-aged kid.  Sarah has a neat way of scheduling this ... but she also has three bigger kids (the youngest of whom is as old as my oldest child) and only three who are school-aged and need to meet with her.  Worth looking into, though.
   
4. Looping.  This isn't something Sarah spent a lot of time talking about tonight, but she covers it in her book.  I've been meaning to write a whole post on it at some point.  The basic idea is that instead of scheduling things on a particular day of the week, you schedule them in a loop.  When you come to that slot of the day, you just do the next one in your loop.
   
5. The Six-Minute Journal.  The last page of the handout from the Focus & Align class was a journal page to give time for reflection each day.  It includes these prompts:
   
   
   Each Morning Before School:
   
   
   1. Three things I am grateful for ...
   
   
   2. One way we'll live our Rule of Six today ...
   
   
   3. One way I'll practice my Words to Live By [words that describe how you'd like your children to look back and remember their homeschool childhoods] today  ...
   
   
   Each Night Before Bed:
   
   
   1. A win from today:
   
   
   2. Noticing each of my children [lots of white space after this one]:
   
   
   3. Tomorrow I will ...
   
   Looking forward to using these prompts to reflect on some in the days to come.  And even now, thinking about a "win" from today reminds me that on the ugliest days, all is not lost.

This was a hard, rough day.  I won't burden you with a long play-by-play, but let's just say that Daddy came downstairs (thankfully he was working from home due to snow) at lunchtime and found me crying on the sofa, where I had been tucked in by a three year old who was telling me (her own, spontaneously created) Curious George stories and letting me hold her stuffed cat.  And yet, even on a day when I look back and see a landscape littered with the gray, twisted mess of emotional train-wreckage, even on this day, I see things that can fit into the category of "a win from today".  Starting with the Curious George stories and the stuffed cat.

The Good, The Hard and The Ugly

I said early on in this blog journey that I wasn't here to share "answers" but to share the journey, the questions.  Well, today is one of those days where the answers seem very far and outnumbered by the questions.  While Math is in the process of being re-worked and other things are fair game, a new card was tossed onto the table last night.  I was on the Read Aloud Revival forum reading a post from another homeschool mom.  It was titled "Late Reader or something more ..."  In it, the author shared how she discovered her son's dyslexia.  I replied to the thread.

Oh. My. Thank you for sharing this.  My 9, 8 and 6 year old daughters all love to read.  They will curl up and read in a corner just for fun.  They beg to read aloud to the younger kids.  My 10 year old son, not so much.  I have been telling myself all the things you mentioned above.  “Well, he’s a boy.  Let him learn at his own pace.  Some day it will ‘click’ and he will love to read, etc.”  The more I read from your post and the more I read on the website you mentioned (thank you!!) the more I wondered if this wasn’t exactly what we were dealing with.

He was sitting here in the room with me, so I asked him about some of the things I was reading.  This is what he said, “You know how in Chinese, there is one character for each word?  Well, that’s how I read.  I know the shape of each word.  And if I don’t know the shape, I don’t know the word.  Or maybe I try to think of another shape I know of that looks like the shape of that word.”  He also said “When I am reading, the letters seem to fall out of order.  I will read the first part and then when I read the second part, I forget what the first part says.”  When asked if he found reading exhausting, he said “YES!” – not with a tone of complaint, but with a tone of relief that someone finally asked!

On one hand, I am thrilled (impressed, actually!) that he is so clearly able to articulate what he experiences when reading and to help me to understand it.  I feel like it gives me a new direction to consider and that brings a sense of relief and hope. BUT I am also fearful!  I started out this school year SOOO overwhelmed and reading Teaching from Rest (and the Focus and Align class) have been so helpful.  We’ve experienced SUCH a positive change and a relief.  Now, I must admit, I’m fearful about discovering that I have a child who is going to need some mommy-time-intensive help!

But thank you for sharing!  Now I’ve got something new to research and think about. :-/

I have to be honest, this feels very heavy right now.  Very hard.  The work I've been doing to change how we do math, to streamline the process?  Yea, that was an effort to make this job feasible ... not to make margins, not to get free time, just to make it all fit.  I keep telling myself that as the older kids get older they will transition to more independent work, that as new little ones come on to the official homeschooling stage, the older ones will have more ability to work on their own.  I want to do right by Luke.  I want to invest the time needed to help him to read comfortably.  But I also have a 6 year old who is learning to read, and so far I've averaged about 2-3 times a month of actually getting to sit down with her and read one-on-one.

