And the madness begins. The nervousness in the pit of my stomach, the headache of titles, and charts, and costs and curriculum and planning.
It's that time again. Planning time. I hate the feeling that I'm not teaching my children up to their potential yet its hard even after 9 years of homeschooling, to navigate the curriculum waters.
We attempted Sonlight last year. I think we got something out of it. Even just the fact that you can't judge a book by its cover. Some of the books we had for the core were older versions with not so attractive jackets. You know kids these days, flash and dance. They automatically go for what is bright and shiny. These are not bright and shiny books. But the little one discovered some real favorites even among the ugly books. We perused different countries, cultures and learned a whole lot about other people who are NOT like us in most fashion.
Then again, when we got to about mid February we were in survival mode and I was just covering the basics to make sure we got what we needed done. It became 'Boring School' then. I do not, I REPEAT, do not want to do that again this year! I'm planning days off this time. We tried to go from January to May without a break. You can go insane in the membrane trying that fiasco. No way. We need a day or two off each month at least, Christmas, Spring break, etc... Otherwise we're worn out by March.
I'm shooting for a balanced schedule of a couple days off per month, possibly Fridays off as well, depending on how we're doing on time/progress and hopefully ending after Easter. Then we'll just read and do field trippy things instead, when the weather is beautiful.
I'm down to one child now. The teen is off to full time college although I'll be helping her whenever she needs, since she is living at home. But planning for one child is a whole other ballgame. It opens up many opportunities to try things you might not have had time for when you had more children to teach.
If I could just get a loose plan down that I can live with, I'd feel so much better. I think I need some Tums...
3 comments:
Good luck, Kris! You're an awesome teacher and look - one in college next year so you're doing fantastic!
May your schedule this year be enjoyable and have enough breaks when you need them.
~Luke
We did a schedule last year of 9 weeks on, one week off. It was fantastic! We aren't going to be able to do that this year because a late-summer vacation throws it all off. (I insist on finishing school by the end of May.) Breaks throughout the year, though, are so important for us - especially in the spring!
I hope you find a schedule that works well.
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