Our adventure begins...

Our first week of homeschool is over.
The first day was Wednesday (I certainly wasn't going to start on my birthday!) and it was pretty anti-climactic. Maybe its the romantic in me that thought it would be a day of epiphanies and "ah-ha" moments. Instead it was a day of being hit over the head, again and again and again, with the fact that I/we are at the very very bottom of an enormous learning curve. My dream that the kids would love being encouraged to think outside of the box, enjoy the less structured schedule and be able to do subjects together turned into my own "ah-ha" moment. My middle child thrives on structure and wanted to know what our "specials" schedule was (what day was art? library? when, exactly, will we be doing science? for how long? at what time is break?) These were questions I thought I was prepared for (anytime we want! for however long you would like! no, you don't have to ask to go to the bathroom!). These were not the answers he was looking for. He wants his specifics, his schedule, his "box." My oldest was clearly bored with the history lesson (geared to the younger set), eager to start her French lessons (parlez-vous francais??), and reminded me over and over that the math was everything she did last year.
It was clear that my romantic notions of schooling at home needed serious tweaking. I went back to finding more curriculum for the bored one and figuring out how I was going to slowly guide my middle to discover the joys of stepping out of his comfort zone.
Keeping all this in perspective, we continued on Thursday. It turned out that maybe not everything I hoped for was wrong. We had an absolutely lovely day of quietly working independently, figuring out a French dialogue, riding our bikes to pick up the littlest from his preschool, building a nomadic-like structure out of things found in our yard (the middle choosing NOT to following his sister's lead and create something different), and making, eating, and cleaning up from lunch together. This was what all that work was for.
Friday, it turns out, is our library day. It is on our white board under "Specials." The littlest has story time and the other two can browse and discover. And the oldest will soon start a year-long program that will result in a novel.
We have climbed just a bit up that learning curve. We still have a long way to go but the view from here is definately better.