Raising Kids of Character With Grace and Peace
Aug. 4, 2006
A New School Year
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Well, here we face a new year of school, and we are getting ready for it. From cleaning and organizing the upstairs school room to shopping for school supplies, we are hard at it. We originally wanted to start school (well, mom did) the first of August. I am anxious to get back on a good schedule. I'll talk more about that later. Anyway, some opportunities came up for the kids to spend time with friends and family, and I don't pass those up. So, we still haven't begun. That's one of the blessings of homeschooling though. It doesn't take much time to learn a whole grade's worth of stuff within the year, so we don't sweat it when we have delays. As for the schedule, I have had SUCH a big eye-opener this summer. I will NOT go back to the free-for-all summer schedule again. I have determined that even the time off needs to be structured. I may schedule 6 hours of playtime, but it WILL be on the schedule and we WILL follow it as some sort of guideline. This past school year I made a brilliant schedule that made things run SO smoothly. It wasn't the law, but it was a "spine", if you will, for our days and weeks. I stupidly reverted to my insecurities and thought the kids would "miss out" if I didn't let them have a summer break. I thought that meant we were FREE. Not so at all. It's funny, back when I was living like that all the time, I didn't notice the chaos so much. I mean I was stressed all the time and angry, but I didn't recognize why. Now, I know. It's like winning the lottery, living filthy rich for awhile, and having to go back to being poor. Now, that I've seen life on the other side of a schedule, this chaos is SO distasteful. More than that. The babies are grouchier, all the kids don't know what to do with themselves. Everyone makes a bigger mess and cleaning is hit and miss. I find myself with more work because of this. Plus you don't know what to work on for the day nor do you see any accomplishment at the end of the day. It's awful. So, I have determined that we will maintain our morning schedule throughout the year, with some minor adjustments and more playtime in summer. We will schedule in the pool, and we will not play until our work is accomplished. Anyway, like I say, I'm ready to get started. We've created a nice atmosphere up here in the school room. I've got all my curriculum and supplies and assignments and even stuff to occupy and engage the babies. Andrew starts this year with the kindergarten level. Please pray that I will have increased patience, creativity, and stamina for him. The older two will be primarily self-taught. They'll read with a dictionary, do math drilling and worksheets, incorporate science, geography, history, literature and poetry within their reading, work on spelling and grammar, and explore French and piano lessons in their "free" time. In our schedule there is "free" time and then there is free time. Some of their time is to be spent pursuing their interests rather than just messing around with video games and tv. I've limited the "zone out" free time during the days because, as we all do, they'd spend half the day doing this. Anyway, that's an update for ya. I hope to have more for you as the days progress. Thanks for thinking of us. I hope all of you are having a smooth transition back into the school year. |
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Aug. 7, 2006 - What a wonderful family!
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