Status Report: How's everybody doing?

[DiannaKennedy]

Re: Status Report: How's everybody doing?

“Juggling knives.”
Amen, girl.

You’re the best. ❤️ Keep at ‘em.

Love you, girl. This is like Fort Knox gold to me. I feel like this year has been one big hyperventilating mess ........
"My 6th grader should be more independent by now"
"OH MY GOSH, I have to have these boys writing completely in cursive by CHRISTMAS?"
....... wailing ...... "My kindergartener can't reeeeeaaaaaad"

Hearing from someone (to whom I am not married) that I'm doing OK is a balm.

[Mom2mthj]

Re: Status Report: How's everybody doing?

Yes, the reality is hitting me. Virginia seasons were so, so beautiful. I knew I was tempting God to move us when I kept walking around our neighborhood last December saying, "I just love Virginia in December."

:/. Ah, well, maybe folks who need someplace warm to escape to will come knocking on our door...

AMDG,
Sarah

We are overdue for another trip down that way. I can bring the cold. The last trip was 4 years ago when the 4yo was still a baby. It was a couple of days before thanksgiving and I was looking forward to the warm weather. However, it started raining as we were going through Nashville and they were coating the roads with some saline stuff to keep them from freezing, and was right at freezing the whole drive down the Natchez trace into Tupelo. My kids were in winter coats in all the pictures because the highs were only in the 40s while we were there. It didn't last long, but kids roasted marshmallows in my cousin's fireplace for thanksgiving.

[KF2000]

Re: Status Report: How's everybody doing?

You guys would be so welcome!

That sounds like the experience we had on our wedding day...were expecting a beautiful late-spring day in central Illinois, with flowers blooming, grass growing, blue sky perfection. What we got was three days of 40 degrees, windy spitting rain the entire weekend. My poor relatives who came up from Florida had to go to the campus bookstore to buy sweatshirts. (it was kind of great to make my Michigan-alum uncle have to wear an Illini sweatshirt though...tee hee!)

You never can tell. But if you guys are able - bring on the cold!

AMDG,
Sarah

[AudreyN]

Re: Status Report: How's everybody doing?

I run into the same issue .... I have kids in 3 cores, and OH, is it hard to juggle all of them.
I do juggled start times --- My K student is usually up first, and I get her started on some of her work before she even eats breakfast. (strike while the iron is hot) She's at away school, but still has work to do at home with me. Once the twins get up (they are in 2nd grade core), they eat and get started. My 6th grader is independent per se, but needs a LOT of prodding to get started.

I do hop back and forth, but UGH --- I told my husband I feel like I'm juggling knives all day long. Part of what I'd like to do is go ahead and get some breakfasts and lunches prepped and ready to go, so that we can grab something quickly. (make muffins the night before, etc) Our day isn't that long, but I feel like I'm just constantly putting out fires. Review Latin Flashcards, check. Get Twin #1 started on Spelling City, check. Pull the iPad away from the preschooler and reluctantly give him watercolors, check. Fix snacks for people who only ate breakfast 20 min ago, double check. ARGH. By the end of the day, I'm exhausted, and I don't want to make ANY decisions or talk to anyone.

The snacks, the watercolors, the juggling- there are so many parallels to our days here. And your doing all of it with twins just gave me a world of perspective. Bless you and thanks for the tips.

[AudreyN]

Re: Status Report: How's everybody doing?

Hi Audrey!

My only advice is to hang in there.

My older kids listen to anything I have to say - and are very quickly becoming my best friends (apart from my husband).

The only thing I will add is that because it is so intense, take time for a few deep breaths here and there. Take pictures. Look up and around now and then because it goes really quickly. Truth be told, you will look back on these days with a special fondness all its own. And then play Toby Keith's "You're Gonna Miss This" and have a good cry. Appreciate, appreciate, appreciate!

AMDG,
Sarah

Sarah- thank you! Taking a few of those deep breaths now. I'm looking forward to being surrounded by best friends as you are. What a blessing!

[AudreyN]

Re: Status Report: How's everybody doing?

