Kindergarten. Very soon, our first real year of homeschooling will begin. I’m terrified. And disorganized. And terrified.
Cari’s theme for Theme Thursday this week is “Panic” and her post yesterday showed that even veteran homeschooling moms can be in a state of disarray and panic at this time of the year, leading to hands thrown up and spontaneous avoidance-baking. I don’t like to bake, so I haven’t gotten to that point yet. But I did nearly decide that I would rather my daughters be illiterate than to spend absurd amounts of time peeling and sticking magnetic squares to letter tiles and tearing apart perforated cards (pages and pages of cards!!!) for our reading and spelling curricula. All About Reading didn’t include that part in the description of their product!
^^ Look at all those tiles! That’s only half of them. Peel and stick. Peel and stick.
I am nearly ready, as far as my product preparation goes. 1000-ish Cards have been torn apart. I just have about 700 more to do for the spelling curriculum, and I’ll be done with that. I’ve mostly finished figuring out what we are going to do each day. Sort of. I’ve tallied the total number of hours we have to do school (the only state requirement of homeschooling here) and the number of days we’re doing school and used my math skills to determine the number of hours we need to work each day. I’m already exhausted. Math is hard.
Miss is going to the local Catholic school for 1.5 days per week. She’ll go to Mass, get religious education, music class, gym class, and a few other things. I’m going to send her for the first three full days of school, so she can get to know her teacher and classmates and the routine. Then we’ll start our part-time deal. They start school on August 26th. I am starting our at-home schedule the week before that, with the idea being that I’ll sort of cement “we-mostly-do-school-at-home” in her mind before she goes off to the big world of Catholic school kindergarten for three whole days.
So that means (gulp) we’re starting on August 18th. And we’re going out of town on Friday (tomorrow!) for a week. WHAT?
Panic, you see.
Yes, I have been sitting at the tiny kids’ table to do all the prep work on the materials.
I still need to figure out my first lessons and get some stuff on the schedule of what we’re actually going to do.
I have to figure out a way to organize all this stuff.
I have to clean out our craft and supply cabinets.
I have to figure out what I’m going to do with Sis, to keep her from running off with the fruits of my magnet-sticking labor every time I turn my back, and perhaps help her to learn a little something as well.
I have to actually read our first Five In a Row book and decide what activities I’m going to do to go along with it.
And because I’m crazy and my child is also attending a non-home-school part time, I have to get all of the required supplies for that school, and label each item individually (yes, each crayon, each marker, etc.), and make an appointment for her to have a physical (oops!), and get all of her uniform clothing de-wrinkled. . .
Yikes. Writing this post is only making me more panicked. I gotta go do some stuff. Wish me luck!
Oh my gosh, I remember our very first year of homeschooling. I was a maniac. I know exactly where you are right now. Deep breaths.
I love the part time Catholic school setup. What a great idea.
You’re in my prayers. Mostly for you to survive the peel and stick trial- that sounds horrific. Kindergarden will be a BREEZE after that.
Haha! Yes, I think so. I have finally finished the peeling and sticking. Still need to get the card-separating done though. Thanks for the prayers!
Oh my! You’re making me panic now and I don’t even do formal kindergarten wih my children. Lol. If it helps any, my oldest son never did a third of what you have planned and he’s getting ready to rock his senior year… A year ahead of schedule. Relax, mama. The real blessing of homeschooling is that we can make school fit into life and not the other way around. God bless your year!
Yes, you’re right! Haha! I think I’m kind of overwhelmed because I have to do all of the prep for homeschool plus all of the stuff to get ready for Catholic school, even though she’s only going there a little bit of the time 🙂 But that’s a perfect reminder for me right now. Thanks Melody!