This is because after a month of homeschooling my house looked like a Salvation Army Thrift Store without a business licence, and something about loads of second-hand, falling-apart stuff that we don't actually use (and have no where to put) really damages my calm.
However, Theo got working very fast on his own and it was a relief to find that I could sit him down with a few "assignments" for the day and he would get through them largely unsupervised in about an hour--leaving most of our days free for
While they played and read school books together, I managed to tackle everything from sorting through the old baby clothes, to weeding our closets, to finally sweeping under the kitchen table, and scraping the sticker-collage off the coffee table. I only got about half the work list done, but I felt infinitely less hysterical by the end of the day. Which was good because somehow in my hysteria I didn't quite realise I'd signed us up to go on a field trip with our homeschool friends and I found out at about 6:30 am the morning of the trip!
Technically we'd already done this "field trip" with the kids on a weekend. I'd planned ahead in August to make sure we did a family trip to the Apple Barn-- a local tourist farm--to get a load of apples (in theory for baking, but that never happened) and to teach the kids about harvesting and growing food. However, as it was a family trip on a Saturday it was rather crowded so we skipped the formal tour and the hayride and stuck to giving Theo whatever bits of education I could manage in between session on the bouncing pillow and the twirly slides. But this time we went with other homeschool families we knew and did the whole she-bang. It was great and much less crowded than on the weekend. However, the day was quite full and by the end I was exhausted. In spite of my grandiose plans to fill our weeks with "themed activities," I've come to realise that I can only really manage about two special projects before I lose my will to educate my kids at all.
After that our week collapsed completely. My plans for projects fell apart and our morning routine disintegrated because I was too tired to get moving. I wasted my time online and let the kids watch documentaries. Theo still got plenty of book work done and we did a trip to the library--largely because I needed to avoid fines.
This meant Friday was over-full with outings and unfinished plans. We baked the cookies we'd planned to bake last week (and decorated them), made birthday cards and did the usual trip to Grandma's, plus hosted friends for dinner. It was not the most focused week ever but somehow Theo got everything he needed. He got plenty of writing and reading, a little Math from his workbook, and a lot of art (especially if you include cookie decorating). He got science at the Apple Barn and in the baking and cookie decorating. He got practical life lessons and lots of "physical education"--on his bike, at the playground, walking to the grocery store. He even got a bit of history--the Apple Barn had an old apple-sorter and he got to learn all about the history of it.
It felt like we got nothing done that week and like I'd completely fallen off the bandwagon, but somehow on reflection school sort of happened without me. It made me realise a couple of things. One is that kids largely teach themselves and each other--which explains why 1 teacher for 30 some odd kids kind of works sometimes. This is a relief because even if I'm having on off week, chances are Theo will still get more than he needs. The other thing I realised is that school plans are sort of like menu plans. You make them so that you have a rough idea of what to do and what's been prepared or is easily accessible to you that week without giving yourself extra work. But if you don't follow them for whatever reason, it's really not the end of the world because there's always next week--and chances are everyone got fed (literally or intellectually).
Sounds like you're learning as much as the kids -which is great, because the more you learn about your limits and your abilities and needs, the better you can structure the lessons to accomplish what you need to without hitting your walls. And the biggest lesson - kids NEED to learn and they'll do it however they can. Use that! (although it already sounds like you are). You're doing great, Rhia!
ReplyDeleteI would echo Bev. I like the analogy of the menu plan: it's there to give you a structure, but in the end, "the Sabbath was made for man." Sounds like Theo did a lot of learning this week, just of a different kind.
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