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While I plan over the summer, everything looks great on paper. The Amazon.com boxes begin piling at the front door and I carefully stack the freshly copied pages on clean shelves. It is going to be a great year! I think to myself. Then, a couple months in, I realize that something isn’t quite working.
It is hard to get all the school work done, the house chores completed, the errands run, dinner made and still have time to re-think what we are doing and what exactly isn’t working. That is where I was two weeks ago. I couldn’t figure out what was making life so much harder and more time consuming than last year. I finally realized, I needed a day to re-plan.
Here are some things that helped me find my way back on track:
- Ask for some quiet time to think. Get a sitter, have your husband take the kids out for pizza, or just let the family know you will be unavailable for a couple hours and lock yourself away in a quiet room. You need a chance to be alone with your thoughts and lots of interruptions will make things harder.
- Define what is important in your day. For me, that was meals on time, school done close to noon, Bible everyday and the house not being completely trashed.
- List what IS working. I knew we were eating all our meals on time, reading and math were getting done daily and on time and our home was livable.
- List what is missing. I felt like we were pushing through and lacked joy in daily things. We were not getting to the science and history as often as I would like, and we weren’t finding time for all the fun projects I planned. Also, I wanted the children to have more time to play with other children.
- Search for alternatives. I knew I couldn’t get all the experiments done that I wanted the kids to get to do. I was just too tired and I didn’t have enough time. So I asked my husband if he would do the “labs” with the kids if I did the reading parts. Now, on Saturday morning or Sunday afternoon, I can have an hour to clean or prep (or relax!) and my husband gets to do something fun with the kids.
- Pull everything out if you need to. I had no idea how to get in all the Tapestry stuff I really wanted to be doing. So I pulled out all the history resources I had bought for the year and started breaking it down into mini lessons. The Charlotte Mason part of me loved the short lessons and I knew I could manage it in pieces much easier. Also, the shortened lessons let me stick pieces into empty spaces in my day, like reading church history to one child while the other was taking her ballet lesson.
- Put it back on paper. It was hard for me to remember how I decided to rearrange things, so I drafted up a new schedule (I didn’t use times on it, just a general outline). I can now refer to it when I need to.
- Try it out for a month, then repeat if need be– with help. If you get to where things are better, but still something isn’t working, have your spouse or a homeschooling friend sit down with you and look for solutions. I am constantly amazed at how my husband can easily think of solutions that never occurred to me and completely solved my problem.
This post is linked to Helpful Homeschool Hints.
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This post is so timely for us! We too are struggling to include science and history as much as we would like. We started out the year using a time line and library books and even though it works in theory, sometimes the books are not available when we need them. Science projects aren’t our focus either, but I know we need to incorporate them into our day somehow. I like your idea of weekends for science! That’s a great thought.
Thank you for the ideas of how to get back on track! I’m encouraged this morning…I’m not alone in this journey to home educate our girls and feel as though there are things that just aren’t working. 🙂
These help me tremendously. I need to step back and switch gears.
First things first is finding that quiet place to think!!
Thanks!
Great timing! I started this very same project just last night! Great pointers on how to make it work.
Thanks for this post! I’ve been reevaluating since this weekend, and I recruited my husband to talk it out with me last night. I don’t want to overhall everything, but something obviously needs to change. I felt like we were also pushing through and losing the joy. Hopefully we can make a few tweaks, slow things down, and really enjoy the rest of the year!
I am actually going through some things that are very similar. And I just thought this morning that I need to reevaluate and plan over.
Constant tweaking I tell ya. Thanks for the tips.
Also, find some time to talk to some fellow homeschool moms they can sometimes give fresh insight on something.
Great post. I’ve been thinking about what we have been doing here lately too and if we are really reaching our goals for this year. Sometimes we just need to hear someone else say ” Hey are you getting what you need done? Do you need to reevaluate?” Thanks again for this post.
This truly is a timely post for most homeschooling families. I love the part of recording what IS working. Doing so helps us not feel like it’s a total loss, and helps us to be more willing to take a critical eye to what isn’t.
The other thought I have is to consider whether you want to try the “new plan” during the seasonal celebration & preparation of Thanksgiving and Christmas. It may be good to take that time to give thought to it, put the plan together, and try it at the beginning of the new year. And as you said, evaluate periodically.
What a helpful post. Thank you!
Excellent post! I’ve graduated one kid and have two in high school, yet I still need several replan/recharge days a year. You’d think I’d have things down by now, but it doesn’t work that way. Partly, it’s that the internet allows us to know about so many more excellent resources than in years past. Partly, it’s that each kid and year is different than the other. Also, family dynamics and circumstances change. And, after all, we are only human, with our many human limitations and weaknesses.
Great post as some of us are feeling the disconnect between what we envisioned and reality. I know that the holidays is a time when I will often rethink what we’ve been doing as the boys can just go play and leave me alone.
As for history and science, the younger grades missing these subjects to a degree isn’t bad. But, I know that I have to make time to do it with my bigs as they NEED to be doing it. Juggling three different ages at once plus a baby make it a challenge, so we are behind where I wanted to be. But, at least they are getting some of it done.
Great timing! I’ve hit that that feeling of needing to switch gears with some things in our homeschool. Excellent post!