I am tempted to stew right here in this blog post and list for you all of the things that I want to have in our schedule, that I wish were in our schedule that aren't even waiting in the wings right now.  They are downstairs in prop storage somewhere gathering dust.  But I am going to hold off on that for the moment.  In another half an hour Part 2 of the Focus and Align Master Class on the Read Aloud Revival is starting.  Last week (even in the midst of flu) it was such a balm.  Such a welcome relief.  So, trying not to despair as help might be right around the corner.

Textbooks and Training Wheels

I wrote the very first post for this blog (with the same graphic) early one Monday morning before the kids were up.  I had a crazy plan.  I had been talking to my dad and my brother some about it.  And I wanted to start documenting it from the beginning.  So I started the blog.  I meant to talk about the training wheels analogy at some point.  And I meant to talk about why I would think about going without textbooks.  And then life kinda happened.  And this whole journey churned up a lot of other thoughts to process that ended up as blog posts.  So, here I am again, back to the start to finish what I began.  What does this blog have to do with training wheels?

We had our first homebirth with the birth of our fourth baby.  While part of me thought "I wish I had done it this way all along!" another part of me wondered if I really would have been up for that.  Perhaps, in God's providence, it was the right thing for me to have a few babies in the hospital before coming across the idea of homebirth.  I feel the same way about going without textbooks.  I haven't even finally decided if this will work for us.  But I feel pretty sure that it wouldn't have worked for me from the beginning (though I am sure that there are plenty of moms out there who take off sans-textbook from the word go).  I needed time to get my balance, so to speak, and, honestly, to mature a little bit.  That is why I use the analogy of training wheels.  I'm glad I learned to homeschool with textbooks.  Now I'd like to try without and see if we can enjoy and manage the freedom (and risk!).

However, I want to be very clear that I didn't choose that analogy because I wanted to set no-textbooks as superior to or more sophisticated than using textbooks.  I don't even see it as something that all homeschooling moms are or should be working towards.  It was just that on that Monday morning, our new experiment felt to me like taking the training wheels of my bike for the first time.  Exhilarating ... yet terrifying!

So many times as I read through Teaching from Rest, I felt like Sarah Mackenzie had reached into my own brain, scooped out my half-formed thoughts and composed them into eloquent, coherent sentences.  Here's one example that applies to this discussion:

Whether or not you purchase open-and-go curriculum doesn't really matter.  You can pretty much forget all the heated discussions about whether you are caving in to school-at-home if you use traditional workbooks or a straight-from-the-box curriculum.  I know successful homeschooling families who use textbooks and successful homeschooling families who eschew them.  I don't think that's a relevant debate to be having if you want to teach from rest and become happy, content, peaceful and effective homeschooling moms.

If I have one point to argue about using textbooks, it isn't that you should or shouldn't.  It's just that you don't have to.  I don't yet  know which camp I will land in.  As this point, I think it likely we'll use textbooks for some subjects and not for others.  But either way, this experiment has been worth it, because I now know that I can decide based on what works best for us!

DIY Math on the Level

As much as I have raved about Math on the Level (and I DO love what I know of it and WOULD recommend it if anyone was considering it) I haven't actually purchased a copy of the material.  I have looked over a friend's copy of the material, read everything there is to read on the website and taken a few webinars with the author.  But at the moment, part of our "experiment" is testing out a kind of a home-grown version of a Math-on-the-Level-like system.

From what I know (and chime in if you know better than I do) here are the essential things Math on the Level offers:

1. What to Teach - Math on the Level clearly outlines and describes what your children need to understand and what skills they need to master in order to be ready for Algebra.
2. How to Teach - Math on the Level books are full of very detailed explanations of each topic and lots and lots of good ideas about how to teach math and specific suggestions about how to help your children encounter individual topics, especially in "living math" ways.
3. How to Assess - The primary means of assessment is in face-to-face interaction with your student as you teach the lesson.  The material also includes many, many practice problems (and answers) for each topic so that you will have plenty of options for making up their Five-A-Days.  Also, the record keeping system (either by spreadsheet or paper/pencil) enables you to know what has been mastered and what needs review.

At this point, my working theory is that I have resources available to accomplish all three of these these things.

