You mean I can do that??

With two babies in the house, both of whom can be demanding, I've struggled with putting a schedule together. I want one, because Mini-Me seems to thrive with a schedule. A schedule would also help me in planning and mental preparation.

It was just difficult because I expected a schedule to be very decisive about when to do what. You know the kind I mean:
8:00 - breakfast
8:30 - Bible
8:45 - Math
9:30 - Phonics
Everything had a time slot. I couldn't do those because both my little ones would often need attention. I actually considered it a shortcoming in me. I mean, I should be able to control diapers and feedings, right?? Oh, and outbursts....and skinned knees...and munchies...

I've been reading the book "Things we wished we'd Known" compiled by Diana Waring. It's been an interesting book. I've not really gotten far as I"m trying to read one persons account at a time. It's compiled like a devotion might be. Each family writes an essay that might fit into one big category. I like that I can sit down and read each essay in a sitting. It's almost a devotional in that aspect. Something that could be read over with Hot chocolate or tea in the morning - or a sandwich during lunch...or those times that I lock myself in the bathroom.

My "aha" moment came with the article written by Madelaine Smith, entitled "Hanging Haman: Exploring the Bible One Day a Week". I loved what she wrote about Studying the Bible one day a week, I really did.

Here's what she wrote that opened my eyes:

"At home, we could do one subject a day, and that's what we did for the
first eight years. Math was our exception since the girls, 8 & 9 years old,
felt their brains might explode if they did several math lessons a day. Since
they were usually only required to do every third math problem anyway, math did
not take much time, so we still had about tow hours to do our one big subject
and finish by lunchtime, a goal we maintained until high school."

I read that and thought: You mean I can do that?? I realize that's a silly statement to make. Homeschooling is all about overcoming and adapting. Modifying to fit the needs of the student and teacher. While I knew all that, I felt like I was falling down the on the job if I didn't give my kids a rounded school day.

After reading that segment, I realized that the best times of school work, where we got the most accomplished, happened during the end of the school year crunches. The reason we got so much accomplished would be because I'd push through one subject a day. (Push through sounds like a military maneuver, but it wasn't ever a knuckle down kind of happening. When doing more than one lesson in, say, phonics, I can only do the repetitious stuff once. In math, I can practice reading a clock, once out of three lessons as opposed to once every lesson. Then we adjusted the work levels, too, on the paperwork. While one was doing work, I'd teach the other.

(Handwriting is still a painful topic around here.)

So I felt a new freedom after reading this and realized that I could do a schedule like this:
Monday: Speech Therapy & math
Tuesday: Phonics, Bible & History
or something like that ---
I always want to start my day with Bible reading....so I'm hoping this will help us get into a routine of Bible reading and History.

Mini-Me is already adjusting to this type of schedule, last week, while I was still writing all this down, I wanted to pick up on a math lesson and she said "But it's Tuesday (or whatever day it was) and we're supposed to do phonics."

Technicalities.

The only downside I see to this is that when the day is tough, I still don't get done all I want to get accomplished. We're working on it though and I know it will come in time...because I've also had the revelation that I am, really, quite organized - but not organized the way I think it should look. That's another topic for another post.

Overcoming and adapting - Homeschooling at it's best.



A Comfy note: I started this post yesterday and just now finished it. I don't know why I can't change the date on my post, ah well, It will help my feeling of being in a time warp.