A New Approach to Scheduling/Schooling

I had posted in a prior blog my strategy for scheduling four different grades.

Well, it's changed.

HA!

I have been so overwhelmed by the whole thing.  Just looking at that schedule (as trimmed down as it was) just about sent me into cardiac arrest.

I began to think of the advice that a very wise woman once told me...

(I have quoted her in a previous post)

"Just relax!"

I'm not one of those people to just relax though.

I'm a box checker for one.

I have to check off that I did the pages I said I was going to do, or read the pages of the books that I had scheduled to read, otherwise I don't feel accomplished.

I absolutely stress if I don't get EVERYTHING done that I had scheduled to do.

(Even though I remember in public school us not finishing books or lessons and it was not big deal.)

But what I'm doing isn't public school.

I have the pressure of skeptical people looking at me and my choice to homeschool.

I have the responses of, "Oh, you homeschool..."

(Imagined that line dragged out with the look of disdain.)

Although, where I live now, it's more widely accepted.

Thankfully!

But I still get those responses and attitudes.

I've already addressed this issue in an earlier post though...so continuing...

My point is, there is a lot of pressure on me to teach my kids to the best of my ability.

Some from 'outsiders', but mostly from myself.

Having a schedule is important to me though.

I have the tendency to just skip things if it's not scheduled.

Especially subjects or books that I'm not all that interested in.

(Yes, I did end that sentence in a preposition. - a big no-no!)

=)

 

But the advice,

"Just relax."

keeps running through my head.

How can I schedule enough to keep me accountable,

but not so much that I feel like a failure if I don't complete it??

I may have found the solution.

I repeat, may.

I talked with a really good friend of mine this past weekend, who also homeschools.

Sometimes it's just good to talk to someone else and see how they do things.

She was telling me how she schedules,

and it gave me some great ideas.

Basically, this is what I've come up with thus far:

For Reading

A book list of 40 books for my two older children to read.

They must choose 24 of those books to read during the school year.

(with a goal of 6 a quarter to stay on track.)

For Science

Choose a few topics that we want to study during the school year.

Borrow/Buy books that coincide with that topic.

Read them until we're ready to go on to the next topic.

Spend enough time to do science projects that have to deal with those topics so it's not just all reading, no fun.

For History

Choose books that we want to read for the year.

(We're studying US history)

Start reading those books for 4 weeks, take 4 weeks off, read them for 4 weeks, take 4 weeks off, etc.

That will make it so we don't get burned out.

For Math

A lesson a day

If we don't get it done within a half hour, continue it the next day.

For Spelling/Hand Printing

Do it every other day as far as the child will allow, but not going over 20 minutes.

All attention is lost after that.

So basically, my schedule will show me what subjects I want to do each day.

Plus, I'll have a list of the books/topics we want to read for each subject.

We'll get done what we can.

This way of scheduling will allow us time to do side projects, borrow other books that have to do with the same subject, book reports or whatever the case may be.

It will give us a greater opportunity to dive into a subject that we are more interested in.

All this without feeling like we have to play catch up.

If we don't read a particular chapter from a particular book because we chose to do a project,

I won't feel behind.

We'll learn more.

And isn't that what homeschooling is about??

Not getting pages read, books read, papers done because a schedule says you have to do them.

But investigating further.

Learning more.

Continuing to study what you don't know and aren't getting

or reviewing what you do know and moving on.

I long for the day where I don't stress out because I didn't check the box on Week 5, Day 3 under History, and now I'm "behind".

I long for the day where we learn more, dig more, study more and are less concerned with scheduling.

So in 2012/2013 I plan to be

Less of a box-checker.

Be less stressed.

 Have more fun.

I plan to be more relaxed.

Releasing Butterflies

We actually let our butterflies go on April 15th.

I'm just finally getting a chance to post a blog about it.

Last year when we opened the habitat, the butterflies took off like mad.

But this year, we had to coax them out.

K got the first one out on his finger.

It didn't wan to leave, and another one joined him.

One flew over to my leg and hung out for a while.

Gv had one stay with him.

Gt got this one off of my flowers.

And he got to hold him for a while too.  He was thrilled.

We kept our butterflies in the habitat for about 2 1/2 weeks.  I don't suggest keeping them that long (although the paperwork that comes with the caterpillars says that you can keep them up to a month).

The reason I don't suggest doing that, is that after a week, they began to fight with each other and quite a few of the butterflies had damaged wings.  We didn't notice the damage until we let them go.

The transformation from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly is absolutely amazing.

This is our second time doing it, and it doesn't bore us in the least.

Now my boys are out looking for caterpillars, so we can do it again.

Flat Stanley Visits B'ham

Instead of posting each individual picture, I'm going to post the memory book that I had made for Ms. Tina's second grade class.  I was limited on time and resources, so I just did the best I could.


It was a lot of fun hosting Stanley.  So without further adieu...

One of the little girls in the classroom wrote to me asking me to show Stanley a good time.  It was so cute.  I sent her a letter back describing all the fun that he had here and told her all about Birmingham.  If you feel like reading the letter and learning a little about B'ham/Alabama, read the pics below...