I’m not talking about the general state of homeschooling in the US or the world, although I am sure that would be a good choice. Instead I am talking about homeschooling my own teen/to be teen. I have a 14 year old and a 12 year old who will be 13 next month.
My husband has not been too thrilled with our education system. So this year I did considerable tweaking. Some of that was because of hubby. Some because of my own decisions about our curriculum. (I decided not to use A Beka history because of the anti-Catholic bias. We are not Catholic, but that was just not right.)
So this year, each week I am sending my children a syllabus. It has their required reading on it. It has their homework. It has everything. Some of them I do with them. Some they do alone. Some they do and I review immediately. It’s been an interesting week. They don’t like having to do school work, so they complain. But now they don’t get out of it just because they complain. It’s already in the syllabus.
We are reading biographies and making a timeline and reading up on one subject per timeline for history and writing a summary paragraph over that subject. We’re doing American history. In literature we are reading American literature. Much of the reading, at least right now, goes along with the time period we are doing in history. That will become a little more difficult later when we do not have enough lit for a period.
I switched to Saxon math for M. BJU was too easy. A Beka didn’t explain enough. So we are doing Algebra 1/2 from Saxon for his eighth grade math. I think it is working out well. Our science is a little too lax, but the only other science I have is too difficult for him at this point. (Maybe I should check it out again.)
E is doing BJU chemistry and Algebra II from some college textbook. Thankfully he’s doing those with someone else, so I don’t have to worry about it.
E’s vocab is off the internet. We’re doing SAT words. He has to get them, look up definitions, find synonyms, use them in sentences, and then take a test over them. That’s each week.
M’s vocab is from the vocab books E used before. It seems to be working out well.
I wish I weren’t homeschooling. It’s hard. But it is good for the boys. If I live through it we’ll all probably be better off.
Speaking as a mother of four who has homeschooled for nearly eleven years, I can tell you that it IS difficult. We have graduated three and have one left at home who is 17, and I will never have any regrets over the time spent with them. Homeschooling is NOT a guarantee that you will not have problems, and NOT a guarantee that your children won’t rebel… however, I can promise you that you will know you did your very best for them. I pray God blesses you and your family through this and your efforts.