School Days

Ever since we started back to school after the holidays I had been feeling totally overwhelmed. See the beauty of homeschooling is that you have freedom. Freedom to choose your curriculum, freedom to take days off whenever you want. But that freedom is tough. See I'm a girl who likes to enjoy freedom, but struggles with feeling the need to 'follow the rules' too. And having this much freedom in our homeschool becomes overwhelming to me. I'm not sure if that makes ANY sense at all but it does in my mind.

I love having the freedom to take days off, sleep in, take an extended school break at Christmastime, etc ... But sometimes I also wish someone would just 'spell it all out' for me. I crave having someone tell me what to teach, when to teach and how to teach. Then again ... I don't really want all that pressure on me and I want to enjoy the freedom we have to make our own choices ... but I get worried and fearful and overwhelmed. I worry that I'm not doing enough, that I'm missing teaching the girls things that they need to know. I fear that if the Lord should ever call us to send them back into 'regular' school that they will be behind or overwhelmed.

So coming back from Christmas break I was feeling this intense sort of pressure. I felt like we'd never catch up on the things we were a little behind on. I felt we were not doing enough and were only covering the basics, which didn't seem to be enough in my mind. I actually entertained the thought of whether the girls should go back to school. I felt like maybe I'm just not cut out for this.

When Martin Luther King Day came and went it struck me that what was missing was the 'extra' stuff. I was making sure the girls covered the basics like reading, language/phonics and math {and a small amount of history and science} -- but I was neglecting the subjects that can be really interesting and fun - social studies, history, science, foreign language, celebrating of holidays and special events, etc ...

Another problem was the order of our day. I used to think we had to order our day much like the regular school kids do. Get up, eat breakfast, get dressed, start school by 9, etc ... But many days my girls would not even wake up until 8 or 8:30am and then I would be rushing them, yelling at them and trying to get them moving quickly so we could 'start school'. And because I'm home with them every day I was not making time for exercise for myself - so many days I would stay in PJ's or grubby clothes all day - hoping that later in the afternoon I could get some exercise done and THEN take my shower. But it made me feel yucky and grubby all day and many days I'd get busy doing other things and never take care of my own health. So I would rush the girls through their schoolwork just so I could get on with the rest of my day. Almost like doing school was a chore I needed to complete.

I knew this wasn't working well. And it wasn't what I wanted our homeschool experience to be. I still felt God calling us to continue this journey. I just knew that it was ME who needed to change. I began to seek the Lord for guidance on bringing order and organization to our days. And then I sought out the help and advice of some other teachers and homeschoolers I know. I felt overwhelmed {in a good way this time!} with their help and wealth of resources!

So, having said ALL that - and sorry this post is getting so long - we now have a NEW plan which has been working SO well!

First of all ... I've stopped thinking we need to order our days by a certain time schedule.

*I let the girls sleep until they are well rested - whatever time that may be. Today it was about 8:15. Most mornings I get up before them and have my coffee and quiet time while everyone is still asleep. Some days they wake up before me and then I just ask them to play or read quietly in their room until I'm done with quiet time.

*Then I eat a super quick breakfast like cereal or yogurt. Then I go downstairs to exercise for 20-30 min while the girls eat their breakfast and get themselves dressed. If they are done eating and getting ready they can play for a while.

*I take a shower and get myself dressed - at this point the girls are playing. In a weird way I have found that letting them play for awhile in the morning actually helps when it comes time to sit and pay attention to school work.

*When I'm all ready we start school. Some days it may be 10 or 11am at this point but hey, whatever works, right? Sometimes we have our snack at this time - I let them eat while they are working on school stuff.

*We do school work until we're done - stopping for a late lunch when we get hungry. Today we finished school work around 2, had a late lunch, then the girls did a 1/2 hour of quiet reading time on their beds. So by the time all that is done it was around 3pm.

*After school work they can play, make crafts, read, etc ... some days they can have privileges. Privileges are things like TV time, computer, wii or nintendo DS time. One daughter had a 1/2 hour of computer time today but the other one lost her privileges for today due to behavior. {More on the subject of privileges another time.}

*In the afternoon I ask them to help with some simple chores like putting away laundry, straightening up their room, feeding the dog, etc...

*Dinner is around 6 ... some days a little later when hubby gets home a little later than that. After dinner we try to do something together - wii, a board game, reading, etc ...

*Then showers on the days they need them, ready for bed, reading and bedtime.

OK, this is getting super long winded ... hope I haven't bored you all to tears! I think I'll continue this post as part two because I have lots more to share which deals more with what curriculum and such we use. Also I have pictures for the second post so stay tuned!!!