Hey! It is going pretty good I think. I am at work most of the day but my wife seems to be getting a system going and my older two are LOVING it. My youngest is having a hard time but he did when he went to school as well. I have seen a difference in them for sure! Thanks for asking.
We will check into that summit!!

It's almost halfway through the school year! How has it been going so far @fledge1 and @fantasia?

*high fives mm1991*

Just wrapped up 2019! We're on break until January 6th.
The school year has been going quite well so far. Science in particular was fun the past couple days because we've been making solenoids and electromagnets. I vaguely remember studying them when I was in school, but certainly don't remember making one, so that was cool.
We've also been studying ancient China, and since I'm a Charlotte Mason girl we've read 'Year of the Baby' and 'Little Pear' to go along with it and both of my kids really liked both of those books.

Winter break is over for most schools and there tends to be a bit of an influx of new homeschooling families mid-year. I'll take this opportunity to point out that the website for the Coalition for Responsible Home Education is a great resource for new homeschooling families. They have an entire section called For Homeschooling Parents. Two great articles I'd recommend starting with are: "Getting Started Homeschooling: A Guide" and "Advice from a Homeschool Grad Turned Public School Teacher." Welcome and good luck!

Not gonna lie. This has been one of the hardest things. One of my kids loves it, one of them misses school but doing ok, the youngest HATES it. But doesnt want to goto school either. And we found out he has ADHD and also something called ODD which we are looking into. Been a hard year. Not sure we can homeschool him next year, just for the fact that he has so many educational needs we cant do. Still figuring it all out.

Homeschooling is no joke! Honestly it is good that your childred are comfortable telling you the truth @fledge1. My parents intended to homeschool me for elementary school, but after homeschooling for Kindergarten, they knew it would be best to put me in private school instead (although I was eventually homeschooled for high school). Some kids don't mesh well with homeschool. I've known quite a few families who stopped homeschooling some of their kids but continued with the others. Just based on what is best for each individual child. Good luck to you guys dealing with the ODD diagnosis. I've been hearing about that the last few years and it can be incredibly difficult to manage.

Thanks mm1991
It has been really hard. I think it has been harder to explain to others that he is in fact a sweet fun kid. Just has some control issues. Then they think we just dont discipline enough. He is a great kid. Wish so many didnt have their opinions about it all.
We are still figuring out if we are going to homeschool one next year or all go to school. Parenting is hard!

fledge, I'm very sorry your first year has been so rough! And as I have no personal experience with what you're going through, the only thing I can offer on what to do in the future are two stories from people I know who have kind of gone through something similar to what you and your wife have....
The first is from the president of the Kansas homeschooling group. He and his wife have adopted several children (don't know how many exactly) but all have had some type of disability. The first year I started out he spoke at the opening night session for people who were just jumping in and he said to expect the first year to be the worst and to be awful. And then he said in his experience it always got better from there because they started to learn what worked for each individual child and how to tailor to their needs.
The second is from a close friend of mine whose eldest son was diagnosed with ADD (I know, not the same as ODD), but prior to his diagnosis, he was a complete jerk. After his diagnosis and once he was on correct medication, she had a completely new kid!

I know homeschooling is not for everybody, and regardless of what you and your wife end up doing in the future I hope your son finds some good help to get those ODD episodes under control!

Dang - just how many NarniaWebbers have been homeschooled??

Well, add me to the list

Well, I used to be...a long time ago.
Grades 1-10. It was a time!

I know homeschooling is not for everybody, and regardless of what you and your wife end up doing in the future I hope your son finds some good help to get those ODD episodes under control!

Thanks! We are starting to wonder if it is actually ODD. We have someone else looking and they think it is not. Just ADHD, which will still cause the outbursts and such. Now learning about the correct meds that wont mess him up.

Thanks for the post back. We are still praying about what to do.

Well this has just been an odd thing that has happened in the world right now. And all of a sudden there are SO. MANY. SCHOOL/HOMESCHOOL. RESOURCES. online. Many of them free! *downloads like crazy* It's funny because it immediately jumped to overwhelming with all the things. I finally cut myself off. Anyways... enough of what we all know already and are probably sick of hearing about...

We had about two weeks of fast tracking through our curriculum there because everything outside of our house got cancelled. And then all of a sudden our weather is GORGEOUS this week and so school was shoved into a corner and we've been outside. Our week break starts tomorrow and runs through middle of next week to celebrate Easter and our daughter's birthday so motivation wasn't terribly high to begin with.

I have received two of the four curriculum that I will be using next year, Sonlight's Bible/History Year 2, and Apologia Astronomy, and the obsessive planner in me has already been figuring out my required 186 days. I think next year will be a lot of fun because we're going to dive pretty heavily into the Middle Ages with knights and castles and such. Who doesn't love that???? I'll have to find some fun side projects to do. Tips from homeschool graduates?

The end. is. in. sight! Whoooo!

I have one more week of curriculum to go and that's a wrap for the school year...sort of. I'll have three days the following week to just make up a few fun projects to get to my 186 days, but heaven knows I've got plenty of material lying around to work with.

^^I can't believe I posted that two months ago. This summer has flown by. A week from today is our first day back at it and I'm honestly  not feeling it this year. But the good news is that I think the reason is that we had a MUCH better summer this year than last year. We didn't fully descend into screen-ville all the time. But we've done some fun stuff. We did Duolingo Spanish lessons, my son has started cooking a little bit, we got a modest sized pool so there's been tons of outdoor fun, we've been toying around with knitting (though that hasn't progressed much...working on it!), and Atlas/Kiwi crates and other project boxes. And then of course I read to them every day because that's MY favorite thing to do with my kids.  

Somehow this feels much more satisfying than grinding through phonograms and math facts. I can totally see the appeal of the unschooling approach.  

But having said that, I think we have some fun stuff lined up for this next year as well. Specifically we're doing Apologia's Space curriculum this year, and my son LOVES space, so I think he'll really enjoy that. Still doing combined Logic of English Foundations (we'll finish up D sometime in this half of the year and then move onto Essentials) and IEW early writing program. Also Shiller Math and I need to get their fractions kit ordered soon. And then the bulk of the curriculum is Sonlight, World History Part 2, which will include a huge section on knight and castles and medieval ages.  

Still missing gymnastics, but....coronavirus. Also debating on how to handle our co-op this year, if we want to take a break or if that one will be safe to attend. 

Once we think we have life all figured out. We are for sure going to continue to homeschool our youngest because the schools here can not meet his IEP. And he really doesnt want to go back but my older two daughters wanted to go back so we were considering it. Now with all the COVID stuff who knows. I am missing normal life (like everyone) and ready for a simpler time again. We shall see what decisions we make and follow through on. 

I hope you've figured some things out the past few weeks fledge1! I've seen numbers across the country are anywhere between 41-47% of parents are CONSIDERING homeschool for the next year. My sister-in-law is going to homeschool her oldest, but will be sending him back to school as soon as it's safe again. 🙂 

https://www.wbir.com/article/life/knoxville-family-sells-everything-buys-rv-and-heads-west-to-home-school/51-d9911bf0-8a8f-41f6-81df-1a7f01a23440

In the meantime, I will just envy the above linked family's adventure for the next year. I would do this in a heartbeat, but it would probably be my husband's waking nightmare.

In other news it took us a good month to figure out a rhythm. Amazing how just a few weeks made such a huge difference. My 3-year-old simply could not be left alone, so I've finally been forced to switch up our schedule and do phonics first thing in the morning separately with my older too, JUST so the youngest would have a playmate. Hope this new schedule works out for the rest of the year.