Hello ladies. I need some assistance/ confirmation as to how to handle our current situation as it relates to schooling the children.
My husband has been finally diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, with paranoia. It is a disorder that has elements of schizophrenia and bi-polar. I won’t go through the long story of years of symptoms, just to say that these past two years or so have been showing more frequent episodes, with us needing to leave the house for a few days or just hunker down for a few days while he goes through it. He’s had 3 episodes since the beginning of Dec. and this last one lasted 9 days in it’s active stage. We are still at my parents’ home and it is going on 4 weeks now.
Needless to say when he has the bad episodes, it destroys our homeschooling attempts, or at least weakens severely due to the environment and our stress levels.
I have some of their stuff here and they have been doing the basics. I struggle with doing any of it and even checking the work is sometimes such a chore. My son (13) has taken to checking his own and sometimes his sister’s work, too; which is very helpful. She is 12, but has learning and developmental issues of her own, as well as sensory dysfunction. I need things to be as self-teaching as possible.
I am trying to get us back into the home, find him alternate lodgings and become the one with full charge over all our property holdings and finances, as well as a few other things which must be enforceable by law to keep us safe and secure. My mind is distracted by the things that I need to handle, not to mention I’m struggling with migraines and severe muscle tension/spasms which goes berserk at a moment’s notice and leaves me flat on my back. I can’t listen to or read narrations, frankly, so I have to use alternate means of measuring their comprehension. The best I can do right now is have a TM to check things.
These are my ideas:
Scale down to only: math; English; history; Bible study; Jewish studies; values; Hebrew; lit.; their leisure readings/audios; Shakespeare on audio; science; spelling
History:
1) they read The Trojan War independently and use the Memoria Press study guide
or they listen to Green’s Tale of Troy with no requirement
2) also, listen to Marshall’s Story of the Greeks.
Math:
Continue in MUS and LoF. Son checks himself and reports to me (maybe he could use a piece of paper to write missed/correct?). My dd I have to work with.
English:
This one I’m struggling with. I’ve noticed that R&S 5 seems a little too much for dd. So, I think I should go back to Simply Grammar (which I own) and just have her work through that. Then when completed, move her into OMT and Jump In writing.
For son, he does well w/R&S. In fact, sometimes the repetition is too much and there is SO much to check! Since he needs more written direction, skip through to the writing portions of R&S to get the basics they teach so well, then: Switch him to OMT and Jump In. I like the curriculum and he’s done well with it, but I think he would do well with something with fewer problems and moving more quickly to teach the writing skills, but equally as thorough. Does that make sense? Is there review of previous studied concepts?
Re: Jump In: does it teach all that he needs to know, other than research papers?
Bible Study/Middot(Values):
This we’d do together
Jewish Studies:
Read independently
Hebrew:
Independently, just review vocabulary; no translating right now.
Lit.:
Listen to our family read aloud, Swiss Family Robinson
Read independent lit for each and use study guide:
The Yearling for dd
Animal Farm for ds
Leisure: on audio or kindle
Shakespeare: Lamb on audio (audible)
Spelling:
Son does Megawords 2.
Dd is natural speller. Since she has to work harder on science and math, I’ll le t slide for now.
H/W:
Both Pres. Penmanship
Science:
Son: was supposed to start Apol. Gen. this winter. I realized, however, that he has good, basic general science knowledge. I don’t think he needs to do Ap. Gen. So I got him the Exp. Creation w/Chem. And Physics book and notebook. He did excellent with the Anatomy book/notebook. He just skips the crafty stuff. So, he can that one independently, things should be more settled. At that time, I suppose he’ll need to do Ap. Physical Science; unless I give him the three AIG Physical science books to read through instead and just begin Ap. Biology and skip Ap. Physical or he could read the Ap. Physical Sc. alongside the Chem./Physics, just not do the experiments. What do you think? He can do the experiments in Chem./physics.
For dd, it’s more complicated. She finally became interested in reading the Exp. Creation books. So I got her the notebook and I think she’ll like it fine, She’s artsy, so I think she’ll enjoy it. However, she needs more science, since that’s not something she’s delved into deeply-beyond bugs and other life-type science and read living books. So what about have her read through the AIG science books, alongside Apo., that have material uncovered in Apo.? Just skip the experiments in AIG and just answer questions/learn vocab. That would give her more exposure. She’s not into doing experiments anyway.
As you can see, I concerned for dd in regards to science. I have to use what I have, so I can’t invest in something totally different.
Any suggestions?
It also occurred to me to ask each of them if they’d like me to get them a specific study. For ex: art for dd and chess book for son or whatever; for fun. I’ve noticed these past two years that they’ve both lost a lot of personal interest in learning; excitement like they used to have, and I think it’s been due to all that’s happened to ruin it and wear us out. Because I feel the same. I don’t feel like reading as I did before either.
Anyway, thanks for reading and any prayers would be appreciated.
Rachel
