Well, today is Friday and we have our first week of school
under our belt. I was hoping that all of the planning and organizing that I
have done would have paid off in some way. As I looked at other
schedules/calendars that some other home school moms have come up, I felt super
inadequate. They were all color coded and quite complex. Some even needed a key
of some sort to figure out!! Yeah, I’m not doing that. It has to be user
friendly for me to even think about sticking with it. In fact, it has to be so
simple that my kids can just figure out what is planned for the day and run
with it. This is what I came up with.The little stars indicate that it needs to be done that day.
Nothing fancy, but hey, “Ain’t nobody got time for that!”
;-) The girls know to find the day of the week that we are on, and mark it off
as they go along. This has helped in the quest for teaching a little more
independence. Yes, I like it!! It’s going to be a keeper.
The next issue I wanted to deal with before it became one this
year was, “Mom, I don’t know where my math book is!” I can’t tell you how large
this house seems when something has gone “missing”. We have wasted good parts
of our school day just gathering supplies. So, each girl got their own tote,
and all of their school books have to go right back in it after they are graded
for the day. So far this has been pretty nice.
I have found that a simple $5 shoe rack from Walmart is
perfect for holding all of the creative supplies.
We made a decision this year, as a family, to have the girl's
alarms go off around the same time my Sweet Man’s goes off, in the hopes that
everyone could see him before he goes off to work. This will hopefully aide in
the fact that if we get our school work done early we might actually still have
some free time left in the day to do super cool stuff…like sit on the couch and
eat cookies.
So, with all of that planning done ahead of time, was it a
good week?
Day 1: Everyone woke up bright eyed and ready to face the
day. I had prepared a nice healthy breakfast to enjoy while I read the devotion
of the day to the girls. We are reading through ‘Talks to Girls’ published by
Queen’s home school. School went pretty smoothly with everyone marking off their
charts and really liking the fact that I gave them the freedom to pick the
order that they were completed in. I have scheduled a break at 10:30, with a
light snack and some free time play to get the wiggles out. I also need to
still be able to do laundry and dishes.( Doesn't that sound fun?) Grace learned about snails and wanted
to teach the other two all about them. I was super excited when I went to look
for them and found them observing some snails while Grace went over everything
she read. My heart melted. Loved this scene so much! It was a really sweet day…until
math! That stuff’s hard...
Day 2: Alarms went off. Girls were not quite so chipper to
make it downstairs. I found something really easy for breakfast…toast I think.
I completely forgot about that whole break time I planned. Almost didn't make
it to lunch without passing out from hunger or having a few meltdowns of
sitting too long. Something was mentioned about one’s butt muscles being so
sore and fingers cramping up. Sorry girls…
Day 3: Everyone slept through their alarms. EVERYONE! I’m
pretty sure I told the girls they needed to put all those books BACK in their
totes when they were done. My living room is starting to look like the Parent
Teacher Store caught a bad virus and threw up in here. :-o We had to spend the
first part of our morning putting the house back together. School work was
finished…still loving the schedules!
Day 4: We had some motivation today! As soon as our school
work was finished we were going on a picnic with friends! Assignments were
finished in record time, house was put in order, lunch packed and we headed out
for a fun afternoon of play. I fell asleep that evening on the couch while I
was the subject of an art portrait. It’s weird though…my portrait kind of looks
like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. I should probably start doing a better job at putting on my make up for the day. ;-)
Day 5: It took the washer/Dryer noise, an alarm, and me to
arouse the girls from their slumber. Not even sure what we had for breakfast.
Think it might have been a cookie. It had oatmeal and peanut butter in it
though…so I guess we can still claim we’re eating healthy?? I chose Fridays to
be a little bit lighter on the text book work in hopes that we could really
take our time with our art. We just had a little bit of book work to get
through…and I couldn't even make it. I feel asleep on the couch sometime
between the spelling test and the free time buzzer. Oh yeah, those are quick
girls. They aren't going to miss that free time thing anymore. They swear they
almost died that day! So, Sadie has decided to elect herself as the clock
watcher and make a buzzing sound when 10:30 rolls around. Isn't that lovely...
Was it a success this week? It was hard. It was long. I
actually lost weight from forgetting to eat. Hey, I’ll take that!! Man, it was
so worth every minute. We found out that snails return to the same place every
day. We marked a few with fingernail polish so we can keep track of them. We
had a mamma wren successfully hatch 6 eggs on our back porch. We observed, drew
and then researched them. Did you know the Male Wren makes several nests and
the Mamma gets to pick the one she likes best to lay her eggs in? Yeah, I didn't
either. How sweet is that!? This week I was able to see the girls eyes light up
with wonder again about the world around them. We were able to talk about God
in the most unexpected times. One child would just simply blurt out a question
that she had been pondering about the bible. How awesome is that!? I wouldn't
give this time up for anything…although, I do believe I am going to need more
coffee and perhaps a wide selection of cookies!
