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MrsKey
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Location: Alabama
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| Posted: July 10 2007 at 10:32am | IP Logged
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Well, our "school year" last year was a complete and total organizational disaster. We were trying to use Seton but i just drove us crazy. Between a vacation, building a house in a different state, selling the old house, moving from FL to AL, keeping an eye on the construction of my parents' home (two doors away), moving my parents from FL to AL, trying to find a decent Mass, adjusting to living two houses away from my parents ... we just didn't accomplish a thing. Thank God that children are resilient and that they learn in spite of us at times. 
We're getting ready to begin anew with a new "school year." And for the first time since the second grade we're starting the school year with books that we've chosen on our own and with no formal lesson plan in place. Yikes! I'm both excited and a bit scared.
I'm a contradiction ... I crave structure but then I start to feel smothered and/or crushed by it. Every year we start the year with Seton and great optimism. And every year (but this past year more than most) we end up frustrated, annoyed and having dumped the grade submission part of the program. So we're going it on our own this year and I hope to begin to incorporate some of the amazing ideas that you all share here.
Thank you all for your willingness to share what works for you so that others may learn from you!
__________________
J.M.J.
Carole
Wife to Tom since '94 and mom to Bree since '96
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Lisbet
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| Posted: July 10 2007 at 10:45am | IP Logged
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Sounds like you do have alot going on. Your post makes me nervous as we will be using Seton for the first time in our 8 years of homeschooling....
__________________
Lisa, wife to Tony,
Mama to:
Nick, 17
Abby, 15
Gabe, 13
Isaac, 11
Mary, 10
Sam, 9
Henry, 7
Molly, 6
Mark, 5
Greta, 3
Cecilia born 10.29.10
Josephine born 6.11.12
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MrsKey
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| Posted: July 10 2007 at 10:53am | IP Logged
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Lisbet wrote:
| Sounds like you do have alot going on. Your post makes me nervous as we will be using Seton for the first time in our 8 years of homeschooling.... |
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Lisbet,
Don't get me wrong ... Seton is a good program and we probably will return to it as we prepare for high school. I think the problem is me. I crave structure. But then when I get it I start to feel 'trapped'. I'm pretty sure this is a personal failing.
But it also seems that what happens to us is that we start with Seton with great expectations and then something happens (in 3rd grade it was my husband loosing his job, in 4th grade it was my father having open heart surgery and a prostate cancer scare, in 5th grade it was the move) and it throw us off.
I'm an "all or nothing" kind of person so once I'm off kilter I just assume that I will stay that way (which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy). "OH. We're so off track we'll never catch up." Then the stress builds and I end up throwing out the baby with the bath water.
So I figured I'd try something new from the beginning and see where we stand a year from now.
The odd thing is that dd is bright, easily keeping up with her age/grade level peers and gets good test scores even though we've yet to completely finish a year with Seton using the grading program. Yet starting the year without that structure (that we rarely use) makes me nervous.
I'm just a seething mass of insecurity and contradictions. :D
__________________
J.M.J.
Carole
Wife to Tom since '94 and mom to Bree since '96
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joann10
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| Posted: July 10 2007 at 11:27am | IP Logged
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I have never used Seton but have several friends who do. They all are ok with it because they don't have to put the time into planning.
I prefer my own plans. I spend time in the summer and working on the overall plans and then I specifically plan the first quarter. I make real detailed plans, but I don't date them. We just work along day by day--according to my plans-- even though we may not be doing school every day. I continue to make more plans as we get near the conclusion of what I have already written.
We have always run into things "interrupting" the school year, like new babies, sickness, and job changes.
My husband calls these things "life".
Doing it this way I can see that we are making progress, but we don't feel like we are behind or trying to catch up. 
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Lisbet
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| Posted: July 10 2007 at 2:16pm | IP Logged
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Carole, Sounds like you and I have alot in common! We've always done our own thing (loosely following CHC's recommendations) We are switching 3 of the 5 school age kids to Seton this year to 'take some pressure' off of me when it comes to planning. I wonder if it really will! Ah well, we're going to give it a year and see.
__________________
Lisa, wife to Tony,
Mama to:
Nick, 17
Abby, 15
Gabe, 13
Isaac, 11
Mary, 10
Sam, 9
Henry, 7
Molly, 6
Mark, 5
Greta, 3
Cecilia born 10.29.10
Josephine born 6.11.12
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JuliaT
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| Posted: July 10 2007 at 2:37pm | IP Logged
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Carole, I am the same way. I like structure. So I thought I would like having someone else figure out what we were to learn, how we were to learn it and when we were to learn it. I have tried for the past few years to use this kind of curriculum. Each year has been discouraging and frustrating. Finally in Feb, I decided to do things more relaxed and to do them solely on our own. Wow! we have had the best time of learning. My children have that spark of learning that I have been chasing for the past three years.
For this coming school year, we are using books of our own choosing. We don't have any lesson plans. We don't have any schedule. We are just going to read and learn.
I hope that your year will be exciting and that you will see that spark. Yay, for taking the plunge!
Julia
mom to 3 (8,6,4)
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Juliainsk
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nicole-amdg
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| Posted: July 10 2007 at 3:56pm | IP Logged
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God bless you all!  I'm a mess when it comes to choosing materials this year. I've been thinking of going Seton for my oldest dd (4th grade) while I get myself straightened out. I try to do Real Learning-styled unit studies in the context of Kolbe's curriculum with CHC substitutions and supplements and religion based on the liturgical year and Faith and Life and Baltimore Catechism, and it seems that other people manage to juggle all those things but I just can't balance it all. <take breath>
I want the benefits of everything, so I hate to give up anything. I love to plan and am not so good at execution. And the green-eyed monster is constantly nipping me in the back of the head when I hear "what everyone else is doing."
I don't crave structure, but I need it. What I really need is some manner of accountability.  I'm thinking that Seton's program will help--maybe just a one-year experiment.
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Nicole
Wife to 
Mom to    
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MrsKey
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| Posted: July 10 2007 at 4:02pm | IP Logged
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nicole-amdg wrote:
I don't crave structure, but I need it. What I really need is some manner of accountability. I'm thinking that Seton's program will help--maybe just a one-year experiment. |
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That's the best part about home education ... one-year experiments are not only allowed but encouraged! If it doesn't work for you or for your kids you can always make a change!
__________________
J.M.J.
Carole
Wife to Tom since '94 and mom to Bree since '96
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cathhomeschool
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Texas Bluebonnets
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| Posted: July 10 2007 at 6:44pm | IP Logged
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Carole,
A big part of me craves structure too. Yet the more I homeschool, the more comfortable I am with our lack of structure (because I see that we are all learning). One thing that helps me is to have structure in certain aspects so that I am comfortable with freedom in other areas. Sometimes that means that our daily routine will be "structured" but the lesson content will be more flexible. At other times, we may have several subjects that are more structured while we go with the flow in other areas. Usually, it is a combination of these things, and the subjects that are structured change as the year progresses.
__________________
Janette (4 boys - 22, 21, 15, 14)
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Topic: Took a vacation ... back and nervous
