Remaking our school

In my increasing effort to remake our homeschool I had Paul pick up Beyond Survival by Diane Waring last time he was at the library. I’m still trying to figure out if this was a good idea. I’m bogged down in the section on teaching/learning styles. I can see myself fitting into a number of the types listed. I’ve also come to the realization that I’ve changed a great deal over the last 7 years.

I started out this school year with a year’s worth of plans already drawn up because my biggest failing was getting the planning done each Sunday. I used to be a very scheduled person but now I find myself rebelling against the weekly plans.

Contrary to everything I’ve read about homeschooling my kids don’t like to be read to very much. They both would much prefer to do their own thing. Lorna wants to read it herself because she gets more out of it. Malachi just tunes me out while he daydreams. They will both listen intently as Paul reads fun books to them but when it comes to anything else they would rather do chores then sit and listen to me read. I continue making them sit there even though none of us enjoys the experience (I hate reading aloud) and I’m now questioning why I’m insisting on this torture. I know there are benefits to making them process thing in this manner but I think we would all be a lot happier and retain more by throwing out the daily history and science read aloud.

I’m still trying to figure out whether we need to approach everything a bit differently or if this is just a phase. I dislike being a slave to our school plans. I’m thinking maybe it’s time to throw out some of those plans and let the kids’ interests determine where we head for a while. I think we will attempt it with science and then go from there. We usually order school books in November and our order this year will probably reflect our new approach to things. I’m expecting we will be ordering a whole bunch of literature and only a few workbook types of things.