Staying the course

Shelly,

When I am not staying the course, I find that I must confess and repent. But that’s just me. Something else to consider would be that you are doing too much and you are just tired. Or you are like me and really enjoy the planning part but not the execution. I pray almost daily that God would just make me that drink offering, poured out on my husband and children for His glory.

How about going over your schedule (do you have one?) and seeing if everything on it would be something that should stay. Check this out with your husband, too. Then, take one thing that you desperately want to do and it would be easy to do (like, do not choose Nature Walks if you are in Alaska), and then do that one thing for a couple of weeks. Then add another, etc. I beat myself up when I see that I cannot do it all but then when I realize that I can either choose to do ONE thing or NO thing, it helps me see the bigger picture.

And, as an older mom, I will give a gentle warning. When all our oldest ones were little, I was so overwhelmed that I had many, many false starts. Honestly, I think it was more about not having learned, as you say, perseverance, than being overwhelmed. My oldest child had much love of learning crushed out of him. We actually had this conversation when he was, I don’t know 8, maybe:

“Why are we changing things again?” “Because I believe God has told me to do it this way now.” “But you said God told you to do it the other way!”

Now, I know that God redeems the years the locusts have eaten, and I praise him for it (this child is in ministry now!) This really is just a gentle warning.

Bless you! I will pray for you!

Cindy

Perhaps the lesson we should learn isn't perserverence with all the things we have planned, but to learn the wisdom of a realistic schedule.

Too true. I have very little experience in any homeschooling at all, much less CM, and I am terrible at keeping to a complicated schedule. But we seem to have found a path that is working for us, so I know it can be done.

Cutting alot of the extra from our schedule was critical – like the composer study is just not on the agenda right now . . . and “trying” CM alongside our original curriculum was a disaster. I finally realized that we were trying to do two entire curricula – foolish!

Two tools that have worked for me:

*The SCM planner – I need to see things laid out to know what I need to do. It is a little work to set up each resource, but then it is no work to see the schedule.

*Queen Homeschooling Supplies Language Lessons books – the kids love these, plus they include copywork, grammar, poetry study, and picture study (and I use their Pictures in Cursive book for more picture study) all rolled into one!!! ***plus*** (and this is the biggest thing) I feel that every day I get a lesson into what a lesson should be! Short means -short-. So it builds my CM skills.

Now, we do what is probably CM lite or slacker CM – science, history, math, language lessons, spelling wisdom, ind. reading. That’s all (but remember all the things rolled into the Lang. Lessons books). It only takes two or three hours each day, four days a week. And I have all my books, notebooks and papers in a box under the dining table, so I get it out and basically go through the stack each day. I don’t try to do different subjects on different days – I can’t keep up with things. And things I try to do only once a week – like make entries into the Book of Centuries, or a page in the nature journal – often get overlooked, even though we love and treasure these activities.

Of course I’d like to do more (Spanish, typing, Word Roots and Math Detective all of which I dropped so that we could cope) but I am forcing myself to stay at this level because it is working. I always try to do too much and crash and burn. I want to just let this work. Our program has to work for both the kids and me to be sustainable.

All right, this is like a dissertation! I’ll stop. But I am filled with anxiety due to the approaching AR benchmark exams which the DD has to take in a few weeks, and am trying to reassure my self that we have indeed got it together!

p.s to Shelly

Your baby is precious! Congratulations to you and your family. Considering that you have a one month old to care for, tell yourself that it is fine to stay with just reading and math for the rest of the school year, because it is! Maybe just add one extra read aloud at a time for some science and history. Remember, unstructured play time is critical to children’s development LOL. If you need reassurance, try this current article about it in Scientific American

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-serious-need-for-play

A few weeks of play won’t hurt a thing.

Good luck! Add that baby to the curriculum and don’t look back!

Hi Shelly,

First, I have to say that you are not a “Floundering” friend but a “Faithful” one. You are doing great and remember you have a new baby in the house which takes months to adjust to. My toddler is needing me so I can’t make this long, but awhile back a friend sent me an article called “Ten ways to simplify homeschooling”; it has helped me to “stay the course”; especially with a new baby. Thought you might enjoy it too.

Ten Ways to Simplify Homeschooling

1) Keep everything as simple as you can. Jesus wrote with a stick in the dirt, and He was the greatest teacher that ever lived. He used no curriculum or flannel graphs or lesson plans. Homeschooling can be made far more complicated than it should be. A simpler approach is much more effective.

2) Stick to the 3 R’s. They form the foundation of life-long learning in every field because they are the tools of study. There will be no need to formalize any other subject if the children are doing their best in these 3, because people who are well grounded in reading, writing and math will approach other subjects boldly, independently and confidently.

3) Let the children teach themselves as much as they are able to. This teaches them responsibility, intellectual independence, and builds confidence. It’s also better for the parent/child relationship because you can focus on parenting instead of playing schoolteacher.

4) Use the most direct method available. For reading, read. For writing, write, for math, do it, and for Bible, read it. Don’t fall for catchy curriculums or methods that are really just something else for you and your child to learn.

5) Don’t worry about your child’s age or grade. Just let him do the best he can each day. Children grow intellectually like they do physically: in spurts. Although we may have an audience of skeptical relatives, homeschooling is not a circus, and we refuse to train our children to do tricks for people.

6) Minimize distractions in the home. Watch for excessiveness in entertainments, snacking, outings, phone conversations and the like. These sorts of things can easily get out of hand and compete with the effectiveness of a homeschool and sap the family of time and energy.

7) Seek quality over quantity. A few tapes of great music, a small case of carefully chosen books, a few special play mates, and an occasional outing is better than a large, but poor quality collection.

) If you must document your school activities, do it after the fact. This way you will not make promises you cannot keep. If you are required to make lesson plans, be as vague as permissible. Don’t let transcripts, diplomas, records and tests determine your academic plans. Focus on learning and the rest will follow.

9) Put the needs of your youngest, most vulnerable children first. If an older child gets a little behind in school, I’m sure you can forgive yourself. But if something happened to the toddler while you were busy homeschooling, I don’t think you would be able to say the same.

10) Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul and don’t neglect to seek him early…giving him the first fruits of your day and teach your children to do the same. I know that you are tired and that there aren’t enough hours in your day, but we serve a God who can make the sun stand still.

Hugs

Heather

Thanks for that, Heather. Well put, and true for all of us!

Okay, now for the sequel. While I was writing the above post, my youngest was supposed to be doing breakfast dishes. She’s still learning, so I should have been supervising and helping her instead of messing with the computer. Well, she finished and I walked into the kitchen to start the dishwasher for her and realized that she had mistakenly thought the dishes in the dishwasher were clean. They weren’t. We just finished going on a treasure hunt for greasy dishes amid all the cupboards, trying to remember what all she took out of the dishwasher and put away dirty.

Just thought you might like to have a realistic picture of our well-oiled machine. 🙂