"Group Activities, " Homeschooling, and Other Ways to Make Me Lose My Mind

As you may know from my article on Scary Mommy, I have decided to take a leave of absence from teaching this year to homeschool my son during "these uncertain times."  I'll let that article speak for itself since I don't usually write in a serious manner, and seriousness has no (or at least, very little) place here.

Lest you think I am forgoing a year's worth of salary because I am a superdeeduper lazy teacher and I like to loaf around in my multi-million-dollar home on my ginormous savings account while my son panders to my every wish and feeds me grapes and bonbons between Pinterest-worthy homeschooling sessions filled with cute crafts and and intellectually-stimulating science experiments, let me correct your thinking.

People. Teaching 25 angsty tweens belonging to someone else in a classroom is actually infinitely easier than trying to homeschool my one kid who wants to be back at (pre-Corona) school.

Lately, I have been depending mostly on worksheet type books because my son would much rather do a bunch of worksheets and be done with it than waste his precious t.v. time by doing Pinterest science lessons.

I cannot blame him.  I was one of those kids, too.  I hate wasting time, and "activities" just angrify me.  

Even at staff meetings, anything cutesy or "fun" secretly fills me with unbridled rage.  I just want to sit there, take notes, internalize whatever I'm supposed to learn, and move on with my life. 

None of that Kumbaya, group activity, feelings-discussing stuff for me.

Once, all of us teachers had to stand in a gym on the first day of before-school-starts institute days, write our feelings on a piece of paper, ball up the paper, and then chuck the pieces of paper at each other in a "snowball fight!!!" of feelings. 

My only feelings were that I wanted to sit down in a chair and not share my feelings with 50 other people I am not related to in a middle school gym.

Just give me a dang worksheet.

So, I've now been schooling my child at home for five months.  Every weekday, we do math after breakfast, science/social studies after lunch, and reading/writing after dinner.  

Every day, it is as if he is going through all twelve stages of grief whenever schooling time is announced.

Me:  All right; time to start math.

Dear Sweet Son:  What!? (said in a tone that conveys disbelief and horror)  No!  

Me:  Yes, it's time.  Let's go.

DSS (throwing himself down on his beloved blankie in despair):  Why!?   WHY!?  Can't I just wait ONE. MORE. MINUTE!?

Me:  No.  

DSS:  PLEASE!? (as if begging for me to spare his life)  JUST ONE MORE MINUTE!?

(Don't be fooled.  There is always another minute.  Always.  Even after the original minute.  Don't ask me how I know.)

Me:  No.

DSS (looking at the worksheet with 5 problems):  This. Is going. To take.  (super dramatic voice) FOREVER!!!!!!!

(writes the answer to one problem and immediately throws himself to the ground, writhing around in sheer, unbridled despair)

DSS:  I just CAN'T!  This is going to take forever!  I'll NEVER finish this!!!

Me:  Not if you keep rolling around on the floor.  At least bring your pencil down there with you so it has a fighting chance of actually writing something.

DSS (switches tactics):  OK.  This won't take that long.  (sits on chair)  I know this.  This is easy.  I can do this!  (writes one more answer down)  There.  Only three problems left.  (woops... here we go again)  THREE PROBLEMS!?   WHY?!  WHY!?  (slams pencil on the table, sticks out lower lip, starts sliding down out of chair like a fading sea cucumber)

Two minutes later, the whole assignment is done.

DSS (looking elated):  I'm done!  That was super fast!  This barely took any time at all!  Like five minutes!

Me:  Great!  Now please write your name on your paper so you don't forget how, and then you can do what you'd like.

DSS (horrified face):  What!?  My name!?  This. Is. Going. To. TAKE. FOREVVVVEEER!!!!!

Then, the whole thing repeats itself two more times each day, and every single week day.  Multiply that by five months.  Actually, multiply that by a year and five months.  

Parenting experts will tell you that consistency is key.  I'm not sure how much more consistency is needed than doing the exact same routine every day for five months, but we sure are trying hard to find out.  

Please note: he chose this schedule because he felt, and still assures me, that it is the way he most wants to learn.

Good times are in store, my friends.

(P.S. Please also note that I do feel, as I mentioned in the Scary Mommy article, very blessed to be able to homeschool / SAHM-parent my son this year.  I realize that so many people do not have this opportunity.  Because I've been working since he was born and most likely will return to full-time teaching after this year, I probably will never have this chance again.  I love this opportunity and I actually am very happy with the decision I made.

We now return to our regularly-scheduled sarcasm and cynicism.)

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ATTENTION:  not-funny, homeschooling-related stuff below

In case you are interested, below are the resources I use for my son's schooling.  

       

The three Amazon links are affiliate links, which means if you purchase through my link, I will get a small portion of the revenue, at no extra cost to you.

The Social Studies and Science books are in the 180 Days of series.  This series goes from Kindergarten to 6th grade and have one short worksheet activity per day.  I used these in class with my elementary school kids, and I now use them at home with my son.  There are also grammar, writing, reading, math and other things I forget.

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons was recommended to me by my sister-in-law who home-schooled her first child, my nephew, with it and then did the lessons with her second child before my niece went to kindergarten.  It is very scripted and claims to have your child reading at a second grade level by lesson 100.  So far, we're on lesson 68 (we started with 23 at the end of kindergarten, since he'd gotten a bit of reading instruction).

We use Eureka Math at my school.  Engage NY is the free version of this platform.  There are videos, printable teachers' guides, tests, student work pages, and pretty much anything you need to teach math from kindergarten to 12th grade.  It is aligned to Common Core and is pretty "rigorous," as schools like to say.  They also have a free complete ELA / Reading course you can use that also has workbooks, skills books, reading texts, etc., all ready to be printed out.