• Aug. 11, 2005
A Week's Worth...
of busy preparations for homeschool is what I have been up to this week. I am still mending from illness. The cough is hanging on as is the sinus headachiness but I have had much more strength as the week has progressed.
We got a "box" in the mail today. That is always exciting! We got the first box of our homeschooling materials for this year. We are still expecting two more by next week sometime. The kids took one look at their new books and wanted to start school today. I had to tell them we are not ready, yet. JoNathan is still plodding through some work from May and the house is not nearly ready to go. It is getting better every day, though.
I have the basic year's plan to finish up. I have a program called E-Home Journal and I plug in all our books and line up the lessons for each child so that we stay on some semblence of a schedule for the year. JoNathan is the only one who has trouble sticking to the schedule but I am really going to be pushing him to stay caught up this year.
What I do is take the books and look at how many lessons or weeks it will cover. Then I spread it out to fit between September and May with some holiday breaks in between. This year we are adding a big trip in February with Dan's job so I have to add that in, too. We do school through the summer but it is mostly what they kids need to finish up, summer reading program, lots of trips either across country (like we did this summer) or smaller trips out of town. If we do not get out of town at all we schedule little field trips around town including a ride on the city bus to the downtown main branch library at least once for the summer. We did not make that trip this year, though. As the kids get older the outings change. We also do VBS, swim team and this year we did baseball.
As we start into the fall we get back on track with a full school schedule including Bible study on Tuesdays, AWANA, Boy Scouts, Upwards sports as they are offered, piano lessons and swimming for J(11). This year J(11) is also adding trombone lessons and teaching himself to play guitar. He just got a student line guitar and has picked it up amazingly quickly. He has been playing for about three weeks and is already playing in church with the chorus time. He is very musical - plays everything he touches like his daddy. :-) We are also looking into a children's choir program for Em. She is such a little songbird! We will be discussing piano for Davy with Grandma (she teaches the older two) to see if she thinks he is ready to start. He is such a bouncy little boy. LOL
As for the Managers of Their Homes *sigh*, I am moving very slowly on this. I have lists and files on my computer but have not had time to have a family meeting about all of this. I have chore charts to make and for my personal schedule to work I am going to have to start getting to bed earlier. I have added exercise, writing time and book review projects to the schedule. It is going to have to be a tight schedule to get all to work. I am scheduling some things like sewing and other projects only two days a week so they will fit without leaving them out completely. I just have waaaaaaaayyyy toooooooo many interests - I know, I know...
Other things that are scheduled that are essential:
Bible study time/Prayer closet
Bible with the children
Read aloud with the children
Schooling time
Meal preparation and bread baking
Exercise
Gardening time
I will try to post it all when it is completed for all of you who are reading or interested in MOTH, too.
Menu planning is coming along and I am hoping to start doing a weekly post at my cooking blog (5 Loaves & 2 Fishes) for anyone interested in that. The plan is to post menus, shopping lists and recipes as I can.
All the gardening projects we have been or will be doing will be at my Desert Garden blog. If we are able to do the landscaping for the front yard I will be blogging it there, too.
We got a "box" in the mail today. That is always exciting! We got the first box of our homeschooling materials for this year. We are still expecting two more by next week sometime. The kids took one look at their new books and wanted to start school today. I had to tell them we are not ready, yet. JoNathan is still plodding through some work from May and the house is not nearly ready to go. It is getting better every day, though.
I have the basic year's plan to finish up. I have a program called E-Home Journal and I plug in all our books and line up the lessons for each child so that we stay on some semblence of a schedule for the year. JoNathan is the only one who has trouble sticking to the schedule but I am really going to be pushing him to stay caught up this year.
What I do is take the books and look at how many lessons or weeks it will cover. Then I spread it out to fit between September and May with some holiday breaks in between. This year we are adding a big trip in February with Dan's job so I have to add that in, too. We do school through the summer but it is mostly what they kids need to finish up, summer reading program, lots of trips either across country (like we did this summer) or smaller trips out of town. If we do not get out of town at all we schedule little field trips around town including a ride on the city bus to the downtown main branch library at least once for the summer. We did not make that trip this year, though. As the kids get older the outings change. We also do VBS, swim team and this year we did baseball.
As we start into the fall we get back on track with a full school schedule including Bible study on Tuesdays, AWANA, Boy Scouts, Upwards sports as they are offered, piano lessons and swimming for J(11). This year J(11) is also adding trombone lessons and teaching himself to play guitar. He just got a student line guitar and has picked it up amazingly quickly. He has been playing for about three weeks and is already playing in church with the chorus time. He is very musical - plays everything he touches like his daddy. :-) We are also looking into a children's choir program for Em. She is such a little songbird! We will be discussing piano for Davy with Grandma (she teaches the older two) to see if she thinks he is ready to start. He is such a bouncy little boy. LOL
As for the Managers of Their Homes *sigh*, I am moving very slowly on this. I have lists and files on my computer but have not had time to have a family meeting about all of this. I have chore charts to make and for my personal schedule to work I am going to have to start getting to bed earlier. I have added exercise, writing time and book review projects to the schedule. It is going to have to be a tight schedule to get all to work. I am scheduling some things like sewing and other projects only two days a week so they will fit without leaving them out completely. I just have waaaaaaaayyyy toooooooo many interests - I know, I know...
Other things that are scheduled that are essential:
Bible study time/Prayer closet
Bible with the children
Read aloud with the children
Schooling time
Meal preparation and bread baking
Exercise
Gardening time
I will try to post it all when it is completed for all of you who are reading or interested in MOTH, too.
Menu planning is coming along and I am hoping to start doing a weekly post at my cooking blog (5 Loaves & 2 Fishes) for anyone interested in that. The plan is to post menus, shopping lists and recipes as I can.
All the gardening projects we have been or will be doing will be at my Desert Garden blog. If we are able to do the landscaping for the front yard I will be blogging it there, too.
The Simple Life???
Taking a look at all the above stuff I have come to realize that my desire to go back to basics like cooking from scratch, sewing things we need and gifts, gardening and homeschooling is not really simple is it??? I have thought about how easy life would be if I just bought bread or cooked from box mixes and frozen dinners. It is so simple to just pop into the store to buy shorts for the kids or pick up something for gifts. It takes a great deal of time to plan and prepare. Do not get me wrong, I feel that all these things are important for my family, for their health and for their education. Allergies spur us toward controlling what is in the foods we eat. As for clothing, to really find things I would let my children (especially my daughter) wear I either have to alter store bought clothes or make them myself. The boys are much easier to buy for but the clothes for girls get less and less modest all the time. Showing Em's stomach is not an option, thank you!!!
I say all of this to say that the simple way of doing things is not always the most simple way to live. That being said, I am having to really prioritize again and teach my children to do more and more in order to be able to get it all done. Television is having to go by the wayside as is computer time. I cannot give up blogging and reading my favorite blogs but just surfing is no longer an option. When I am online I tend to need to do more research or shopping and then get off. That is something I am really having to discipline myself to do. I know some of you have discussed that at your blogs before.
Oh, I am rambling now. I am just thinking through so much between now and September 6th (the day we start school officially). Thanks for bearing with me as I process it all.
Coming up...
Our Charlotte Mason Camping Experience
The Last Bit of Nashville pics and such
Curriculum stuff
Schedules
Menu planning
Whatever else my brain decides to work on between now and September...
Blessings to you all!!!
