What was I Thinking

Woke up yesterday morning feeling anxious. We were scheduled to meet with our Para-educator to receive our books, lesson plan and to have my son's reading ability tested. I was scared and second guessing my decision to homeschool my children. I continually asked myself, "What were you thinking?"

Seeing all of the books made me want to faint. (Once I got home and sorted by student edition and teacher edition it wasn't so bad) My son tested lower than I expected in reading which took my anxiety and feeling of drowning into anger and frustration. I have been working really hard with him and he has made improvement, but it just proved to me how his school failed him and that I made the correct decision to school him at home. 

My lesson plan that I received was beyond basic. Do Chapter One and related workbook pages. Our program does allow us to use a variety of teaching methods and decide what we teach, I was just hoping for a little more guidance since this is my first teaching gig. I have spent the last four hours looking at workbooks, teacher editions and student editions to grasp some sort of sense where to begin. I finally had to walk away from literature, LA, Reading etc. and took a look at Science, Social Studies and Math. Now it is all starting to seem a little more doable. I did learn one thing, I need a good lesson planner to get me organized.

I spent the better part of the evening looking for a good planner to help keep the kids and I on some sort of schedule so that we don't slack off. One would think that finding a planner to use would be easy, right? Wrong! At least not for me. I read on another blog how she used sticky notes for each day in her planner that way if she had to move something to another day it was easy. Sounds like an interesting idea. This morning, I will be making a trip to my local Target to see what they offer and make a decision.

Yesterday is behind us!!! Woo Hoo..... I had a great night's sleep and I am feeling much better. So, What was I thinking? I was thinking that traditional school was not working for us and that we needed to do something different. I was thinking that my son required more one on one learning and that the school he was in was not able to provide that to him. I was thinking that I want my children to have more positive influences in their day to day life. I was thinking that I want to be closer and have a closer relationship with my children. I was thinking this is the right decision for us at this moment in time.

I am blessed to have found a wonderful group of homeschoolers on Facebook and Yahoo Groups. I am grateful for all of the support, advice and resources that they have shared. Most importantly, I am thankful to know that I am not alone in this journey and that there will always be someone out there to think we homeschoolers are crazy, but also that there are a lot of people who think we homeschoolers are doing what is best for our children.