Homeschooling is something I prefer to do during summer. It’s fun and it’s brief . I teach the entertaining subjects both my little and I are interested in. We review math and other academic subjects, and it’s very laid back. When public (distance-learning) school resumed for us in August 2020, I was excited, I thought it would be very similar to our homeschooling schedule. I was so wrong.

The public school we attend is wonderful, we are planning to return once COVID-19 is over and school opens up again. The distance learning, has some great aspects to it, and I am sure it works for other parents, but it did not work for us.

My daughter didn’t complete many of the projects. I kept thinking that we just haven’t hit the learning curve, we just have to wait a little longer, but it was four months into the school year and not much changed. I asked the teachers for help, and they dismissed my requests. I am positive that the teachers are drowning with their home/work life. Even so, their response was not helpful. I gave them honest requests, and insightful information about my daughter and they ignored it. One of the teachers also had meetings with my daughter and would make her cry with her lectures that were attempting to be stern, but in reality were mean. We did not have the right fit with the teachers we were assigned to.

The truth is, yes, that treatment was a major contributor to leaving the school during this time, but my husband and I kept yelling when our daughter didn’t finish her work. We usually attempt positive parenting and use natural consequences, but when she had her deadlines and the teachers emailed me requesting for her work to be done, it would put on the pressure. My daughter would cry in the mornings and was always distracted during the synchronous meetings. She would not finish her work on time. My husband and I were frustrated that we both had to plead, and yell for our daughter to complete her work. That is the main reason why we left public school.

We are both College Graduates, but we are not teachers. We did not go to school to complete our credentials. But, our homeschool plan is much more advanced and we complete so much more work as opposed to the Distance learning. I am able to focus on my daughters problems. I notice she needs to review her doubles during math problems, and we also need to go through her grammar again, and find her spelling struggles as well.

This is the schedule we have:

English involves Spelling, Writing, Grammar and Reading.

We are able to teach her Spanish, these are the books we are using:

Because of Project Happy Home we were introduced to Lightning literature, which I love! I bought it during a sale and attempted to use it during school (that didn’t work!). Now we are enjoying it! I borrowed all of the books from our local library and we are only a little late in returning a few of the overdue books.

We are also using an art program that teaches art, history and geography. That helps with the history and geography subjects, which I usually combine to make it easier to remember and easier to complete within our time frame. That program is You Are An Artist.

We don’t wake up as early anymore, we wake up when we want and work on making breakfast together, instead of rushing to get to class with a sandwich for breakfast.

We are using all of the workbooks I included in this blog post: Distance Learning. The only new items for our curriculum are the Spanish books I included in this blog, as well as Lightning literature lesson plan and Fire Fly Nature School for science.

Our physical education is playing on our yoga hammock while I use the treadmill. It’s better than what we did before which was just walk around the neighborhood, roller skate, or bike ride, or nothing much for me.

For this family homeschool is looking so much more promising than the distance learning. It’s been a lot easier for us, there are no more tears, and a lot more work gets done without fighting or yelling. We still need to work on writing, because that is where my daughter struggles. I’ll post more about the writing once we start next week.

Let me know what you like about distance learning or dislike. Leave them in comments, and also let me know if you’ve tried homeschooling instead of distance learning.