Hamster Wheels and Sunshine

It's that time of year again. Although I haven't been homeschooling that long (and certainly not long compared to the veteran homeschoolers that I admire and look up to) I DO know that tis' the season to spin crazily in the curriculum hamster wheel. (I must pause and ask Alexis: Did YOU coin that phrase or did I? I know we've used it together in many a conversation, and I don't want to steal your phrase, so consider this is a citation, if it is indeed yours! My memory, as usual, fails me.) I'm really really really trying to stay off the wheel this year, and so far it hasn't been terribly hard. It also helps that I LIKE the science, math and history programs I used this past year, and we plan to just continue (or let's be honest, just finish) the next level of each.

(If you care to know my curriculum choices, keep reading: if not, skip this lengthy parenthetical section! We did Apologia's Exploring Creation with Astronomy, and plan to continue with the Botany next year. We use Math U See for Math. For history we are using a TruthQuest guide for US History and SOTW Volume 1 for Ancients. We are not even close to finishing SOTW since we started midway through the year, and I supplement with lots of library books. So really, there's not all that much left to decide!)

The hardest part of choosing school stuff is always the literature. My girls are big "read me a story" types, and so literature ends up being the highlight of our school day. That means if I choose poorly on those, we really feel it. It's like I hear that deep, scary movie voice saying, "You have NOT chosen wisely!" Cue wicked laughter. (Case in point: we went for a "budget" version of some Native American Indian Legends for the third term this year, and when I tell you that it's a travesty and a wonder that this book ever was published, I'm not exaggerating. The stories make little, if any sense, and I don't consider myself so challenged as to not be able to understand a book of short stories written for children. One has to wonder what was going on in the dark smoky wetus in which these tales were transcribed. But I digress...) Every year, without fail, I spend the longest portion of my hamster wheel exercising on selecting and scheduling the literature portions of our school plan. I have some ideas for now, but will spend the greater portion of the next two months figuring out and fine-tuning what I think will work for us.

There is good news for us hamsters, though! It's pretty much a certainty that the "head spinning" feeling of curriculum choosing is cured simply and easily with bouts of regular sunshine. (Then again, isn't EVERYTHING?) The converse is true also: the worst thing EVER is to have a cold, rainy, muddy spring. It only invites crazy people like me, who refuse to just do the sensible thing and buy (pardon me, I don't like this term, but I don't know what else to call it) a boxed curriculum, to sit inside on our computers, or in bed on our iPhones, or on the toilet on our iPads, pouring over 30 different versions of Pilgrim's Progress. Or maybe we'll do Robin Hood. But it must be the "right" Pilgrim's Progress and the "right" Robin Hood. Abridged? How abridged? Unabridged? Illustrated or not illustrated? Or better on audiobook? Or free on iBooks or Kindle or Nook? Which free version looks better? Oh dear. You see how it has been coined the "hamster wheel."

ENTER SUNSHINE on a dashing stead to rescue mommy homeschooler from said HAMSTER WHEEL. As if in direct response to my over-jealous exercising of late, the sun arrived, and we spent the better part of yesterday outside. (I should point out, that another cure would probably be me ACTUALLY exercising, not just pretending that I exercise on a giant hamster wheel. But for now, I think the pretend stuff will have to do.) For an entire afternoon, I avoided all decisions about books, curricula, scheduling, book lists, etc. It was wonderful. We went to mass on campus (Jesus heals too!), ate lunch out on the student terrace by the cafeteria, played by the water fountain, and tried to soak it all in. After getting home, baby took a nap, and us big girls laid on a picnic blanket in the sun and played the "read me a book" game until the main reader was also asleep herself. :-)

And now it's raining. And cold. And where IS that iPad?