Random Thoughts on "Rebooting" Our Homeschool

At the beginning of the 2014-2015 school year, I had the year all planned.  I had created lapbooks and activities and scheduled out all of our reading and worksheets and everything we were going to do for the year.  A week or so before we were to start, I had the distinct impression that we were to put all of that aside and unschool for a year.

Yeah, that was hard.

I prayed about the impression and it still felt right so that's what I did. It was a good year.  I had Amelia in October at home and it took a long time to recover, so that was good.  We were involved in park days and field trips and I had my mom's nights and things, so we weren't completely bored.  Everyone spent time doing things they were excited about.

The next year came and we got involved in our homeschool co-op.  We did school 2-3 days per week that year, but it never felt quite right.  It felt off to me and I still don't know what was wrong.  We did finish our history book, but not much else.  

Then came last year.  We had put the house on the market in June, planning to move during the summer.  School shouldn't have been affected.  It was a sellers' market and the house was expected to sell within a matter of days.  It took six months.  We finally moved in the beginning of December.  Problem was, I had packed all of the nonessentials and put them in a storage unit back in June - only for a month or so - to make the house easier to keep clean and to sell.  That included our school books.  I was able to do some planning before everything was packed, but not all of it.  By the time the books were unpacked and I had finished the planning of the school year, it just seemed pointless to start before the holidays - especially when it was such a busy time of year anyway.

We had a couple of false starts in the spring.  I tried to use the plans I had so carefully made, but they never seemed to fit quite right.  Some of the things we were doing needed to change and I tried to just tweak things but it didn't work.  Then I broke my leg and that was the end of trying to do school for the year and for summer.

I'm finally getting around to where I can walk a little again - on crutches anyway - and I can do more around the house, so I've been thinking a lot about school this year.  It's supposed to start a week from tomorrow and I don't have any idea what I'm doing.  I keep telling myself that I can just use the plans I set up six months ago, but I know they won't work.  It seems like such a waste to not use them.  

Anyway, I know I need to completely "reboot" our homeschool and I'm a little lost as to what needs to change.  Eli's a sophomore this year and I am so scared of failing him.  Miri will be a freshman next and I want to start her high school out right.  I've had the feeling that what I need is a reminder of why I'm homeschooling.  I've been doing this for so long, that it's no longer a question of whether I will homeschool the kids or not, but I think I need to keep hold of the why.  I wrote down my philosophy of homeschooling several years ago and I wonder if I can find it again.  I know it helped tremendously back then, so I think I'm going to do that again.  Hopefully I will be able to find my direction again.