Homeschooling (WUT)

Well, Jesus is laughing His head off at me admitting this but guess what, y'all? We're homeschooling for 2020!

I always swore that I would never homeschool. "Not for me," along with statements such as, "I think I'd rather burn alive" or "that sounds like my personal version of Gehenna" usually accompanying it. And then along came 2020. 

I mean, I'm not usually that defeatist, but some days it applies.

We hemmed and hawed about the decision for a long time -- is it worth it? Can we handle it, mentally and emotionally? The deciding factors for us seemed to be, above all, David's health -- we've been trying so hard to be careful, that sending her to school is a big risk and a LOT of exposure we've been avoiding for months. Even if his risk of death is about the same as everyone else, he has a high chance of getting sicker than other people with covid, and let me tell you from experience -- being in the ICU is HORRIBLE. Being intubated? Or watching someone you love being intubated? THE ABSOLUTE WORST THING. (I have a whole angry spiel about people downplaying it who do not have personal experience with it and therefore have no idea what the actual H they are talking about. I will spare you from that spiel because that's not the point of this post.)

The other factor was, frankly, price. If we're going to send her to school and pay the Catholic school tuition, and then probably have schools shut down in 3-4 weeks as our case numbers are not going down (in Nebraska we've been pretty steady at 250-300 new cases every day for like, weeks at this point), that seems like a lot of burden for not a lot of outcome. I'm sure for some people it is 100% worth it! Our school is even offering a completely digital curriculum, which is so nice of them and isn't the case everywhere. I just had a hard enough time keeping up with all the digital kindergarten we did at the end of the year, that a whole year of school like that for a first grader seemed silly. It was just going to be easier all around to do our own thing.

So! We decided to homeschool. I filed the paperwork and everything and they make you pick a name, so the Tekakwitha Academy is official for 2020-2021. 

current state of the homeschool area, we're going to pretty it up in the next few days

Only because I've been curious what others are doing, I'll list out what we're using for school. I obviously am a TOTAL newbie and sort of just read a bunch of internet posts and reviews until I landed on things. We'll be supplementing with as many library books as possible and see where the year takes us but this is our starting point! Links below are some affiliate to where we bought stuff, mostly Amazon.

Math: Sadlier Math, grade 1 (Kitty's school used Sadlier for Kindergarten instruction, so it seemed to make sense to just pick the next one up to make it easier on ourselves)

Science: The Story Book of Science (I've never been very good at science, so we're going to try this and then supplement with some very low-key science projects on the weekends when the weather gets cold)

History: The Story of Civilization, Vol. 1, the Ancient World (and since I've heard this is a little white-washed after purchasing, we'll do plenty of supplementing here)

Handwriting: Handwriting Without Tears, grade 2 (she has really good handwriting already when she tries, so we went for grade 2)

Phonics: Scholastic Week-by-Week Phonics (idk how this is gonna go, but looks similar to stuff she did in K so we'll see)

Religion: Faith and Life, Grade 1: Our Heavenly Father (I think she's gonna speed through this so we're going to do a saint study each week if I can get my ish in gear to plan it out)

I've also got plenty of other fun things, like dry erase boards and markers, chapter books to read, little Spanish flashcards, and assorted other things. Kitty is SO beyond excited to start school and that has been an absolute blessing from God -- I was a little worried but she's really thrilled about doing homeschool. Cora is also super excited to be "doing school" so that's fun too! 

I think we'll be able to do most of our schooling when Felix is asleep for naps (knock on wood!!! patron saint of napping babies, intercede for us!!!) but if not we'll figure something out. Luckily it seems like we can maybe be done with schooling in an hour or two per day, which is totally doable. I think. I hope. I pray. (wide eye emoji here)

Anyway figured you, my dear loyal blog readers, were due an update. If you have any tips for us I am open to any and all pointers. If you're homeschooling tell me, I'm so curious who else is joining us this year!

Peace and blessings --

HG