Hi Audrey,

I'm one of those moms who cannot do the round-robin thing. I have 6 children in four cores plus a 2yo and I HAVE to teach one core at a time while the others play/do independent work. With the ages you have, I would do JrK first while your 1st grader plays with your 2 year old in the same room you're in (this is KEY!). Then do 1st grade while the two littles play -- if your 2yo still takes a nap, I would try to have them take it while you work with 1st. If not, have some simple activity boxes that only come out when you're working with your 1st grader. If it tends to be too noisy, try headphones for the person who is doing school. This is also a great time to teach the concept of "school hours": "During school hours we play quietly and do constructive activities." With this flow, your school day should end by lunch or shortly after, depending on start time -- and potty training interruptions The only afternoon school we have here is review times for my older kids where I go over their independent work, do recitations/drills, etc.

For laundry, try putting in one load before breakfast, and a second after lunch. If you need to do a third due to potty training, that could be tossed in at random in the afternoon.

HTH!

Jen,

Thanks for the practical tips! I like the idea of special boxes for littles while I work with big brother.

[AudreyN]

Re: Status Report: How's everybody doing?

Oh, honey — NO! You are not doing anything wrong. This season is HARD. I just went through it a year ago. Still rebounding. Take this advice (you ready? This is groundbreaking):
Schedule school from (a manageable time) until (another manageable time). If this is only an hour or two — SCORE. Give it (as much of) your full attention as you can and then GO LIE DOWN. Send your kids to their rooms for quiet time while you rest. And then get up and get what housework/errands done that you can. And then GO LIE DOWN. Turn on a movie for the kids. Eat something. Clean something. Put people to bed somehow. AND THEN GO LIE DOWN.

My fourth trimester was a blur of tiredness, exhaustion, anxiety over not doing enough, tiredness, exhaustion and weepy whining about being tired. Guess what? We all survived and everyone was educated properly with no (permanent) scarring

Take it slow and steady — like the tortoise — an go easy on yourself. You are doing heroic, monumental, Herculean work. It takes energy.

Now go lie down.

Anita,

THANK YOU. I've honestly never thought of scheduling school time this way. I'm definitely going to implement. And it sounds like if I follow your advice I will lie down about as often as I have to these days anyways, with the benefit that I won't feel guilty about it because it'll be planned! THANK YOU.

[MountainMi]

Re: Status Report: How's everybody doing?

Hello, all!

We are having our best year thus far. (Quick! Find some wood to knock!)

I wasn't sure how my 6th grader would do with a heavy 5 course load at MPOA, but I knew that it was the necessary route for her and I. She is doing great and most importantly learning lessons that will serve her well in her future school and in college. Lots of lessons in managing time and in the meaning and purpose of quizzes and grades. I think we are hopefully building healthy performance expectations and that identifying weaknesses is more important than the score on a quiz. She is doing Third Form Latin, Middle School Science I, Math 6, Grammar School Lit IV and Narrative online. She is definitely rising to the challenge. I was hedging my bets by thinking to myself that if the load got to heavy, I can always move Famous Men and Christian Studies to a summer semester, but so far she is holding her own and getting it all done.

My "4th" grader is half way through the 2nd core and will move on to 3rd about the end of February, so I can see that by the start of 7th grade I believe he will be synced up with a regular MP school year. He is doing really well. I came up with a solution that is working for his spelling struggles. We do the pre-test and then he focuses on the words that he missed for the test the next day. Any words that he still misses get rolled into the next week's Say Spell Say and copy work. We continue this and roll any missed words on to the next lesson even if a word is there for 5 weeks. Then during the built in review week, we focus strictly on the missed words that are still on his "roll over" list and study those that week. And thus far by the end of the review week, he has been able to get all of those rolled over words spelled correctly and start fresh with the new week. Reading is still slower than it probably should be, but I can see that he is making progress, especially now that his younger sisters are at the point where he was when we switched to MP...I can see how far he has come. He still has a very negative view of his own abilities, but i am hoping that time and patience will build up his confidence. Math is clicking for him, and I am so happy with his internalization of those math facts!

