We went to Temple Square for FFD the other night. We really enjoyed it outside of nearly freezing to death.
Isn't this picture of the two headed daddy cute in a creepy kind of way?
Just trying to keep his girl warm.---
In other news --we're getting all geared up for homeschooling. Just one more full day of school for all of my kids. Then we've got Christmas vacay, then Jonah and Celeste will be home with me for mind-filling fun.
Now that we are just about ready for the whole ordeal, we're getting excited. Even me. We've got the "classroom" set up, the books all on their way, the schedule typed up, the lesson plan figured out, and all that jazz ready.
People are asking me why I'm homeschooling. I decided I'll give that explanation here. Despite my best efforts, I imagine it will get long. So this is just for those really curious people that have too much time on their hands.
The story starts long ago, but I'll just pick up where it gets more interesting.
Jonah has been having such a hard time in 4th grade at our school. They switch classes around between a few teachers and he hates that. None of the teachers he feels very comfortable with. The whole environment is very stressful for him. His teacher is sweet but just doesn't know how to handle him when he has a meltdown. Working with a bipolar child is challenging and she often just seems to not know what to do and throw her hands up in the air so to speak. A few times I've been at the school and witnessed her inability to help him properly or I've been called from home to try and somehow salvage a messy situation. In one particular instance when I was called to the school, I felt heartbroken for my little boy who just wasn't getting the love and care that he needed at school. I haven't been mad at the school and I understand they can't be expected to leave the 99 for my 1 special boy. I think they are giving it an ok effort under the circumstances, but it just isn't enough for him.
It finally hit me. The thing is, as a parent it is MY responsibility and duty to see to it that my child gets a good education. And I think that it is perfectly fine to delegate that responsibility to a school. There is nothing wrong with that. In many cases the school can do a great job. In fact I think the school and teachers are doing a great job with Eden and Becca. Especially Becca's teacher who I think is doing way way better than I could do for her!
However, if the school fails to give my child what they need then it isn't them who will be held accountable. It will be me. And when I realized this, I realized I needed to pull Jonah out.
So a couple of months ago after school, I sat all my kids down to have a talk. I told them I felt like I needed to homeschool. I asked them if they were interested in doing that. Jonah was thrilled and had this huge sigh of relief and almost cried as he thanked me. Celeste got super excited too and said she would LOVE that! Eden said she would rather stay at school. So I said that would be just fine with me. Becca was kind of indifferent. She's gone back and forth. But I felt like her teacher was doing so well with her, that I didn't want to interrupt a good thing.
Now here's the deal.
To be honest I am a bit nervous. I worry I wont be that great of a teacher. I worry it's going to be too much time and work and I will have no time for myself. I worry about my kids social life. I don't want them being all weirded out. The first worry, I'm just going to deal with. We'll see how that works out.
The second worry I've tried to work on by setting up time with peers. Jonah has a great friend I'm trying to get regular dates set up with to hang out. Celeste also has some good friends. I've set up a little ballet class that I'll be teaching for just her and her friends once a week. I've also set up regular play dates with a friend who she really likes. They'll still be doing scouts, dance, activity days and so forth. So I think that will all be fine for them. And maybe I'll occasionally take them to a rated R movie or something so they can stay on top of all the bad stuff they could be missing at public school. (Kidding there.)
I'm not sure how long we'll do this. For now I'm only planning to do it for 1 semester. As we start homeschooling, I'll get a better idea of how it will work for us and we'll take it from there. We may love it and do it forever. We may think it's ok. We may hate it. But either way I love my kids so much and feel like my concern for their welfare and desires to see them succeed will give me the motivation to make sure they get a good quality education. And if despite that all, I still fail to do a great job, then we can put them back in school in the Fall (Jonah will be out of the 4th grade issues at this school,) and we can move on. But I'm hoping it will be a success and we love it.
There you go.