1. What to Teach - Using a combination of the table of contents to the math textbooks my kids have used in the past (because I still have the answer keys), the Mathematics Common Core lists and the Math on the Level list, I've put together my own list of topics.  (It's basically the same as the Math on the Level list, with a few additions/modifications.)
2. How to Teach - This is the part I love best and that I most appreciate having the freedom to do on my own.  However (ironically?) it's also the part where I feel the most insecurity.  If I purchase my own copy of Math on the Level, it will be mostly for this reason - because I want to make sure that I teach each concept completely and thoroughly.  We've also been making use of Math Antics and  Kahn Academy to help us out with the how-to-explain-this aspect.
3. How to Assess - I love the Math on the Level method.  I've basically adopted that method by use of a free spreadsheet I found on-line (which saved some time, but could be easily made from scratch by someone who had some basic knowledge of spreadsheets).  I already believe strongly in assessment by conversation (even in math) and am liking the new method of only five practice problems a day just to ensure that skills stay sharp.  Also, since I have teacher answer keys from all of the children's past Abeka textbooks, I have an enormous supply of practice problems (and answers).  And, of course, the Internet (including  Math Antics and  Kahn Academy) contains abundant resources for practice.  Of course, the benefit of the Math on the Level practice problems is that they are arranged and indexed by topic making it much easier to grab just what you need.

So, will this DIY method work?  Or will I end up purchasing a (used?) copy of Math on the Level?  Or, will I throw my hands in the air and just order everyone an Abeka textbooks for next year?  Stay tuned to find out.  Or, watch paint dry.  Either way, should keep you on the edge of your seat and provide great family entertainment. ;-)

Day 7: Failure or Flexibility?

Because I stayed up (too) late the night before working on the math spreadsheet ... and because the person I was sleeping next to spent the night dealing with fever and chills, I was a tired, tired girl in the morning.  I hadn't made any Five-A-Days for the kids. So, here was the true test.  Our experiment met its first big trial-by-fire.

I do have a tendency to procrastinate.  Sometimes I choose not to work because the work seems overwhelming.  But sometimes I choose "fun" work (like getting a spreadsheet up and running) over less fun work (like writing out Five-A-Day questions).  The night before I was telling myself I'd get up early and do them before the children woke up (which I have done several times over the course of this experiment).  When that didn't happen, I told myself I'd find a time somewhere to fit them in during the morning, since the kids didn't have to do them until the afternoon.

The result was that everybody had Math 5-A-Days, but nobody had any language.  So, was this a failure of the system (or a proof that I don't have the character qualities for a system like this)?  In hindsight, I truly think not.

First, the night before, what I had spent about three hours doing was setting up the review-topics section of the spreadsheet for each individual kid.  Yes, this was fun (for me).  But just because I'm enjoying my work doesn't necessarily prove I'm being lazy, selfish, weak or [insert other pejorative character trait].  This was good work that needed to be done.  And it was one-time kinda work.  Maintaining the spreadsheet on a daily basis will take moments, compared to the hours the initial set-up process took.  (Good thing I enjoy that kinda work, right?)

Secondly, because the math spreadsheet was fully up and running, and the language one wasn't (still isn't) it gave me a great chance to compare the process of making 5-A-Days with and without a fully functional spreadsheet!  Getting math set up was fun and easy - look down the list of topics that need review, pick a few and make questions to fit.  Language, on the other hand, was daunting (and so never got done) because it was more of a mental effort.  Not as much of the planning was laid out for me.

So, in the end, I think Day 7 was a great success.  We did morning school smoothly.  And I had a chance to see what a great resource and tool the spreadsheet is!  Gives me even more motivation to get another (others?) up and functional!!

Staff Development Day

I'll be honest; this has been a tough week.

Monday: Toddler breaks arm at 10 am, day spent visiting doctors, night spent comforting a hurting child.

Tuesday: Spent in a hospital, including handing over my weeping toddler to strangers for my first ever experience of one of my children under general anesthesia.

Wednesday - Thursday: Husband has the flu and is out of commission entirely.

Friday: I'm toast.  And I'm an emotional basket case.  And today is my baby's first birthday.  Cause for thanksgiving and celebration, but also cause for reflecting on the past year which has, without a doubt, been the hardest. year. yet.