My 2nd grader is starting 1st grade core today. She is my tough cookie this year which is hard for me because she was always my sweet, happy kid. She is having that attitude changing period of little kid to big kid and really challenging me. But, we shall overcome. I know it is a phase and I survived the first two, so we shall survive as well. I DO need to get her in for an eye appointment because she is seriously mixing up letters in her reading...not just b and d, but n, m U...anything that could look similar.

My Kindergartener is in week 6 and was reading last week! My first kid who gets to do MP cores from beginning to end without playing catch up. Her competitive nature insures that she is determined to get her work done and catch up with the big kids...and she just might do that.

Since we didn't have the Cottage School this year, we did rejoin the local co-op. I view it as social and elective time and thanks to MP cores, we actually do do our regular school day after we get home and have a breather from co-op. Those core lesson plans have been a life saver!

Heidi

[MyLittleWonders]

Re: Status Report: How's everybody doing?

So I’m not sure we’ll ever have order to our days around here, but I can say this ... recitation with two teen boys and one preteen boy is rather entertaining. I’m having my 8th grader do the FMoG questions as he’s in Book of the Ancient Greeks. My 11th grader is doing year 1 of Concise History of the American Republic so he’s getting the US questions. They all are doing the Bible questions, and my third is doing FMoMA and Geo 1 questions. They all try to answer each other’s, which tends to make the person in the hot seat more determined to get the right answer out quickly. I should have thought of this years ago. LOL Recitation for the win this year.

[ClassicalFamily]

Re: Status Report: How's everybody doing?

I have enjoyed reading this thread and am finally getting around to sharing. We moved (in town) this summer and I just started reading the forum again. This is our second year with MP. We are in week 5 of full core 4A, and the last week has been great. I purchased one of the student planners, and my daughter loves it. She copies all of her work over and even draws little squares so she can check it off like I do. It's cute. This morning she announced at 9:15 that she was finished with her work (I was just about to head up to our school room to work with her). I laughed. Then she told me she got started at 6 a.m. Okay, then--I guess you are mostly finished! So my biggest problem with my oldest is that she is getting her work done before I can get to her, so I need to figure out how I can make time for her early in the morning, as she tends to get a little off track in certain subjects that need oversight from me. I don't want to delay her work, as she really works best in the early morning hours.

My son is 4 (5 in January). I waffled over whether to buy the Pre-K core for him, as he attends a great little 3-morning/week playschool while the rest of us work (husband works from home, and I help him in the business). I decided to buy it. We are using it leisurely--usually taking a whole week to do one day--and skip the calendar/weather/etc. stuff that he gets at school. I'm glad I bought it. I do the reading activities with him and then have him spend 15 minutes or so doing workbook pages/cutting pages/number work or tracing his name, recently learned letters, and recently learned numbers. I have already realized two big things: he needed some serious correction with grip (working on just the thumb for now--it was way off in left field), and he does much better tracing pages I prepare for him with highlighters rather than tracing dotted-line pages. I know I didn't absolutely need the Pre-K core for him, but--guess what--buying the core meant no decision fatigue--I just do whatever is next in the curriculum guide. Some days he does adorably careful work, his little eyes shining with pride when I congratulate him on his hard work. Other days, he purposely draws squiggly lines, complains that it is all too hard, and bugs his sister by making annoying sounds. So I guess that is pretty normal for a 4-year-old!

We moved into a home with a proper home office for my husband and a bonus room for homeschooling--now that we are somewhat settled in, we are enjoying our homeschooling space. It has a really peaceful vibe--good light and walls that are a soothing light blue-green. This week in particular is great, as local schools are on fall break and most of our afternoon/evening lessons/activities are off this week--feels like a vacation to just do MP!

[KF2000]

Re: Status Report: How's everybody doing?

Hello, all!

We are having our best year thus far. (Quick! Find some wood to knock!)

