Gearing up for the new school year

This summer has gone by in the blink of an eye.  Summer swim team kept us busy for the month of July.  Kids had a great season.  They placed in the majority of their events.  A couple of first place ribbons, a bunch of second place ribbons, and a few third place ribbons.  It was very exciting and exhausting. At championships our team came in 4th out of 6 teams.  Which was a step up from the year before and 2 steps up from the year before that.

I spent the beginning of August finalizing and purchasing the last of the curriculum. Then I spent 2 weeks in bed with a virus that then allowed a strep infection to settle in.  That was not so fun but it did give m a much needed rest.  And now I am scrambling to get the school books in order and get everything ready.  The last 2 weeks is normally when I would have done all of the set up.  Such is life.

I still can't believe I am embarking on homeschooling high school.  Some mornings I wake up and think "I am some kind of nut!  What am I thinking?  There is a perfectly good high school right down the road with clubs, and activities, and lots of kids my kid could be friends with, and seasoned high school teachers who at least think they know what they are doing."  Mister B's friends are all talking about all the cool stuff they will be doing.  They all sound so hopeful and excited.  I think I have high school social envy.

But then I talk myself off the cliff by remembering why we homeschool in the first place.  Yes, the social stuff is definitely harder and Mister B does find it kind of frustrating at times.  There are not a lot of teen homeschoolers in my area.  The teens are busy with homework and after school activities.  The reality is, during the school year swim team takes up a lot of our time but that is not the same as hanging out with friends.  The fact that none of his schooler friends are free for hanging out because they are busy with their sports is not the point.  I do struggle with this.  But, if you ask Mister B what he wants to do he does want to continue homeschooling because he knows a good thing when he has got it.  As much as he wants the social aspect of school in the same degree he does not want the wasted time, the large class that doesn't allow you to dig deep into a subject because you have to move on, the waiting for others or the sinking feeling of trying to catch up. 

This will be an exciting year, I am sure.  I think the key for me will be not to let my fears and doubts rule my decisions.  Curriculum has been researched and chosen and we are going to leap in and move forward.

Little Miss M has all the benefits of following her Big Brother.  The fears and doubts that I am experiencing with him I already went through for middle school.  I am confident in those decisions and since I have already done 7th grade with Mister B it will be a little bit easier for me to teach it for Little Miss M.  Mister B is my guinea pig and Little Miss gets the benefits from the experiments.