What do you do when everyone is sick? My tendency is to let all lay around and not do anything. But I always feel like we could be doing 'something' so I try to have kids read, watch science videos. SOMEthing so I can count it for school. I know, I'm a mean mom. I'm thinking if I always let them do fun things when they're 'sick' they'll want to be sick more often! ha We do sit and watch a movie together sometimes. Can you tell I'm wishy-washy on the subject? It's hard to get the almighty homeschool-hours-counter out of my head... (in our state we have to keep track of hours.)
This is where we're at today. A whole household full of sickies with the flu including DH and me. I let them sleep in while I'm up catching up on paperwork, making calls, packing some packages, scheduling repair & installation people (shower and cable.) Is a mother's work never done? I'm ready for a nap.
(Clemie the rotisserie chicken dog.)
Not to say that our homeschool is uninteresting and I have nothing to post, but its been the same-ole same-ole lately. January and February is always full of catching up. Although I've tried to be very good in keeping up with school paperwork, I start scrambling to reorganize us. I don't want to be caught in May/June with my pants down so to speak. I don't know if I'm just destined to be disorganized or if its a curse. I've tried having certain notebooks/folders, certain places to put paperwork, certain rituals and habits. We don't stick with a one. I'm blaming it on the holidays. Between Thanskgiving and Christmas, we get schooling done but we're a wreck. Nothing is every organized. How to change this, I have no clue.
We went on vacation the beginning of January (with my parents, SIL & her kids) which didn't help my organizing problem one whit. But we did have a lovely time. Some schooling was definitely included. It went down like this (and for those who can't see how a vacation can count as school, watch...)
ENGLISH: Word games played out loud on several long car rides. Mad libs on the plane.
READING: Many books were read, magazines. Watched Neverending Story and found the book at the thrift store to read too!
SCIENCE: Visiting Kennedy Space Center 5 hours. Visiting the ocean; gathering shells, identifying them, finding crabs, stingray and fish on the beach. Visiting Orlando Science Center for 4 hours.
HISTORY/GEO: Visiting Epcot Countries & cultures all day (plus Epcot's greenhouse & fish farm)
ART: Making posters for the marathoners (DH & my dad ran it). Making sandcastles at the beach. Drawing at the house.
PE: Walking in Ikea's 300,000 sq ft facility for 3 hours, walking at Disneyworld and Universal, Epcot parks 3 days all day, Swimming in the pool and the ocean, Walking on the pier in St. John's Pass, Running from the seagulls trying to eat out ice cream.
I'm spending my evenings these days, catching up on paperwork so I can quit pulling my hairs out... Maybe I'll just pull the gray ones. I'll be dreaming of the beach while I'm doing it though...
As we near the holidays we have the hardest time keeping on track. We're always wanting to take vacation days. This year we did manage to do school right up until the holidays (hallelujah!) Our Christmas and New Years were wonderful. We haven't returned to the homeschooling yet. We might get a few days in next week and then we're off on vacation for another 9 days. Some schooling will find its way into our vacationing since we'll be visiting Cape Canaveral/NASA, Sea World, the beach and various Floridian hotspots of culture (can Disney count for something?! lol)
Anyway, since its the new year and I'm trying to live more consciously, I thought a few Homeschooling Resolutions were in order. Care to share some of your own?
1 - Better Record keeping. Oh my goodness! I need to be on top of this! We have weekly sheets. Monthly sheets. The teen even keeps track of her own hours! What is my deal?! I need to set aside Friday mornings to catch up on the weekly charts for the week, otherwise they wait weeks and I have to remember what we did. Try remembering how much the little one read 3 weeks ago! It's impossible! I can barely remember yesterday! (I still have not picked up the Desk Organizer. I need to get them to keep me organized!)
2 - More research. On my part. The teen is doing some alternative subjects for school yet I don't really have a plan. We kind of fly by the seat of our pants. I'll say 'okay, today work on measuring the house, look up how to build walls, estimate paint; for your engineering project'. But if I have no ideas for the next day, we skip it. I need at least a month planned out ahead of time. More research, more planning on my part.
3 - More Time Together. I know. We're together 24/7 but we don't spend time reading together anymore. I liked when we were reading through a book. I'm starting that back up again. The kids can do their art while we take turns reading to each other. Wonder what book we should start with? Classic? Contemporary book? Ideas? Also need to play games, all sorts.
4 - More of a Schedule. I know, some people are lamenting the fact that they're too booked, too scheduled. That's not a problem here! We used to set a timer to get subjects done. We used to fit in exercise and chores to our school schedule. I want to do that again.
5 - More fun. This is a must. We can get bogged down in textbooks and must dos, should dos, everyone is doing it so we musts. I want more field trips, science experiments, planned art projects, history dinners, etc... Life and school should be fun.
(Clemie the rotisserie chicken dog.)
