Getting Help in our Homeschool

The weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders and the reason for that is, at this very moment, sitting at my kitchen table.  My biggest stress factor of the year is gone and my family is happier.  I highly recommend this cure for stress.

What is it?

A science tutor.

My two oldest are doing Physical Science this year.  This is the second year for one of them and this year wasn't proving to be much easier despite the change of curriculum.  My brain backfires when it comes to the higher sciences and maths.  By higher I mean sixth grade and beyond.  As soon as you begin mixing letters and numbers, my brain freezes.  When I see the Periodic Table of Elements, I go into a coma.

In addition to planning, preparing for, and teaching lessons for five other children, I was trying to find time to teach myself 9th grade science just so I could make a bit of sense while helping my kids.  I even employed the internet to help clarify our lessons, all to no avail.

Enter, our dear friend Katie.  She loves to teach.  She got through 9th grade science (more recently than I, I might add).  She's single.  She and my kids have known and loved each other for years.  She is creative and loves to do experiments.

Every week, for two hours, Katie sits at the kitchen table and reviews the previous week's assignments. The kids have to read a certain amount of pages, write down the main ideas, and answer the questions.  She explains and reviews for about an hour.  This is done conversationally and via games.  There's a lot of laughing along with a lot of learning going on.  She rewards the kids with candy or fun activities.  For another hour or so, they do experiments.  Today, in talking about calories, they will be making ice cream.  Trust me...I've never been THAT fun.

The kids have had at least 2 quizzes in the last 5 weeks.  My son received his first 100% of the year.  In the first session, Katie figured out exactly how each of my kids learn and has put that knowledge to use to benefit them.

My kids don't complain about science any more.  I don't have heart palpitations nor do I have such an overwhelming feeling of failure.  My responsibility now consists only of asking the kids if they've done their assignments and paying Katie every few weeks.  *sigh of great relief*

Are you struggling in a certain subject?  Seek out someone who has time and knowledge and a willingness to share both with you and your students.  It may cost a few dollars, but the success of your children and your relief will be invaluable.

Let me know what areas you get help in or if you're struggling to find help.  I would love to pray for you and your family!

SchoolhouseTeachers.com

Recently, I've become a huge fan of The Old Schoolhouse.  I used to get their print magazine & loved it.  Kind of like a homeschool convention you could snuggle up with while drinking a hot cup of coffee.
While I enjoyed their magazine, I am LOVING their new app that makes the magazine digitally available on the iPhone (also on Kindle Fire, iPad, and Android).  I can now take it with me wherever I go and enjoy reading an article here and there whenever I have a moment.  An added bonus is that I can annoy all my Twitter followers with links to the articles.

Have I mentioned I love Twitter?  Yeah, well, that's another post.

Anyway, since I've been able to carry the TOS magazine with me on my phone, I've been more interested in its website and e-mails.  Today, I found out a great resource that they are making available March 1, 2012.  Note the time:  that's only 1 hour and 12 minutes away.

SchoolhouseTeachers.com is being unveiled on Thursday.  It is an incredible resource of a variety of lessons and ideas created by dedicated and talented teachers.  I've already become a "Premium" member.  For less than $5.00/month (face it, two Starbucks coffees cost more than that!) I get all the past & present issues of TOS magazine, all the lessons for each month (Geography, Home Ec., Technology, Writing, Literature, and more), each Expo to Go (I've been dying to check those out), and more!

I've already looked into the classes being offered this month.  Amazing!  I hope to have my kids learn about Google Earth with the Technology lessons...I've already spent the last 45 minutes discovering things on that which I never knew existed.  Seriously, with all the extras on that, one could spend an entire school day learning history, science, geography, etc!!  The Home Ec looks absolutely fantastic and I love the idea of having new writing assignment ideas each week/month when I come up empty.

I seriously think this website will help me a lot in making up my curriculum for next year.  I hope they'll be continuing throughout the summer for those days when my kids just need something to put their minds to!

Check it out & let me know what you think!