Wednesday, October 26, 2011

The Tears, The Drama...Why?

My beautiful and well adjusted daughter with her lab dressed for Halloween.  Doesn't he look happy?

I have four children and they vary greatly in age.  My oldest is 21, and he is followed by my oldest daughter who is 17.  The babies are 10 and 6.  Early on in the home education process I discovered Saxon Math and my first child did beautifully with it.  We zooomed through all of the levels and I knew that I would never ever have to purchase more math curriculum...I had all of the books saved on my shelf, he hadn't even been allowed to write in the workbooks.  I knew I had arrived and was creeping toward being a veteran home school Mom.


The only hurdle I couldn't seem to get over was my oldest daughter's inability to enjoy or retain her math skills.  As a matter of fact, many of her lessons ended in tears and I do believe that she seared my face one time with her post-math-lesson glare.  Being the determined mother, and since I knew the curriculum was the best, I persevered and was relentless in my efforts to make her learn her arithmetic.  It was obvious to me, that since her brother had completed Saxon Math without issue, that she was the problem, not my choice in curriculum.  So I pushed...she pushed...on and on went the struggle.


I still do not remember what made me doubt my program of study, but eventually I did.  And then I heard a fellow home schooling mom, who quit using Saxon when her child cried at every lesson.  Imagine that!  So I began to pursue other math choices and when I realized how much smoother the day could go with the proper course of study, I couldn't get rid of those Saxon volumes fast enough.  Just looking at their covers caused my stomach to turn over.


I am not sure if child three or four will need these books back, but I will buy more if they do.  


What about you?  Do you have a curriculum horror story?  The books that just didn't work for your child's particular learning style? 


If you have a blog and you home school write a post about your experience or use any of the other writing ideas below, and you can link up at the party.



Savannah's Home School Writing Prompts for this week are:

1.  A time when you changed curriculums and couldn't get the old one out of your house fast enough.

2.  Write about your decision to home school.  Did you make your mind up before your children were even born, or did you remove them from school and begin their home education?  What was your compelling reason for starting this journey?

3.  Write a post about your Halloween or other fall traditions and include a picture of your children in costume.
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