Our two child things (5 and 2) are currently in Hawaii, but we are a military family, and we live where the Army tells us. This blog is designed to keep us in touch with our family and the friends we have made along the way, to offer insight into our turbulent military lifestyle, and to share our experiences as we try out "homing school." So glad you stopped by!

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

What Should I Do?

*SIGH* Child Thing #2 now refuses to take an afternoon nap. I suspect, he's not really ready to give up his nap because if we happen to be in the car in early afternoon, he konks out for hours at a time. Or if I lay him down on the couch and turn on the TV for him, he will usually fall asleep instantly. But...if I try to put him in his bed...not gonna happen. He'll stay in there (sometimes) for a hour and not fall asleep.

So this has put a kink in my homeschooling schedule. I used to work with Child Thing #2 in the afternoon during naptime. As I see it, I have two options.
#1. This is what we have done for the past couple of weeks. We start working on school around 10 a.m., with little brother attending school with us. This makes for many distractions on the part of both student and teacher. We take a break for an hour or two for lunch and recess, then spend another couple of hours finishing our lessons. Today Child Thing #2 got VERY grouchy in the last half of school, so I laid him down on the couch and let him watch a TV show while we finished up school. Child Thing #1, of course, did not want to miss out on the TV time, so she rushed through her work to get it done.
#2. Attempt to get Child Thing #1 to take a nap in the afternoon (by either method mentioned above), and continue with our old routine of doing school during his nap. The thing is I can never guarantee that he's going to fall asleep. And if I use the TV to induce naptime, my scholar will not be interested the least bit in her schoolwork.

I don't know...what should I do?

It definitely makes me wonder about next year, when there will be 3 child things. Will I be able to keep up the homeschooling then?

If so, I'm not so sure I will use Sonlight again. There are some things I really like about that curriculum, but some things that just don't make much sense to me. Maybe this is how kindergarten is supposed to be, but, it seems like the curriculum does not go in depth to any subject. You get just a little glimpse of everything, but don't do much true exploring and learning of any topic. I also don't know that it is organized that well. The science lesson plans bother me because we'll spend a week learning about, say...sea life, and then do a science activity that is not related to that at all.

But I have to say, I have totally loved the "read alouds" included with the curriculum. Child Thing #1 and I have both enjoyed the books, and sometimes I even try to talk Scott into reading some of our school books because I found them so interesting!

Anyway, lots of questions about the future of our homeschool. I don't even know where we'll be living next fall. We'll just take it as it comes, I suppose. :)

1 comment:

Amber said...

When my 2nd started giving up nap, she still had to stay in her room and have quiet time. I didn't really care of she was sleeping or not, but she had to stay in her room for a certain amount of time. It definitely got harder when she was "too old" for naps/quiet time, but not yet quite ready for her own official schoolwork... but we made do. Have you heard of Tot School? There's a blog (1+1+1=1 I think it's called) and it has great ideas about "school" you can do with the little ones. I did some of it with my 2nd. And yes, it will get harder when #3 comes along! I can't tell you how many times I ran to Eric telling him I just had to put Natalie in school because I was failing her! He was always so supportive and helped me brainstorm new ways to do things to make it work.