Another Move

About halfway into our homeschool year, we started talking about moving from our Townhouse to an actual house. This was a hard decision mostly because it would be our 3rd move in 3 years. (I actual counted one time and I have moved 6 times in the 9 years I have been married.) We had moved from Ohio to Florida the year previously. With only 2 days to find a place to live, we jumped on the first decent available house we found. So that is how we ended up renting our Townhouse. It was a nice place, but it lacked some basic elements: a yard and friendly neighbors.

When we finally found a house (with a great backyard) and made the decision to move, we were very excited. However the realism of the actual work involved was very overwhelming. This was especially hard when trying to homeschoool and when My Love was just starting his busy season at work. We actually allowed ourselves two extra weeks to make the move, but Murphy's Law set in and some major problems at our new home left us with half our belongings there, half at the old house, and most in boxes. This wasn't very productive for our homeschool, which was still struggling. Oh, and I should add that I do NOT handle stress well. Let's just say that in the past stressful situations have lead to my having Adult Mono and a Hospitalization with a skin infection. So, unfortunately for her, my Mom got the brunt of my stress. T however was temporarily benefiting since schooling was the least of my worries.

After we got all of our issues resolved, and the move was complete, we tried to settle back into a routine. I was still ready to send T back to public school but we pushed on. We did a lot of field trips, lapbooks, puzzles, and read a lot of books during this time. I was glad T was reading so well since he still was struggling with writing and math. I again praise "Galloping the Globe" for getting us thru the year. We were able to supplement this curriculum with lots of books and movies. We spent most of our time on Antarctica (did you know this was the driest continent?) and finished off our year learning about Australia.

I had contemplated schooling thru the end of June, but by the time Memorial Day hit we were DONE. I was so burnt out on Homeschooling that I was ready to send my kids out of the country for a month. I was still stressed from our move, My Love was busy at work and barely home, and all the stress of worrying about jobs and family had left me an irritable, mean mess. Luckily our State's annual Homeschool Conference arrived just in time.

Our First Year

After the initial shock of "this is my new life," I got down to business. There was planning to do, and planning is something I LOVE. I am just weird that way. I started reading every book I could get my hands on about homeschooling. I went to Sam's Club and bought a bunch of workbooks as a "do this till I can figure out our life" activity. Our first few weeks went great. We sat down together, did some workbooks, spent some time letting T be creative, and watched some great science videos. We joined all the online homeschooling groups and even found some people who wanted to form a Co-Op in our area. Things were going great.

But then the newness wore off and the boredom set in. I am not a create-your-own curriculum type of person, and we were floundering. I was afraid to purchase anything large scale without seeing it in person. So I started buying bits and pieces of things off ebay. I would bring them home, we would do them for a week, one of us would hate them, and then I would start looking for something different. T was refusing to even do any school work. Our newly formed Co-Op was floundering. I was still taking my daughter to preschool 3 times a week and then my Mom came for an extended visit. Things were falling apart and I was STRESSED!

Our only saving grace during this time was the discovery of a wonderful little book called "Galloping the Globe." This was what got us thru the year. T and one of his friends in our Co-Op really enjoyed Geography and they enjoyed each other. So this became our standard. We would meet with our friends once a week, do some kind of activity related to the continent we were studying, and then have some play time. The rest of the week we spent exploring the continent on our own thru literature while still struggling thru our math lessons. We were getting by, but soon we would be making more changes to our little world.