We made it! (through the first week that is...)

Well we have made it through our first week of straight homeschooling our 8th grader. (we pulled her from online schooling over Christmas break) When the other children went "back to school" I allowed her and the littlest one an extra week of break. Mainly because I was still waiting for the rest of our stuff we were going to use to get here, but also because she was so overly stressed from the online school and doing 7-9 hours of schooling 7 days a week, that I felt she just need a little extra time to decompress! Our week was, well, interesting... The middles did fine with starting their new semester (the 1st semester ended on Monday, and the new one started Tuesday, except for the 1st grader who got an extension?)  Chey and I went kind of off schedule on her studies already... We started on American history using Abeka, "America, Land I Love" and after reading the first part  about the Middle Ages, The Reformation, and The Renaissance Era, she had some questions and concerns, (mainly about not fully understanding and about being intimidated by the time period) so now we are doing a few unit studies about the whole time era, broken down into smaller pieces so that not only will she be able to get the concepts one at a time, and they won't be so overwhelming, but also so that we can cover as much of the time periods as we can and still keep it fun, interesting and answer any questions that may still arrive. Needless to say, her American History book is temporarily set aside already, and books from the library are in it's place... already in the first week. And you know what? I love it!! This is why we homeschool, (well one of the MANY reasons!) so that when something sparks in our child's mind, we can go in depth, and explore and show them that this or that is not so scary once you learn! Not every thing goes in the order of a set schedule, sometimes you need to venture out and let yourself learn more! As you can see from our lesson plans for the week we had a fairly busy week going on, without it being too much, however now that is slightly askew. That goes to show that while it is great to have a plan, life doesn't always keep to the letter of any plan, BE FLEXIBLE!!!

 

So we made it through, and I learned something about my beautiful daughter in the process. She has amazing bravery, and when given the freedom to explore, she can and will learn many things, about her world, and about herself!