The end of the homeschooling year could not come fast enough for me this year.

That’s not to say that I have not loved homeschool in many ways but this year has been a tough one in many ways. It was an easier year for Little Miss (my 9-year-old daughter) and me but it has been a bear for me and The Boy (my 17-year-old/junior son).

So on Monday after meeting with our evaluator we all felt a mix of emotions including relief, shell shock, and drained. It wasn’t until later that night that the euphoria of knowing we don’t have to do “formal education” for the next three months set in.

The Boy snatched up a pair of comfy sweatpants, giggled, and ran upstairs to curl up under a blanket and take a nap since it was a chillier summer day.

Little Miss – well, she was just Little Miss. She went to talk to her friends on her phone and play some games with them.

I just fell onto the couch in a slump and pondered my battle wounds.

The week before I had been in the ER (doing okay), fell, and slammed my knee so bad I thought I cracked the kneecap (I’m recovering well and not in constant pain, thank the Lord – literally), taken my mom and dad to a doctor appointment (Dad has a pinched nerve in his back and is in a lot of pain and there aren’t many options right now), dealt with some financial issues and concerns, and cried while I put together my son’s homeschool portfolio because he’s a good kid but I felt like he ignored a lot of the assignments I gave him this year because he has totally checked out of school in general.

He had a difficult time adjusting to the new schedule of getting up early to attend a local vocational school because he is a night owl like me.

He also dealt with some health issues – severe allergies, sickness, and anemia.

So, in some ways, his checking out wasn’t all mental. A lot of it was legit medical reasons, especially the anemia. It was making him so tired and apathetic.

That’s one reason I couldn’t push him as hard as I might have other school years.

Despite feeling frustrated with him/school/whatever, we did get through quite a bit this year and learned a lot about several subjects.

This year we used CTC Math again for math and he also had to do math at the technical school he attended for Building and Construction. He has one more year in Building and Construction and then he will have the certifications he needs to go right into the work force in the construction field, if that is what he ends up wanting to do. Right now he isn’t sure what he wants to do after school and that is okay. He  has plenty of time to decide and even if he doesn’t go into a construction related career he will be able to use what he’s learned there for a lifetime.

Broken door in the house? He can fix it.

Lights need to be replaced or rewired. He can do it.

He actually helped my dad rewire and fix lights in his house a few months ago. He also installed lights over the sink at my parents that Dad has been saying he would install for the last 20 years. So, he’s already using what he’s learned in a practical way.

As for science for him for this past year we used an older forensic science textbook. Forensic science was something he expressed an interest in but I’m not sure he really wanted to know that much about it all.

History was literature based so we tried our best to read the books it suggested but, again, it was a rough year of adjustment so that didn’t happen as much as I wanted to.

Little Miss and I studied a wide variety of subjects from a wide variety of sources. We used The Good and The Beautiful for English and Math (in conjunction with CTC Math). We also used one of their unit studies for science. We supplemented English by reading several books together throughout the school year. Some of those books focused on historical situations and some were just for fun.

For history we used Story of Our World, which uses a narrative or storytelling style for lessons.

 We also studied several artists this year, watching videos about them or reading books and then attempting to copy their styles or simply doing our own styles while listening to stories about them.

In our state we are required to at least expose our children to music during elementary school so we did that through lessons on various instruments and, of course, I always offer the kids lessons on an instrument if they want to do that. We can find someone in our area to teach them whichever instrument they might want to learn or there are options online.

Our school years are also filled with field trips (we visited a reptile zoo twice this year), library trips, some meetings with homeschool groups (oddly, I was taken off the mailing list for our local homeschooling group so I may look for a new one this upcoming year), 4-H, and Kid’s Club, which is a youth program at a nearby church.

Getting involved with 4-H will be a bit of a game changer this year as it will allow Little Miss to have even more interaction with children of all ages. I used to think that 4-H was only for farming but they offer classes or meetings on so many different sources now. We have attended one horse and pony club meeting through 4-H and there are five more throughout the summer. This week we are attending a week-long art class through them and in July there will be a beginning cooking class.

There is also a first-responder club that we can join through 4-H and in the fall they will be offering a Lego club.

From what I am understanding about the modern 4-H, various clubs are held and some of those clubs meet once a month, some once a week, or some for a limited time to meet hour requirements for various badges.

We aren’t working toward badges, but instead are focused on having more experiences and maybe making more friends and finding activities we are interested in. Okay, by “we” I really mean Little Miss.

It is a “we” in some ways since I am the one taking her to the various classes.

What’s been nice about the art club this week is that she goes in for about four hours and I sit outside and read or work on my books, blog posts, etc.

In past years I have started planning for the next school year as soon as the current school year is over, but this year I am taking some time to decompress before I prepare for next year. I already have ideas about what curriculum I want to use and in some cases, I already have the curriculum.

The Boy has most of the credits he needs to graduate so we will only be doing a couple of subjects and then he will be attending the vocational school.

As always I am looking forward to the new school year even if this school year was a little rough. I love learning with the kids and watching their knowledge grow in a variety of subjects.