Happens every year. The end of the “school year” is fast approaching, curriculum fair time is upon us and an old homeschool mom’s mind turns to evaluations. I always do this. Les always lets me, knowing he couldn’t stop it if he tried. It comes from deep homeschool mom instinct as old as moms. I have been torturing my children for at least a month convinced I’ve ruined their future as clearly evidenced by their utter lack of advanced calculus knowledge.
There are several different approaches to curriculum and, believe me, we have wasted lots of money on twaddle books while we figured out what fit our family. O.K. so after 16 years of homeschooling you’d think we’d have it all figured out. We pretty much know what works for us & what is just beyond Mom’s coping abilities. Then along comes totally different learning style kid A. This child is even more convinced that me that I have totally failed at instilling knowledge. This child is totally on board with rigorous testing, drilling, blood samples-whatever it takes to make sure they are up to par. O.K., so a few days ago we found ourselves at the computer, card in hand, ready to order the coveted pre-planned curriculum that would think for us, you know make sure we covered all our bases. We were ready, dad wasn’t here to stop us, with hand hovering over mouse in breathless anticipation of the genius that would be within our grasp, we stopped to review all the wonderful, knowledge filled books that would soon be ours. Um…”different learning style kid A, you’ve already done this” Upon further investigation we discovered that dlskA had already completed most of what this particular curriculum required to graduate high school. Something must be wrong here, it can’t be. I called the 800 number to speak to the kid learning style expert on the other end of the line. “What grade do I put my dlskA in?” “What grade are they completing this year?” “Um, we don’t use grade levels” dead silence…..”you have to be in a grade””O.K. according to your chart we have completed this grade in this,that grade in that & so on” “uh, what grade are you completing this year””Let me get back to you”. The spell was broken. My children are free. Dad is so relieved that we have made it through another year. When he returned home we told him of our discovery, he just smiled and nodded.
Jacob likes to quote from the movie Meet the Robinsons in his sillier moments.
“my arms are small….I just…..Don’t know how well this plan was thought through”
Child of The King, wife, mom, encourager, trainer, cook, nurse, filler of vessels, bag lady, pre-adoptive mom, destroyer of pure gene pools. The list could go on & on. My arms are small, but His everlasting arms are big enough to hold the universe in place. When I rest in His arms and give my plans over to Him I can truly count it all joy. It’s a wonderful life.
Blessed Chaos 