I wasn't sure how my 6th grader would do with a heavy 5 course load at MPOA, but I knew that it was the necessary route for her and I. She is doing great and most importantly learning lessons that will serve her well in her future school and in college. Lots of lessons in managing time and in the meaning and purpose of quizzes and grades. I think we are hopefully building healthy performance expectations and that identifying weaknesses is more important than the score on a quiz. She is doing Third Form Latin, Middle School Science I, Math 6, Grammar School Lit IV and Narrative online. She is definitely rising to the challenge. I was hedging my bets by thinking to myself that if the load got to heavy, I can always move Famous Men and Christian Studies to a summer semester, but so far she is holding her own and getting it all done.

My "4th" grader is half way through the 2nd core and will move on to 3rd about the end of February, so I can see that by the start of 7th grade I believe he will be synced up with a regular MP school year. He is doing really well. I came up with a solution that is working for his spelling struggles. We do the pre-test and then he focuses on the words that he missed for the test the next day. Any words that he still misses get rolled into the next week's Say Spell Say and copy work. We continue this and roll any missed words on to the next lesson even if a word is there for 5 weeks. Then during the built in review week, we focus strictly on the missed words that are still on his "roll over" list and study those that week. And thus far by the end of the review week, he has been able to get all of those rolled over words spelled correctly and start fresh with the new week. Reading is still slower than it probably should be, but I can see that he is making progress, especially now that his younger sisters are at the point where he was when we switched to MP...I can see how far he has come. He still has a very negative view of his own abilities, but i am hoping that time and patience will build up his confidence. Math is clicking for him, and I am so happy with his internalization of those math facts!

My 2nd grader is starting 1st grade core today. She is my tough cookie this year which is hard for me because she was always my sweet, happy kid. She is having that attitude changing period of little kid to big kid and really challenging me. But, we shall overcome. I know it is a phase and I survived the first two, so we shall survive as well. I DO need to get her in for an eye appointment because she is seriously mixing up letters in her reading...not just b and d, but n, m U...anything that could look similar.

My Kindergartener is in week 6 and was reading last week! My first kid who gets to do MP cores from beginning to end without playing catch up. Her competitive nature insures that she is determined to get her work done and catch up with the big kids...and she just might do that.

Since we didn't have the Cottage School this year, we did rejoin the local co-op. I view it as social and elective time and thanks to MP cores, we actually do do our regular school day after we get home and have a breather from co-op. Those core lesson plans have been a life saver!

Heidi

Heidi,
I am so glad you are having such a great year! Lots to be thankful for!

Give Blaise a hello from all of us!

AMDG,
Sarah

[3Blessings]

Re: Status Report: How's everybody doing?

I am so grateful for this thread! I was feeling so far behind. We are just starting week 4. I'm glad to see I'm not alone and I have a plan to finish by the end of May which is what my goal is.

Overall things are going well, just slowly with lots of interruptions. The older two are getting into the swing of things. Even though they're doing many of the same courses I'm working with them one on one because they're going at different paces. We struggle most with the courses that are once a week (astronomy, Christian Studies, Greek Myths), but those are also easiest to catch up on so if they get bumped it's not the end of the world. Nearly all of my daughter's books have some of the lessons filled out in them, so I am really looking forward to when we get to where she can write right in the books again (the loose papers are driving me batty!), but I am glad we chose this path because I think this review has been good for her.

Maturity has made such a difference in my middle guy. I am one of those moms who wishes she had waited a year, or started DS in Kindergarten instead of first grade when we came to MP. It's not that he can't do the work, but the writing kills us every day. It's always a struggle, but in the past 3 weeks of being consistent and laying out exactly what is expected of him, as well as a dose of growing up on his end, we have made it through the 3rd grade core just fine. I worried since DD struggled with the writing and she is a much better writer than he is, but I think her struggles were from getting distracted and not paying attention. He grew up a lot over the summer, and 3rd grade has been a great experience for him.

I'm a little nervous as to how the next couple of months will go. We have been dealing with some pretty significant developmental delays in the baby (Baby John for those of you at Sodalitas 2 years ago), and just had some genetic testing done to see if there is an underlying reason for it. If it does turn out what they're thinking we will have to add in more travel to specialists.

