What I didn't count on was a four-year-old attention span and a two-year-old distraction. My beautiful school room, shiny new workbooks, carefully laid out teaching plans, and creative displays could not prevent our homeschool days from crumbling into disarray. After four grueling weeks, we took a breather--and Mommy regrouped.
The research, that should have started my journey, suddenly took priority. I read a number of books and searched blogs like crazy to get ideas. Then, a few months after our first failure, we took another stab at it--with much greater success. Homeschooling became all I had ever hoped it would be. After we finished off K4 (just this last week), my son came to me with this announcement: "Mom, I've got a great idea. Let's do school through the summer." And so we are.
We are in our groove now, but I learned a very valuable lesson from our rough start. It takes the failures to find success. And there might be a few false starts along the way to the finish line.
For us, everyday is an experiment, and even when the experiment goes awry--I've learned something. Like the great inventor Thomas Edison, I've simply discovered one more way it can't be done.
My encouragement to you would be this: don't be afraid of the mistakes you might make. It's a natural part of the process.
As you do your research and cruise those beautiful blogs with all those wonderful ideas, keep in mind many of them started with the same fears (and perhaps even failures) that you are facing. Learn from their wisdom, but remember--we're all on a journey of discovery.
Care to read a few more "rocky start" stories? Here are a few links to my favorites:
No comments:
Post a Comment