In which we search for balance in homeschooling

I have been feeling all sorts of overwhelmed since all of the kids’ activities started a few weeks ago. Poppy’s soccer is more intense this year, and her outsourced classes have included quite a bit more homework than I’d anticipated. I’m struggling to find a good balance and flow for us. I changed our at-home work schedule a little last week to make the workload a little lighter on the days when we have more running around to do. Until I looked back at the kids’ to-do lists, I thought that my efforts had not worked at all. But it turns out that they did accomplish most of the things on their assignment sheets.

I still need to figure out a few things — how and when, for example, to get our history work done — but I’m going to make an effort to take it a little easier on myself next week and trust that our homeschooling effort is not, in fact, frantically treading water.

Here’s what our week looked like:


Monday

We listened to our “Story of the World” chapter — on the Civil War — on the way to and from co-op, and in between we spent a bit over three hours at co-op. Multiple families were absent this week, which found me trying to wing my way through teaching a sketch comedy class. Thank heavens for the internet, which provided me with a bevy of improv games to play.

We usually drop Pete off at guitar after co-op, and then Poppy and I work on some of her schoolwork. She had an orthodontist appointment this week, though, so we dropped Pete off and then headed to the orthodontist and then picked Pete up and then went home.

Poppy had less than an hour to get ready for soccer practice at that point, so we decided to do school after practice. And then we discovered that there had been some miscommunication with the carpool vis-à-vis the orthodontist appointment. The carpool was already on the interstate, so we rushed into the car and headed off to practice.

Did we, in fact, get any work done after practice? I honestly don’t remember.

accomplishments

  • Poppy finished her homework for her writing class.
  • Read the penultimate chapter of “The Secret Garden.”
    Tuesday

    We got some work done in the morning, and then we headed across town to have a stubborn baby tooth removed from Poppy. She was a little woozy after the extraction, and the dentist recommended that she avoid exertion for the rest of the day. So she took it easy for a few hours, and she didn’t go to any of the three tae kwon do classes that she’s been doing on Tuesdays.

    accomplishments

  • Poppy finished her science homework, which included an open-book test.
  • Guitar practice for Pete and piano practice for Poppy.
  • Memorization work.
  • Read the last chapter of “The Secret Garden.”
  • Map Skills.
    Wednesday

    Poppy had writing, science and civilization on Wednesday, and while she was there Pete went to chess class and met with his spelling tutor. Then we picked Poppy up and went to the library and to the allergy doctor, and when we finally got home we started our new read-aloud — “Little Women,” which I downloaded as an audiobook and which Poppy apparently loathes — and did a bit of schoolwork, and then it was time to take Poppy to her friend’s house to meet their new kitten and catch the carpool to soccer practice. Pete’s friend came back home with us, and they played video games for awhile until they decided to fly airplanes outside. They switched back to video games after one of them tossed their plane-launching device into the gutter.

    accomplishments

  • Nearly everything on their lists! Poppy didn’t do her literature study, because I hadn’t printed it for her and the suddenly the day was over.
    Thursday

    We started the day with another chapter of “Little Women,” which Poppy continues to protest mightily.

    Tuesday’s tooth extraction moved Poppy’s piano lesson to Thursday, and her piano teacher came over at the same time as Pete’s spelling tutor. And that keen scheduling gave me an hour to recap our week for you, dear Butterscotch Sundae reader.

    accomplishments

  • Pete did all of his work, and Poppy did everything but vocabulary.
    Friday

    We had people wandering in and out of the house for a while this morning, and we didn’t get any work done until after things had settled down. I knew that was going to be the case ahead of time, though, so I wasn’t worried about it. Today was Poppy’s first day volunteering at the library, and Pete did most of his work while she was there. She did her schoolwork after her shift at the library. She does still have some homework to do for writing and science, and she is aware that she’s going to need to work on it over the weekend.

    accomplishments

  • Everything except a history project, a science project and literature study. We’ll be re-visiting this week’s “Story of the World” chapter next week, and Pete and I agreed that this week’s science project sounded pretty dull.

    How was your week?

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  • 2 thoughts on “In which we search for balance in homeschooling”

    1. The beginning of the school year is the most fluid time of the year I think. Enjoy being able to be flexible enough to do what you want to do for fun and what you need to do for educational growth.

    2. It always takes some time at the beginning of the year to get in the flow of things. We have already made several adjustments around here.
      Blessings, Dawn

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