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Tina P.
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| Posted: Nov 04 2007 at 11:48pm | IP Logged
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Last week, we schooled one day. My excuse? We had to prepare for Hallowe'en, and All Saints and All Souls Days.
While we *had* been going full-boar, I do *not* feel like getting back into the standard, day-to-day schedule of what we'd been doing. I just want to segue into Thanksgiving and then celebrate Advent and Christmas seasons. Never mind the history, math, and science. Never mind grammar, spelling, writing. Let's just read good books and do crafts.
My problem with this pseudo-schedule? We had goals. We wanted to finish a certain bit by Advent. We only have to complete few more chapters in history, a few more topics in science, a few more lessons in math and/or spelling and grammar! I guess I need to chin up and do it, don't I?
But tell me. Does anyone else feel this way? Or is it just me? How do you keep focused and accomplish your goals?
Thanks,
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Tina, wife to one and mom to 9 + 3 in heaven
Mary's Muse
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dollylima
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| Posted: Nov 05 2007 at 12:47am | IP Logged
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I can totally relate. We were away from our normal schedule last week because we were "doing" Halloween, All Saints and All Souls activities as well. Not that they don't count, but the only other things we did were reading aloud and some practice in time-telling and counting money.
Oh, and we did read a Discovery Kids magazine about skin.
I had so many errands and things to do to get ready for the above-mentioned holidays and my upcoming wedding...and this week all of our "school" was observed by my mother..I kept saying "This isnt our normal rhythm, really..." But she just said she thought it was a nice, gentle way of doing it. (My parents loved my son's Waldorf school, as did I, and were not really pro-homeschooling when we started. They would still like to see him return to the Waldorf School "for the social aspect".)
Im really looking forward to getting back in the groove next week so that we, too, can enjoy the advent season without a lot of pressure. I am planning on doing mainly advent-related lessons the entire time. Quite a luxury, so we have to get ourselves back on track in the next couple of weeks if it's going to happen.
I notice that we tend to wax and wane this way...and I just keep reminding myself that we are not rushing to get somewhere. We are inhabiting the process. I will never get to have this time with my son again. I try to remember that and enjoy whatever flow we happen to be riding along with at the moment.
Be gentle and kind with yourself.
Heather
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Heather
instantkiwi
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JenniferS
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| Posted: Nov 05 2007 at 6:36am | IP Logged
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I'm right there with you. We were sick for a week, then we had All Saints. I so don't feel like getting back into things.
Jen
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Lisbet
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| Posted: Nov 05 2007 at 6:54am | IP Logged
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Tina, this happens every single year at this time for me. I thought our big leap into full enrollment with Seton would prevent it this year - it has not. I LONG to just read to my littles while they draw/color/sculpt, to prepare lavish liturgical centered meals, to do all of the seasonal things that are in such abundance this time of year.
I take much comfort in the fact that we have just rolled with the punches starting this time each year in the past, and my kids are definetly learning. And most importantly, when we get to the end of the day, the things we have done have brought us closer together, and more importantly, closer to God! :)
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Lisa, wife to Tony,
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mrsgranola
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| Posted: Nov 05 2007 at 6:56am | IP Logged
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Thanks so much for posting this thread. You are helping to calm my guilty conscience.  Like you said, All Hallow's Eve parties, All Saints' Day, All Souls' Day... they make for a *busy* week! And then we had the Bishop at our church for a a special All Souls' Day Mass in our cemetery on Friday with a luncheon afterwards, then we had to help set up for the K of C yard sale the next day. Sat. we worked much of the day at the yard sale. Whew!
I do hope to get a couple weeks of lesson plans done from now to Thanksgiving. I know that once Advent hits we plan to slow WAY down and get ready for the baby's arrival. Looks like we'll be scheduling her delivery for about Dec. 18th. 
I made the mistake of watching a Martha Stewart Thanksgiving Special I had recorded yesterday so all *I* want to do is fall crafts and make pies!
JoAnna
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Mary G
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| Posted: Nov 05 2007 at 7:04am | IP Logged
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I was talking to MaryM about this a couple of weeks ago, Tina ... it seems like we're still not really in the "groove" and it's November already. I just figure that real life is real living and real learning and so be it!
Hang in there and remember that we all have weeks (months, even semesters!) like you had last week. And our kids are learning and living and loving in the heart of the home.
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MaryG
3 boys (22, 12, 8)2 girls (20, 11)
my website that combines my schooling, hand-knits work, writing and everything else in one spot!
