Year #3 of our homeschooling project started this week. The kids were complaining constantly of “boredom,” I was going stir crazy and needed some organization in our day, our sitter was off to college…. Getting going seemed like the best way to combat all these things.
We are using Moving Beyond the Page for the first time this year. We’ve loved Bookshark for the past two years, but wanted to mix things up and try something new. So far (2 days in), it’s been a smashing success. The kids love how much hands-on there is; I love how much discussion we have; and the activities are things the kids and I might have done organically before, but having a structure so I’m not doing last-minute web searches for good projects is a blessing for us all.
I’m hoping, this year, to use the blog to do more in-depth recaps of our “This Week in #homeschoollife” Instagram posts. They’re important because they remind me, when I’m feeling bedraggled and exhausted at the end of the week — but unsure what learning actually took place — that we’re making forward progress, and that this crazy experiment is working, worthwhile, and FUN!
As we’re plunging headfirst into [cool, refreshing?] Homeschool ’22-’23, I just want to list some things that I try to keep at the top of my brain to make it through our weeks intact.
(1) I AM AN ADULT AND THIS IS NOT AN EMERGENCY. I read this years ago in some book about parenting toddlers, and I repeat it at least ten times a day when I am losing my ish, worrying about ER visits and wondering if my kids are actually sociopaths.
(2) If we don’t finish all the projects/lessons today, there is always tomorrow. I am incredibly type A. I like to check all the boxes and get all the things done. I don’t (as an adult) enjoy procrastination, last minute changes, or “flexible schedules.” I want to get it DONE when it is SCHEDULED. But the truth is, we are not on a 180-day school schedule, and if we need to speed up or slow down or skip a project or spend some extra time talking about a concept, it’s OK. That’s a benefit of homeschooling. Teachers in public/private school have days they don’t make it through their lesson plans, too.
(3) Teaching is part of parenting, and I am my child’s natural teacher. The kids’ preschool teacher gave me this pep-talk in the middle of a grocery store when I was going into our second year of homeschooling and no longer had the, “We’re just homeschooling because of COVID” fallback to catch me or anyone else. They are learning just by being with me and doing things day-to-day. They know how to schedule and budget, how to read a map and road signs, how to meal plan (and cook some things!). Fractions come pretty easily to Charles not just because he’s good at math, but because he’s measured things with me his whole life. (In fact, this week, he decided on measurements for a science experiment, measured them out himself, and set the whole thing up independently of me.)
(4) Did I mention that I AM AN ADULT AND THIS IS NOT AN EMERGENCY? If some dirt gets spilled, someone colors outside the line, or we get sidetracked using unit blocks to build patterns / castles / jewelry for our stuffed animals… it’s ok. Deep breath. Because there is always tomorrow. And those unit blocks are at least easier to see on the carpet than Legos.
(5) We need to sit and read together. It’s been how we calmed down since Charles was 3 months old. Theo’s 2nd day of school was 1000% more successful than the first because we snuggled on the couch with a Richard Scarry book to kick off our discussion of People in the Community.
(6) Challenge builds character, problem solving, and intellect. Sure, it was nice that Charles could do all his work independently last year; that he read all his assigned reading in twenty minutes at the beginning of the week; and that I didn’t have to listen to him moan about writing in a journal. But now he gets to learn how to look up vocabulary and read critically.
(7) Structure and schoolwork feed our creative brains. The kids have been a flurry of activity these past two days: inventing new games, discovering new ways to add to their ubiquitous stop-motion-animation; helping each other with their work and chores. They’ve both written newspapers and drawn maps outside of school time. They’re engaging ME in their imaginative play. I feel like we’ve done more in the past two days than the entire summer… even though we did SO MUCH this summer!!!
So cheers to this school year! We’re going to make it through today, and tomorrow, and then I’m going to focus on my race for a few days, and then we’re going to start soccer! And piano lessons! And we’re going to… NOT PANIC because we are ADULTS and this is NOT AN EMERGENCY!!!!