Straight A's in Rock Collecting

This blog would probably be more appropriate for the homeschool blog, but I don't have a blog over there yet, so I'll stick it here.

In Minnesota, we're required to test our children at the end of each school year.  Then I send the tests into the school district, they correct them and send the results back to me.  It's a stressful time for me.  I want my children to do well.  I know they're intelligent.  Our youngest is behind in reading.  (She's in first grade.)  She just doesn't like it yet.  Her spelling, punctuation and grammar all suffer because of it.  I know that she'll catch up, her brother did.  But on this year's tests, it doesn't look good.  Her brother, on the other hand, whizzes through everything.  This is not good.  He makes mistakes that are easily avoidable.  I try to slow him down and get him to check his work.  See?  I take the whole thing too seriously.  Do you ever feel that if you don't keep up with the public school, you're a failure?  We're learning things.  Things like how to run a metal lathe, and how to raise a beef calf.  We also do math, reading, social studies, etc.  I guess I haven't been stressing the importance of these subjects.  I thought learning about things that they were interested in would incorportate enough of the other stuff.

Okay.  I'm done venting.  This too will pass and we'll go on to homeschool again.  I think I'll have them both keep a journal through the summer.