So, we did some light chores (regular stuff for a Friday) and now I'm giving myself a day to reflect and process, which I do best through writing.  I've actually been processing through writing for years, but in the form of documents on my computer.  I never felt comfortable blogging because I never felt like I had any "answers".  Now I've realized that what I have to share isn't answers, but questions - the journey, not the endpoint.  And it is such a relief to share.  So maybe I'll get caught up on the blog?

Side note: I don't know how anyone ever managed to homeschool (and stay sane) before Netflix and Amazon Prime Instant Video.

The Slow Trickle of Math Change

From the beginning, we've use the Abeka Arithmetic series.  And honestly, the truth is that I really like it.  Full disclosure: I've only ever purchased and used the student (consumable) books and the answer key, so I really can't speak to the teachers' guides or how they recommend you teach a concept, what learning activities they suggest, etc. - I'm sure they are great.  For us, the ticket was that Abeka approaches each new concept in tiny baby steps.  That made it simple to give each kid a little five-minute briefing on what was new in the daily lesson and send them off to do it.

If you read reviews of Abeka's math program online the one thing you'll hear again and again on the "con" side is that there are too many problems.  Too much review.  The benefit is that there is plenty of opportunity for more practice if needed.  But it also means the potential need to fight against your complete-all-the-problems-on-the-page obsession, should you happen to have one.  (In my case this wasn't a "perfectionist" or OCD thing.  It was a fear thing.  What if we don't?  What will happen?  Will they have what they need?  Will they be ready?)

One thing I've learned as a homeschool mom is that I may not (no, rather, I AM not) an expert in any subject area.  But I am an expert on my children.  Nobody knows my kids like I do.  And it's my job to use my expertise to their advantage.  This gave me the confidence to start tailoring their assignments a bit.  I started by not requiring them to do every problem in every section - do a few; do more only if you need more practice.  Then I got bold enough not to require them to do every section in the lesson  - why practice addition, subtraction and multiplication when you use all those skills when doing long division?

Then, last spring, as the homeschool machine got up and running again after a new baby arrived in February, I got a really radical idea.   I decided we didn't need to do all the lesson in the math book.  About a third of their lessons were "review" lessons - no new concept is taught.  This is good if you need to keep students up on their math skills for 170 days of instruction and don't have that many new concepts to teach.  But we were facing down summer and wanting to get math wrapped up!  As I said, Abeka is review-heavy within each lesson, so entire lessons devoted to review was kind of superfluous for us at that point.

In other subjects (like science and history) my theory has been to teach to the older kids and wrap in the little kids, counting whatever they pick up as a bonus.  Henry, my four year old, can tell you that some things Britain exported to the colonies were "tea, fancy dresses and fancy dishes".  Nevermind that he doesn't know what "Britain" or "exported" or "colonies" are - there's time for that later.

So why not follow the same strategy with math?  Sure, the other kids couldn't handle everything Luke was doing with fractions.  But could it hurt for them to sit in on a discussion or exploration of the concepts, glean what they could, and then practice at their own level?  Since Abeka is a consumable math program and the pages are perforated, I had debated tearing out all the pages from everyone's book and sorting them into topics so that I could teach everyone together on overlapping topics.  And then a friend said "You need to check out Math on the Level."

Day 2: Conversations with my Self-Doubt

Doubting Self: Wait a minute.  Think about all those visuals in the Kindergarten and First grade math books.  What are you going to do - draw clocks and coins by hand?

Confident Self:  Well, maybe I will!  I could totally do that!  Or I'm sure I could find images on-line and cut and paste.

Doubting Self: Right.  How dumb. You could just spend $15 and buy the textbook instead of making it all from scratch.

Confident Self: Or, maybe we won't even need much of that.  Since we're moving towards "living math" maybe we'll just use real clocks and real money.  Isn't that even better than pictures of clocks and money??

Doubting Self:  Sure, sure.  I'm sure you'll have tons of time to just sit around with your Kindergartener playing with clocks and coins.  No sweat.  You only have FOUR older students who have way more complicated math to learn.  Can we say "burnout"??

Confident Self: But ... but ... OK, I admit it!  I don't know how this is going to work out!  And maybe I will decide to go back to how we were doing it before - and that would be OK!!  But this is just an experiment.  And we haven't even completed a week of it.  So, could you ... could you just be quiet and leave me alone!?!

Doubting Self: ...

Confident Self: ...