I'm happy to say that my school planning is basically complete! I'm SURE it will have to be tweaked once we get into it, but it's so much easier to tweak a plan that's not exactly working as well as anticipated, rather than starting from scratch and feeling the futility of weeks spent treading water.
I had done a lot of back-and-forth in my mind about whether or not to enroll with the local charter school again this year. We did last year, and did not the year before. There are pros and cons for both choices, and I was really on the fence about it. I was leaning toward not enrolling with them, and had almost made that my final decision, but I wanted to discuss it with My Man first. We talked about it together, and decided we WILL school through the charter this year. It's such a relief to have that plan made! Everything else partially hinged upon that decision!
I have chosen our resources for the year, and have the list in to the school to purchase for us. There are some odds and ends we will need to purchase for ourselves, as well. The biggest thing being a home weather station, as I want to dedicate much of our year to a simple weather study. I'm basing this off of a weather journal we kept for a year or two while I was being homeschooled. I look back on that time with such fond memories!
I will have the kids' chore charts ready after I buy more laminating paper. I didn't realize I only had 2 sheets left. And then I tried using them on one chart and accidentally messed it up. It has all these little wrinkles at the top and I can't seem to get them fixed. I know these charts work because we tried them for a couple weeks about a month ago, and the only problem was that I had to print a new one each day for each kid, and then we had old ones all about the house not making it to the trash. We decided we'd laminate them and use dry erase markers to check them off. (We did have to make tweaks, of course, but that is done now and I feel confident in their continued success.)
I have a similar checklist for myself that includes all the basic things, which I'm hoping will keep me on track instead of stressed out. I've also made a school checklist with info about how often during the week we should do each subject, and for how many minutes at a time. I am very much a fan of Charlotte Mason, but I have to say that my weekly plan does not exactly reflect her suggestions. I have read extensively on the idea of following her timetables exactly, and was stressed that I couldn't seem to do so no matter how hard I tried. I have come to peace with this, and I am pleased with my current intentions.
I have on another sheet a simple, easy-to-read plan of the morning schedule. Just another paper to help us see where we should be at any given time. This is the only paper that actually says "Do this at such-and-such time", and it is very general. (For example, it says simply "School" during that time period, instead of "Math" followed by "Literature" etc.)
I have a few other small things to get in order, but this has been for the most part, a pretty relaxed planning period. Just a little here and there and I've seemed to pretty well get things accomplished! I think I'll be able to easily knock out the rest well before time to dive back in to school (hopefully I'm not jinxing myself...).
I am very excited about the coming year! I am also very excited about our vacation weeks!
And the thing that I am the very MOST excited about is something that I have NO basis to gauge whether it will be successful or not. But I THINK I'm going to be very pleased with the results! It solves several problems at once in what seems to be a simple solution. Here are the problems:
- Many of the women in our church (including some homeschooling mothers with their children) meet every Tuesday for lunch and quilting (Park Day during summer vacation). We love attending but:
- It is difficult to fit this in while also keeping up with the school agenda. I don't want to go to a 4-day week unless absolutely necessary, but 5 days isn't strictly necessary to accomplish our goals either.
- Especially since I also have to get groceries at some point in the week, which is such a huge job! It has to be done either with 5 kids in tow, or at night when they are in bed and My Man is watching them. Neither way is fun.
- And we also need to fit in piano lessons at some point!
- And I absolutely DO NOT want to have to leave the house more than one "business day" per week. Not unless it's of an evening with my Man.
The resolution:
Alternating Tuesdays. We'll have a school Tuesday and a shopping Tuesday. On School Tuesday, our workload will be lightened a bit to make the time for our friends. On Shopping Tuesday, we'll go to ONE of the two stores I mainly frequent, and purchase 4 weeks worth of groceries from that store. The next Shopping Tuesday, we'll get 4 weeks of groceries from the other store. I also intend to experiment with the "Pick-up" feature: shop for the groceries online, and then just let them load the car and go home and deal with the groceries. As far as piano lessons are concerned, I can't tell you HOW HAPPY I was when the piano teacher texted me last weekend because she was working on the schedule. She had a slot for us, and was asking if it would work for us. But she also noted that if Sissy was going to start this year, then we would need a different slot instead. I told her we plan to have Sissy start. So she asked if Tuesday afternoons would work, from 2:30-3:30. This is THE VERY BEST time of the week for us to go to lessons! I was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO thrilled! We'll be able to leave the quilting and go straight to lessons. When lessons are over, we'll arrive home in time to get supper going and complete our evening chores.
I am SO excited about this! I'll let you know how it goes. I hope it is everything I imagine it to be.