Regardless, it's made our weeks more hectic with therapists in and out of the house 2-3 days a week and more appointments and such for him. It's as much of a mom thing as it is a kid thing, but after an interruption like that we struggle to refocus and get back to work. I am probably expecting to much of them, but it seems no matter how well I try and prepare them with an hours worth of independent work they always take advantage of the time I'm away (working with baby and therapist, not actually gone) and never get anything done. I know we will get there, but I need to be more disciplined about it since it seems like it will be an ongoing thing. I have no idea how the test results will affect the current therapies. I don't think they will change much, maybe add 1 more specialist, but we need to get some systems in place so that days we have therapy we don't fall to pieces after. I'm working on getting a more independent flashcard / review box area set up so the kids can work through those themselves at least.

I also have a thing about staying lined up with the assigned "day of the week". With missing one day here and there I probably need to just let it go instead of cramming the missed day into other work days.

I'm glad to be back here and checking back in, I missed the forum!

Jessica - Let me know what you think of Anna Karenina, I've been listening to it for what feels like an eternity since I only listen when I walk, but I'm finally getting to the end (just a few hours left!). I have really liked it, but it was not at all what I expected. Walking in the morning is one of my favorite things now, even though I'm not a morning person. I need to investigate a treadmill for the winter although this bizarre 85 degree weather in October has been nice.

[KF2000]

Re: Status Report: How's everybody doing?

Michelle,
I am sorry to hear that Baby John is having struggles! And that it is wreaking havoc on your routines right now. I know there are others who are making similar needs get met while still keeping up with homeschooling, so hopefully they will chime in. I am always impressed by mothers who juggle so much on top of the regular day-to-day, and I hope you will find a rhythm soon. A long time ago, we walked into a Tai Kwon Do studio for a birthday party, and there was a quote on the wall that I still remember because I loved it so much...

"Frustration means you are about to experience a break-through."

I have so often found this to be true; the frustration is so, well, frustrating...and you don't know for sure when the break-through will come, but you gotta keep plugging away at it so that it does.

Hugs to you - hope to see you at Sodalitas next summer!
AMDG,
Sarah

[Evangelina]

Re: Status Report: How's everybody doing?

Hi Audrey!

The only thing I will add is that because it is so intense, take time for a few deep breaths here and there. Take pictures. Look up and around now and then because it goes really quickly. Truth be told, you will look back on these days with a special fondness all its own. And then play Toby Keith's "You're Gonna Miss This" and have a good cry. Appreciate, appreciate, appreciate!

AMDG,
Sarah

I just wanna throw this in here and say YES! to this. I recently did the slide show for our dear friends whose 16 year old son took his own life. If there was ever a time to realize how important this is it was then. We have become a nation of picture takers, but mostly they are poorly taken of random things (or our own face) that have no real meaning. We were scavenging photos from phones and Facebook. It really convicted me and (now again) that I need to once again get a real camera and take real pictures and then organize them in a way that is really useful to whoever needs or wants them after me. Appreciate for sure!

[3Blessings]

Re: Status Report: How's everybody doing?

Michelle,
I am sorry to hear that Baby John is having struggles! And that it is wreaking havoc on your routines right now. I know there are others who are making similar needs get met while still keeping up with homeschooling, so hopefully they will chime in. I am always impressed by mothers who juggle so much on top of the regular day-to-day, and I hope you will find a rhythm soon. A long time ago, we walked into a Tai Kwon Do studio for a birthday party, and there was a quote on the wall that I still remember because I loved it so much...

"Frustration means you are about to experience a break-through."

I have so often found this to be true; the frustration is so, well, frustrating...and you don't know for sure when the break-through will come, but you gotta keep plugging away at it so that it does.

Hugs to you - hope to see you at Sodalitas next summer!
AMDG,
Sarah

Thank you so much Sarah! We will find a routine. With all of my kids as soon as we find a routine it seems they're moving onto the next developmental leap and things change. Changes are just a little more difficult when we have extra people in the house that make mom unavailable for long stretches of time. We will reach a new routine soon I feel sure and I'm learning what they can be trusted to be a little more independent with and what they need me right there for so that has been a blessing.

I love that quote, thank you so much for sharing! I hope to see you again at Sodalitas next summer as well!