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Matilda
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| Posted: Nov 05 2007 at 10:21am | IP Logged
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Thank you dear Lord for these beautiful, wonderfully honest women! I can't tell you how comforting it is to know that I am not alone! Thank you, thank you, thank YOU!!!!
BTW... we all of last week off. No school work at all! Whoo-hoo! Whippee! Hooray!
Now a mild illness has snuck in and we are back to the daily grind only because we can't really do anything else. It is thin time of year though that I am seriously tempted to take off whenever we want and school during the summer when it it too hot to do anything else!
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Charlotte (Matilda)
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: Nov 05 2007 at 10:53am | IP Logged
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Ha! I feel like that every day, all year long!LOL! Sometimes I cave, sometimes I don't. In the end, as long as we love each other at the end of the day, it's all good.
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Theresa
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ALmom
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| Posted: Nov 05 2007 at 9:11pm | IP Logged
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Well it usually doesn't hit me until Advent. We work like crazy for the first half of the year, cause things slide quickly once we hit December. So, while it hasn't hit us yet - it will, it does every year! By April we are simply counting "school days" for the state and looking forward to summer so we can really learn - what we want to by just reading books, etc. This year I intentionally only planned for the first half of the year and then figure I can be more realistic about what we really will do and accomplish once I am already in December looking at our second half of the year. Of course with my highschooler there are a few things we simply must accomplish.
Janet
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SallyT
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| Posted: Nov 06 2007 at 11:32am | IP Logged
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Um, "focused?" "Goals?"
Sally
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Tina P.
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| Posted: Nov 06 2007 at 12:10pm | IP Logged
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Sally:
My kids haven't had a proper rest from school in ever so long. I was pregnant, having babies, moving house (several times from country to country). The only stability they had was our family. Our school schedules tended to get messy, so we just plodded on, year after year, without many breaks. Our kids carried a full schedule through summer this year. I tend to like seasons that move quickly tempered by seasons that slow down. I guess what I was saying was that I'm ready to slow down. The weather is gorgeous around here and my blood is stirred to get outside. However, what I planned to have accomplished for this season is not ready for the slow-down. Does that make sense?
This year, my goal is to let them do as little as possible (except, of course, to celebrate the seasons) during the Advent/Christmas season, during the last week of Lent and the first week of Easter and then to give them time now and then when the weather is promising to hike, bike, and play.
My oldest is in 8th grade. High school and all the expectations that go with it are looming. Scouts for four of my children, children's choir and piano lessons for five, and sports (seasonally, and numbers vary depending upon interest), take time away from the structured learning that we do. That's why we need to be focused and have goals.
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Karen S.
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| Posted: Nov 06 2007 at 3:54pm | IP Logged
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Thank you for this post and to all who have added to it.
I, too, have been in this place. Unfortunatly, my fears have jumped in: Will my dd's ever learn what they need to? What is it that they need to learn? Then I move to the extreme: As long as their growing spiritually, do I really need to teach them "school" stuff?
A realization came to me this morning,though. I am rather lazy. I wondered what I would do if I wasn't homeschooling? What would I have to keep my laziness at bay? So, I thanked God that He has given me this gift, did what I could do today and hope for more tomorrow.
A side note about Advent. What do you mean by advent focused lessons? Could anyone lay that out for me?
Thanks.
In His Mercy,
Karen
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SallyT
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| Posted: Nov 06 2007 at 10:30pm | IP Logged
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I was kidding (we tend to be kind of "in the moment" a lot around here . . . )! And I know exactly what you mean -- why match your schooling to the "formal" school year, when your own seasons of learning don't correspond? It's hard to find a balance between our natural learning rhythms and needing to get some stuff, anyway, done by the end of a year.
We always take Advent more or less off, though my high-schooler won't be able to this year. We do crafts, make presents for Christmas, spend a LOT of time on Advent devotions (last year from the 17th onward we hung "O Antiphon ornaments" on our tree) -- and I still never feel we're "doing" Advent enough! There's always more I'd like to do.
One idea I've stumbled upon kind of by accident is that of "buying up" a grade level for certain subjects and taking two years to get through the book, instead of pressing to "get done" by the end of a year. Depending on your math program, this can work for math: my 4th grader is doing Level E in MCP Math instead of D, where he probably "should" be -- I've discovered that the first part of most math books is review, so we take it a little more slowly and learn as we go. Maybe it's just psychological, but that seems to give us more leeway, so that I don't feel as pressured to get it done by a deadline, and we can take some time off when we need to. This same child and I are working our way through an old-ish high-school Latin text that I got off the freebie table at a homeschool-group event -- we definitely don't feel the need to finish that this year, but we're picking up enough Latin steadily enough that I feel confident in counting it as a subject for "credit" at the end of the year.
