A Day in the Life...er, Kinda

Dropping Liv at LINES Ballet in San Francisco

Because we’ve not yet started our new school year, I’ve been taking this time to consider the changes I’d like, based on last year’s experiences.  You might think homeschooling would be challenge enough for this single mom, but you would be wrong.  To this first and foremost job of training up and nurturing my fab-four, I add profitable work, soccer coaching, biggest-sports-fan cheerleading, a gym membership, curricula review for The Old Schoolhouse, and work-study hours of writing-support-in-exchange-for-ballet-tuition-for-three.

I’ll say it for you.  Heh, I do it each and every day anyway:

PHEW.

The keys to our mediocre success and my sanity are the P-words:

Priorities
There are so many good things we can do, so many things tempting me to say, Yes, sure, why not?  But, for my family, being stretched thinly and having little time at home or out of doors to decompress, relax, or chill is just no bueno--no good.  So, when considering our new year, I ask myself what it is I want to accomplish through our home school, what it is my kids need most.  Usually, the answers to these questions weed out the good and leave me with what’s best.

Planning
I have always been a box-maker and -checker.  If there’s a project, I make lists.  Give me a weekend alone--yeah, right...dream on!  Okay, give me a few consecutive late-nights, and I’ll have the whole school year planned for my fab-four---and an acute case of carpal tunnel.  This part comes easily for me because I was born crazy like dat.  I need and have a plan for our day, week, month, and year.

Purpose
This is the challenging portion for me: carrying out my plans with purpose.  Often, I can get easily derailed by good things---more work, extra play-dates for kiddos or moms, more volunteering of my time, and even more chill time.  Sometimes it’s great stuff which presents itself and we happily ditch the good for better things, but more often I have to drive myself back to the first and then to the final and most important P-words:

Prayer
Yep, and tons of it.

Although a bit blurry, they were all together. :)

So, armed with the above, here’s a teeny peek at our home-school schedule, effective next week:

5:00  Mom wakes & preps for gym
6:00  Gym-time
7:30  Mom showers; kiddos wake & feed animals
8:00  Bible- & hymn-study
8:30  Breakfast w/poetry-readings; tidy
9:00  Truthquest History readings
9:30     German (M/W); Geography (T/R); Map Drills (F)
10:00    Composer-study (M); Poetry-study (T); Art Lesson (W); Logic (R); Nature-study (F)
10:30    Curricula-review time
11:00    Maths
11:30    Phonics & reading w/Ian; kiddos prep lunch
12:00    Lunch & Literature: Fairytales (M/W); Pilgrim’s Progress (T/R); Shakespeare (F)
12:30    Sciences
13:00    Latin (M-R); Plutarch’s Lives (F)
13:30    Grammar & Composition
14:00    Mom reads w/one kiddo, others read independently (M-R); Spelling tests (F)
14:30    Mom works/writes; Kiddos work/play independently

Into our schedule, I build enough wiggle-room that we’re often done well before 14:00.  But, on those days when we or any individual doesn’t finish within the allotted time for that partic item of study, we stop anyway.  I know, I’m such a rebel---so dangerous and wild.

Thanks for popping over to peek at what I've penned.  I pray that your year is piled high with purposeful priorities properly planned too.

Yes, you can shoot me now.  Indeed.