I have been through total immersion, K-12 style. Apparently, we enrolled in their program just in time for the government auditing (which determines the funding), so we were required to jump right in before our materials even arrived. It has been an incredible 2 weeks since we started K-12. Here are some highlights.
Curriculum
Love it. Cant really believe it! It is a mix of workbooks and online lessons, intermingled with classic books and hands on manipulatives. I am in awe of these supplies, and I cant believe we get to keep it all!
The Teachers
So impressive! The boys got to do some online conference time with their teachers today, and we all loved it. They provide some great interactive tools. The teachers have been extremely helpful and supportive, and they respond right away whenever I have contacted them. Couldn’t ask for more here.
Structure
I'm drowning right now. Seriously drowning. I'm anxious, overwhelmed, and overworked. I know I need to give it time to get acclimated, but I just need to be honest about how this has gone thus far. It’s a lot of parent involvement, which I LOVE but also don’t know how to manage. I have been getting up at 6 am, prepping their schooling for a full hour, then spending the entire day working with the boys. By dinner time, dishes and laundry have hardly even been thought of.
This pace can not continue. It’s not even an option. So we are problem solving, working hard, and praying a lot to know how to manage this. I feel very good about the k-12 program, but it’s requiring us all to be a lot more intense in our time management than we were before. There is definitely not time for big long family bike rides on a beautiful morning anymore. But is it worth it? The learning is so rich and impressive, but if it brings on stress in us all, then the love of learning will die right on out.
Schedule
Tagging onto the above paragraph, one of the problems we have is that we are involved in several things each week that don’t allow us to sit and do schoolwork every day. Thursdays are completely taken up for us by a fantastic co-op that we are in. Every other Friday (at least) is field trip day. Plus, Elliot has a writing class that we have committed to, and that class requires homework as well. So we find ourselves right now, once again, with two many commitments. I planned all these things before I ever considered K-12, and now the question is if we can manage it all. Or is K-12 mutually exclusive with the schedule we have already put in place?
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