Our Second Year of Homeschool, A Reflection
I am not going to lie, I walked into the second year of homeschool with my head held high but, by the end of it I felt like I was spit out of a tornado. Here’s why…
Side note: Oh yea, that giph pretty much captures how I felt at the end of the school year.
We made the decision to start year two early so, during the second week in August we hit the books with hopes of finishing the year out before Memorial Day weekend. At the time, we were homeschooling in New York. You may already know that school starts for most of us in the Northeast after Labor Day weekend. So, I was really looking forward to getting a head start on literally all the traditional school kids around us, and using that “extra” time to take it easy if we needed to. You know, not be so rigid on the schedule, and truly enjoy a long summer vacation at the end of the school year.
But, things just didn’t pan out that way. We ended up calling it quits way later, like during the second week of July, later. Yikes!
How Did this happen
I keep on asking myself how we got so off track, and can’t seem to drum up any good concrete answers. But, I can say without a doubt we definitely hit that goal to “be more flexible” when it comes to our schedule. On the plus side, life returned to normal in New York (well, close to normal) and we were able to take 3 road trips during the year – upstate New York in August, Colorado in December, and Tennessee in April. We also explored Long Island during our field trip Fridays. A vast difference from our first year experience when we were all staying home during the pandemic.
I don’t know, maybe I am just being too hard on myself and us? Honestly, I’m a little lost on how to gauge our progress in the homeschooling world sometimes. But, on the plus side, both Nora and Sadie have grown immensely academically, and I couldn’t be more proud of how far they’ve come. That 1:1 attention that homeschool offers has truly been a blessing for all of us.
Looking Back
When I wrote about wrapping up our first year of homeschool, I knew that the second year was going to have its own set of challenges with my husband returning to work (in person), and me left to captain the ship alone at home. And, yea it was tough. There were many days when it was hard to motivate the girls, and keep a routine. Days when we just didn’t want to sit down at the table and do the work, when their listening ears were on the fritz, and others when life threw a few curveballs our way (as it tends to do to us all).
Even with all of that, I would still do it all over again.
Looking AHEAD TO OUR THIRD YEAR OF HOMESCHOOL
Year three is promising to be an epic year for our family. Not only are we living in a brand new state, you can read more about our new home right here. Tennessee’s homeschooling community feels a lot larger than it did in New York. But, the girls are getting involved in more extracurricular activities too.
Nora is enrolled in a homeschool art class this fall, and Sadie started cheerleading for a neighboring town. Not to mention, we are planning on joining a local homeschool coop, which will be a great opportunity for the entire family to make new friends, and having that support circle to lean on is priceless.
While we didn’t have that much of a summer break this year – 4 weeks to be exact, and most of it was spent moving into our new home – I can tell the girls are already itching to get back to work. Crazy right? Who knows, maybe year three will bring year round homeschool? Only time will tell…
Feature Image by Katerina Holmes
