Hello, this is the first time that I have posted and not sure how to give an adequate background for my question, or I guess request for advice might be a better way to put it. I have quite a messy homeschool background, switching and switching curriculum and being won over again and again by differing homeschool philosophies. My poor children have dabbled in so many curricula and ideas and ways of homeschooling. Even 3-4 weeks may be some of my longest stretches of consistency!
This past Fall, around October, I convinced my husband that I should buy MP cores for my first and second grader, and preschooler to end this cycle of dollars spent and time wasted searching and searching for the right fit. I was sure that I could do it, if I just at least had the direction of the lesson plans, even if I wasn't sure that this was the best possible path in all of the world. I like a lot about MP, but have not been sold on every piece.
Well, I was wrong. I had a new baby and we were spending a lot of time trying to find a new home last fall, but that isn't everything that kept me from doing it. I felt lost in a sea of teachers manuals and enrichment materials for every tiny topic. I couldn't tell what exercises were mandatory and which were suggestions for a classroom. My kids were not remembering the recitation we practiced, and every week the list grew longer. If we ever finished most of a day, enrichment was always what got cut, and the enrichment program, which brought in all of the little pieces I didn't want to leave out, was one of the biggest attractions I had to MP in the first place. I would also give my first grader the dictation words for spelling, and he wouldn't know them, and so he would be wildly discouraged and so would I. I started trying to cut corners... Latin first... (I know! This is a Latin-centered curriculum, so obviously countering the entire program!). I switched back to Math Mammoth so I wasn't jumping around with so many review pages. I kept switching more and more little pieces until MP wasn't even part of our day any more at all.
Towards the end of this school year I have so many questions for myself. If it had not been such a stressful Fall, might I have succeeded? If I had persevered, would I have fell in love with MP, as so many members on here seem to have done? Would I have been sold on the importance of Latin? How do I get past those issues of my son just not picking up the spelling words, even after having written them so many times? How can I add more work, or more practice, to an already overwhelming workload for us as a family? Do I have too many kids to give them this sort of education? Do I need less work for us as a family? Or do I need to reprioritize our family culture in order to make this manageable?
I will say, just for some more insight into us as a family, the kids are doing very well reading, though lacking some phonics skills and spelling skills. They love to read and spend hours a week doing it. They are also managing math mammoth very well and almost independently. Also, my husband and I are very much sold on liberal arts and the importance of literature and beauty and philosophy and culture. This is at the heart of who we are, loving who God is, what He has done, and how humanity has responded. Latin, though we appreciate it and would like them to learn eventually, isn't something we talk passionately in the evenings about.
Lastly, I wonder if I did decide to make another attempt at MP, how I would even move forward. So much of the appeal of this curriculum is that I would have a track to be on and to stick to, so when I have seen advice about just starting where they are, this is hard for me to hear, because if I do not have a deadline and I can just progress at our own pace, then there will always be too many sick days, special event days, park days, catch up days, rest days, deal with family and life days.... to motivate me to move forward as I should! At the same time, a huge part of why we struggled this past fall was because my kids were not ready for the exact level I was trying to put them on. Now, I think they both can probably read to keep up with the MP reading, but neither know cursive, and my second grader does not know Latin. I have thought about having them both work on cursive in the summer, and for my daughter to work on Latin, so that they would be ready for second and third grade, though I wonder if this is realistic. I have been thinking about using the MP I still have and doing the last five weeks for this end of the school year as a sort of trying on MP again when life is a little less insane as it was in the fall, and giving it one last attempt! Obviously it wouldn't be exactly the same, because of Latin and such, but the spelling and the reading and of course enrichment, I am pretty confident they can jump in and learn something well, and maybe just trying to do a little bit of the Latin with my second grader.
Thank you for any feedback and I hope that none of this seems like a bashing on MP! I definitely don't mean anything to sound critical of the program. Obviously, I wouldn't be writing this if I didn't really have a desire for it to work for our family! Any advice or shared experiences would be so much appreciated!
This past Fall, around October, I convinced my husband that I should buy MP cores for my first and second grader, and preschooler to end this cycle of dollars spent and time wasted searching and searching for the right fit. I was sure that I could do it, if I just at least had the direction of the lesson plans, even if I wasn't sure that this was the best possible path in all of the world. I like a lot about MP, but have not been sold on every piece.
Well, I was wrong. I had a new baby and we were spending a lot of time trying to find a new home last fall, but that isn't everything that kept me from doing it. I felt lost in a sea of teachers manuals and enrichment materials for every tiny topic. I couldn't tell what exercises were mandatory and which were suggestions for a classroom. My kids were not remembering the recitation we practiced, and every week the list grew longer. If we ever finished most of a day, enrichment was always what got cut, and the enrichment program, which brought in all of the little pieces I didn't want to leave out, was one of the biggest attractions I had to MP in the first place. I would also give my first grader the dictation words for spelling, and he wouldn't know them, and so he would be wildly discouraged and so would I. I started trying to cut corners... Latin first... (I know! This is a Latin-centered curriculum, so obviously countering the entire program!). I switched back to Math Mammoth so I wasn't jumping around with so many review pages. I kept switching more and more little pieces until MP wasn't even part of our day any more at all.
Towards the end of this school year I have so many questions for myself. If it had not been such a stressful Fall, might I have succeeded? If I had persevered, would I have fell in love with MP, as so many members on here seem to have done? Would I have been sold on the importance of Latin? How do I get past those issues of my son just not picking up the spelling words, even after having written them so many times? How can I add more work, or more practice, to an already overwhelming workload for us as a family? Do I have too many kids to give them this sort of education? Do I need less work for us as a family? Or do I need to reprioritize our family culture in order to make this manageable?
I will say, just for some more insight into us as a family, the kids are doing very well reading, though lacking some phonics skills and spelling skills. They love to read and spend hours a week doing it. They are also managing math mammoth very well and almost independently. Also, my husband and I are very much sold on liberal arts and the importance of literature and beauty and philosophy and culture. This is at the heart of who we are, loving who God is, what He has done, and how humanity has responded. Latin, though we appreciate it and would like them to learn eventually, isn't something we talk passionately in the evenings about.
Lastly, I wonder if I did decide to make another attempt at MP, how I would even move forward. So much of the appeal of this curriculum is that I would have a track to be on and to stick to, so when I have seen advice about just starting where they are, this is hard for me to hear, because if I do not have a deadline and I can just progress at our own pace, then there will always be too many sick days, special event days, park days, catch up days, rest days, deal with family and life days.... to motivate me to move forward as I should! At the same time, a huge part of why we struggled this past fall was because my kids were not ready for the exact level I was trying to put them on. Now, I think they both can probably read to keep up with the MP reading, but neither know cursive, and my second grader does not know Latin. I have thought about having them both work on cursive in the summer, and for my daughter to work on Latin, so that they would be ready for second and third grade, though I wonder if this is realistic. I have been thinking about using the MP I still have and doing the last five weeks for this end of the school year as a sort of trying on MP again when life is a little less insane as it was in the fall, and giving it one last attempt! Obviously it wouldn't be exactly the same, because of Latin and such, but the spelling and the reading and of course enrichment, I am pretty confident they can jump in and learn something well, and maybe just trying to do a little bit of the Latin with my second grader.
Thank you for any feedback and I hope that none of this seems like a bashing on MP! I definitely don't mean anything to sound critical of the program. Obviously, I wouldn't be writing this if I didn't really have a desire for it to work for our family! Any advice or shared experiences would be so much appreciated!
Comment