dragons in the flower bed
03-06-2008, 06:52 PM
I do this to myself every year. I love planning and all of the ways it drives me right up that same old wall. This year it seems crazier than ever.
I want to do LCC, maybe using some AO books, because it's more rigorous, more beneficial in so many ways, educationally. However, the kids are begging for the songs and rinky dink crafts, the way we did it when I was using WinterPromise. Local hs'ing friends are doing WTM Year 2, and my kids like (and benefit from) studying what their friends are studying.
I won't know whether or not my partner's kid has been accepted into the public charter school of his choice until August. I don't want to plan for him to be here, gearing my program for the two older kids, and then have him do something else. That happened this year and it stunk. On the other hand, if I gear my program for DS5 and DS8, but DSS11 does end up being with us, he's going to be bored.
Some time this spring we will begin building a house. Now, by this I do not mean we're hiring contractors. I mean, the kids and I are getting out there and stacking logs with our very own hands. And I don't know when it will be done. There are three possibilities -- 1) We'll finish the house before fall and want to spend the school year doing science on our own 11 acres. 2) We'll wrap it up unfinished, just for winter, and be doing school in the city still. 3) We'll need to work very hard on the house during September and October to finish up before snow hits, so we'll get little to no schoolwork done.
Next year is a big year of academic changes, with DS8 adding composition and DS5 officially starting academics and DSS11 beginning junior high. As I posted before, my instinct is to back down and do less, another reason to do LCC -- it lets me keep the rigor without creating an Olympic class daily schedule.
Here's my worst case scenario. I plan a rigorous, boring-to-kids but easy-to-implement LCC program for each kid, something we can do even camping out in a half-built house. Then come winter we'll be in the city with our WTM-ing friends, all working on separate things, looking for some collective unit studies to keep us from longing for the woods.
I know that if I don't come up with a good plan, we'll end up doing nothing. I have done that to myself before and then had to pull us up by our collective twelve bootstraps a month or two into a flop of a schoolyear. I'm not looking for encouragement to relax, here. No, it's just that misery loves company, so I was wondering if any of you other early planners are frustrated, too.
I want to do LCC, maybe using some AO books, because it's more rigorous, more beneficial in so many ways, educationally. However, the kids are begging for the songs and rinky dink crafts, the way we did it when I was using WinterPromise. Local hs'ing friends are doing WTM Year 2, and my kids like (and benefit from) studying what their friends are studying.
I won't know whether or not my partner's kid has been accepted into the public charter school of his choice until August. I don't want to plan for him to be here, gearing my program for the two older kids, and then have him do something else. That happened this year and it stunk. On the other hand, if I gear my program for DS5 and DS8, but DSS11 does end up being with us, he's going to be bored.
Some time this spring we will begin building a house. Now, by this I do not mean we're hiring contractors. I mean, the kids and I are getting out there and stacking logs with our very own hands. And I don't know when it will be done. There are three possibilities -- 1) We'll finish the house before fall and want to spend the school year doing science on our own 11 acres. 2) We'll wrap it up unfinished, just for winter, and be doing school in the city still. 3) We'll need to work very hard on the house during September and October to finish up before snow hits, so we'll get little to no schoolwork done.
Next year is a big year of academic changes, with DS8 adding composition and DS5 officially starting academics and DSS11 beginning junior high. As I posted before, my instinct is to back down and do less, another reason to do LCC -- it lets me keep the rigor without creating an Olympic class daily schedule.
Here's my worst case scenario. I plan a rigorous, boring-to-kids but easy-to-implement LCC program for each kid, something we can do even camping out in a half-built house. Then come winter we'll be in the city with our WTM-ing friends, all working on separate things, looking for some collective unit studies to keep us from longing for the woods.
I know that if I don't come up with a good plan, we'll end up doing nothing. I have done that to myself before and then had to pull us up by our collective twelve bootstraps a month or two into a flop of a schoolyear. I'm not looking for encouragement to relax, here. No, it's just that misery loves company, so I was wondering if any of you other early planners are frustrated, too.