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How to fit it all into a "carefree day"…
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I have five children, grades 11, 9, 6, 5 and preK and we’re in our 12th year of homeschooling but it seems that in the last two years, I have had more second-guessing than ever before, constantly tweeking and changing, never being able to enjoy the flow of things and trust the process.
Although I absolutely love CM methods and contine to be inspired by this way of learning the most, it seems that the smooth and easy days often elude me.
How do others fit it all into their day? As far as chores, cooking and cleaning I know that delegation and follow through is the key. I think what I am having more trouble with is finding time to do narration and dictation and read alouds with four children. For example, looking at the dictation exercises for spelling for the older grades, I notice that the passages are quite long. I haven’t been able to figure out how to fit all these good moments into our day, even after all these years of homeschooling! Often, I feel that the day is “thin” if they are just doing their reading and I don’t get a chance to have them narrate to me or dictate to them. That’s when the fear creeps in and I fall back to more traditional methods for a bit, gain some distaste for them again and miss CM. I know that the “big picture” is all good, but I’m looking for a nice, flowing day where I enjoy the process a bit more, there is consistency, and I trust the process.
Thanks for any input!
Blessings,
LisaHopefully others will chime in, as I only have 2 and still struggle to get all the narrations in:) The only thing that comes to mind to me is to combine kids in read alouds when possible, maybe even find ones that all 4 oldest can enjoy together (with older kids reading more difficult books on their own). Maybe they could narrate to you at the dinner table, or while you’re doing laundry, cooking, etc. Or into a tape recorder at times? Are they doing written narrations? Can dictation exercises be taped by you to be reviewed by you later…or maybe the two oldest and two youngest could read dictations to each other? Just some immediate thoughts….. :)Gina
I have four kids with the youngest at Pre-K and the oldest in 6th grade…we were doing pretty well until I added in the pre-K work. Ack…the whole thing shouldn’t have made me almost have a nervous break-down over getting it all done, but holy smokies! I underestimated myself…So I understand something of what you say here about not getting all the narrations, etc. in that you need to.
For the dictation part, I was under the impression that the child practices and studies the whole thing. Then when you are giving the dictation, you select a portion of the passage and not the whole thing.
I am guessing at this point, as old as your kids are, they are or should be pretty close to being able to do written narrations a lot, which allows you more time with the younger ones. I love notebooking pages for the short narrations and notebookingpages.com has an on-line notebooking publisher that your kids would beg to do their narrations on. 😉 Seriously – they can select their pages, the pictures, type it and print it. It is fun and an easy way to get the work done. Here is a link: http://notebookingpages.com/ If you join this month, you get a life-time membership to everything she has or will have.
Also have you seen these narration ideas: http://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/narration/ They don’t all have to be read it and tell it to me days. =) Another thing I have and enjoy is the bookmark with the various ideas on it: http://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/bookmarks/
Have you seen the SCM module guides for history, geography and Bible? We use them and love them because we read a common portion of the lesson and then the lessons are explored further with individual readings by the children in the various age groups.
I use the free books on Librivox all the time to free up time for me to do the other things…we listen to literature while we eat, do chores, etc. Sometimes we listen and I have them do drawn narrations simply to keep them busy while we listen. But whether written, drawn, acted out, or verbally given, a narration is a narration. They have so many of the books we use on their site – history, literature, science, etc…even composer and artist biographies.
Hang in there. It does work. You’re just having a normal mama/teacher moment! 😉
Thank you, Gina and Sheraz! I just made an order for some more SCM DVD’s, etc. I even ordered another module that I might use for next year to get a head’s start to think about, prepare and try to settle on. The goal for next year would be not to be doing any switching at all! Thanks for all the great ideas, ladies!
How do others fit it all into their day? As far as chores, cooking and cleaning I know that delegation and follow through is the key. I think what I am having more trouble with is finding time to do narration and dictation and read alouds with four children. For example, looking at the dictation exercises for spelling for the older grades, I notice that the passages are quite long. I haven’t been able to figure out how to fit all these good moments into our day, even after all these years of homeschooling! Often, I feel that the day is “thin” if they are just doing their reading and I don’t get a chance to have them narrate to me or dictate to them. That’s when the fear creeps in and I fall back to more traditional methods for a bit, gain some distaste for them again and miss CM. 
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