Things are going to work pretty differently around here next year. I'm hitching our wagon to the local school district's homeschool support program, partly because things didn't go so hot around here last year without structure and outside accountability, and partly because the kid wants to spend more time around other kids. This way she can take a couple of classes on a school campus and see how that feels. But it means changes, some pretty sizable ones, beginning with the requirement I need to satisfy in the next couple of weeks to write up a learning plan and syllabi for the subjects I'm teaching at home. Those documents need to cover the entire 2012-2013 school year.
I'm a big-picture person, so planning that far out doesn't hang me up, but I also tend to make long terms plans and then not follow through with them. Then some distance into that long term I look back at the plan and go "Huh. It's interesting that I thought I would do all of that." Hence the need for the bureaucratic hand on the shoulder. Freedom actually does not suit me at all. I'm finding it quite refreshing to be able to admit that.
But having made the decision to go through the district, I find myself doing rather a lot of hand-wringing about academics lately. Someone wants to know what we're going to do! And I don't rightly know! What do we do about math? Now that she's been a fluent reader for nearly a year, how can I work with her beyond saying "go read for an hour"?
Fortunately this switch means I now have access to certificated educators tasked with helping parents like me put together a solid school year for a kid. Not only has it been hard for us to float untethered to an institution in terms of having someplace to go and someone to answer to, but I'm simply not sure what's appropriate for her.
Go read for an hour, I say.
Okay, she says.
....
Now make a diorama?
I have no idea.