I have not had much success in getting my kids (or myself) to do much formal school in the summer, even though our summers are so hot and miserable that it would make sense to stay inside then. My high-schooler did work on electives off and on, but I just couldn't make any of us be very serious.
I am very weak when it comes to formal planning -- even in the co-op English class I'm teaching, detailed lesson plans seem to exist to give me something to decide at the last minute not to do. At home I just amass books we want to read and make myself a list of some very general goals for each child, and we go from there. If I plan too "tightly," then we don't have leeway to go off on fertile tangents, or to take a day off, or a season off, to learn in different ways. The only things I adhere to consistently throughout the year are real basics, chiefly math, writing and Latin. And religion -- just doing our devotions together in the mornings covers a huge amount of "academic" territory: history, via saints' stories and Mass readings, since people want to know what the Bible readings are about; ethics; analysis; sitting still; counting and multiplying (beads on the rosary); catechism, and so on. Taking care of the spiritual life does seem to take care of lots of things . . .
Anyway, I do appreciate the reminder of our freedom as homeschoolers to structure the academic year as bets fits our family's needs -- what a great blessing, always!
Sally
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TracyQ
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Yes I do! It's the time of year, the holidays looming, and the fact that we've gotten off to a good start, and are becoming tired! So we need to pull ourselves up, and get a move on to keep up the good pace we began!!! I feel the exact same way you do!
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Blessings and Peace,
Tracy Q.
wife of Marty for 20 years, mom of 3 wonderful children (1 homeschool graduate, 1 12th grader, and a 9th grader),
homeschooling in 15th year in Buffalo, NY
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Tina P.
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| Posted: Nov 08 2007 at 11:40am | IP Logged
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OK, so now that I've resolved to have a *normal* week, my kids are ... wow! ... I don't even know how to describe it! It's totally frustrating to me.  Aren't my kids supposed to mirror my thoughts at exactly the same time I'm thinking them?  Well, we're ALL on candy highs. My oldest daughter is flying through her schooling and so far, will finish everything just before Thanksgiving except some history/bedtime reading. I suppose I should consider myself blessed to have ONE level-headed child. Please pray that we get through these next few weeks without too much struggle!
Thanks and God bless,
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Tina, wife to one and mom to 9 + 3 in heaven
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Carmie
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I usually set up a 12 week term and we're on target to end November 30. Now, we don't take December off. I just completely switch gears and we're going to focus on Advent, more story time, arts and crafts and cooking. In my mind, it will be more relaxed and joyful. Then, we'll pick it up again with another 12 week term in January. It seems to help to break things down into manageable parts. I've just sort of accepted that the "groove" I hoped to find isn't completely going to happen all the time, but that's real life!
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mama251ders
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We are doing rather well. I am praying to be as flexible and trusting as some of you are! We are planning to slow WAY down during advent and focus mainly on preparing for Christ's birth. I have a ton of plans and just hope that we can get to everything! I started out with Elizabeth's Tomie DePaola's unit study and then added some things of my own from different books I have around here. I am so excited about everything that we are going to do and everything that we don't have to do!
My goal is to give mainly handmade presents to family and friends this year as a way of saving money and of giving a little more of ourselves. I am really struggling against mighty forces (read: grandparents) to kick consumerism out of Christmas and I feel like we need to re-set the gift giving standard in our families. My mother just thinks I'm a poop!
Blessings,
Betsie
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Anne McD
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| Posted: Nov 15 2007 at 11:47am | IP Logged
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oh good, its not just me! 
Granted, only my oldest is really in "school," but I get concerened that we're not "doing school" properly every day, with planned out curriculum, followed to the T.
I had a thought a few days ago that I'm trying to wrestle with and make it play out in our days. I'm not organized. There, I said it. I'm not structured, I'm not wholly disciplined, and I'm taking care of four very small children, day in and day out. I'm right brained, I love change, I love discovering new things, I like working with my hands and creating things. Abvoe all, God made me the way I am, and specifically made me for my children and my children for me. Now, I know that there is a good deal of discipline that I need to develop to take care of my family properly, but at the same time, I don't think I'm supposed to go completely against my nature when it comes to homeschooling. Maybe that's part of your situation, Tina? I personally feel that whenever I try to 'school at home', it is so awkward that it doesn't work. Personally, I'm afraid to completely unschool, but I do feel the need to be more relaxed and enjoy it more. I understand you have such a differnt situation, having older children with more difficult things to learn, but I thought maybe my musings might help? 
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: Schedule? What schedule?
