Tag Archives: planning

To plan, or not to plan… that is the question

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Next to packing lunches, planning is the complete bane of my existence.  I loathe each with equal passion.  Currently, I am detaching from reality each evening with an inflammation-inducing comfort of organic milk (we have been dairy-free for ELEVEN years) and chunky Chips Ahoy cookies (we have been gluten-free for a decade and pretty much flour free because of blood sugar issues for easily 3 years)… because I am in a quandary about how to proceed with my kids educational needs and I just don’t feel like dealing with it.

But I’m going to deal with it, obviously… Here is the quandary…

Continue reading To plan, or not to plan… that is the question →

“What they love” vs. “what feeds their soul”

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So, there was an interesting topic recently in a homeschool forum and somewhere along the way, a friend posted:

My mom is a recruiter, and has tried to find jobs for people with PhD’s before, because they can’t even find work in their field. It’s sobering. “Doing what you love” is great, but doesn’t always pay the bills.

It occurred to me that people have a misconception about what “do what you love” means…

Continue reading “What they love” vs. “what feeds their soul” →

The semester in review…

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And so comes the time to look back at the last few months and assess what has worked, what hasn’t worked, what to change and what to keep.  I probably wouldn’t be doing this except that we tried to make a monumental change and I’m not sure we’ve managed it well.  In my former career, “continuous process improvement” was actually part of one of my job titles.  It’s something I fully embrace.

So let’s review… Continue reading The semester in review… →

We spend a lot of time in the car

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I thought of this as I drove the 26 miles that takes 45-50 minutes without traffic to the co-op we’re newly involved in this year.  Traditionally, we don’t travel this far too often.  We have definitely made a similar trip twice before: both times for a specific writing teacher for a half-year because she worked REALLY well with BigGuy (who only ever enjoyed writing with this woman and she really enjoyed him–worth the trip).

Don’t get me wrong, we make trips.  Going into downtown Chicago for museum free days or heading out to a specific location for a special trip–these happen.  Likely more often than most schooled kids; but possibly also more often than many homeschooled kids.  Homeschool families vary in both their tolerance for trekking around and their availability to do so.  My family is out a LOT.  “Homeschooling” is a misnomer because we’re not home as much as people think we are. Continue reading We spend a lot of time in the car →

A new routine

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So this morning, Papa got up with the boy.  EARLY.  Like 6:30am (which is when BigGuy usually gets up).  Apparently they walked the dog and then Papa sat in the classroom (an office on our first floor behind the garage) and did e-mails while BigGuy did his schoolwork.  And apparently, this went swimmingly.

Some things to note:

  • BigGuy had very little schoolwork assigned to him today because we needed to leave the house at 10am and we were going to have company in the afternoon.
  • The weather was good.

I wonder how this would work on a regular basis and with a regular day’s workload. I guess time will tell.  But “da boyz” liked it.

As I sit, planning the week…

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It’s Sunday night.  Girly is out cold and Papa is giving BigGuy some reiki (more power to him because I’m so completely unable to wrap my head around that stuff).

Every Sunday night we have a family meeting.  The agenda is like this:

  1. What happened last week
  2. What is happening this week
  3. Old business
  4. New business
  5. Money stuff
  6. Something wonderful my family did for me
  7. Something wonderful I did for my family
  8. Comments/questions about anything anyone needs to talk about

As we went through item #2, Papa noted that he goes back to work this week and BigGuy jumped on the end of that with “and we start to do REAL schoolwork this week”.  I looked at my husband–whose eyebrows denoted his equal surprise.  He asked my son “Haven’t you already done ‘real’ schoolwork?” and I then took over so as to make my life a lot easier and said “Well, we’ve been figuring things out this August and then you had vacation; but we’re ready to get down to business now.” (I GUESS!!  *whew*  Nice save, Mama!)

But of course, now the pressure is on.  On ME!  GEESH!  This kid is no joke!  He wants to do some serious learning and I need to move my ass and get to it.  I just seriously cannot figure out how to accommodate Girly!  Ugh… I need to get it together.  I think I’m going to photocopy some of the pages from the Ancient Egypt coloring book for her tomorrow and tonight I need to sit down and lay out a daily time schedule so that I can work with BigGuy as needed and then work with Girly when I don’t have to work with BigGuy.  But I also really need to sit down and plan out HER activities, too.

Wasn’t I just spending the month of August trying to figure this out?  Wtf?

 

Our weekend in a nutshell

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BigGuy and Papa left the house at 7am this morning for an all-day choir retreat meant to introduce the boys and get them better acquainted.  Papa (thankfully) put out a forgotten box of CSA food that someone e-mailed us about yesterday to schedule picking up today.  So Girly and I “slept in”… which means “Girly slept and I laid trapped under her because I couldn’t fall back asleep”.  But it was nice.  It was so crisp and cool and all of the windows were open… it was just lovely.

Girly and I ate some of the deviled eggs Papa made last night to facilitate a speedy breakfast, and then I showered and we did Girly’s hair (for. an. hour.)  Then leftovers for lunch, a trip to get a Mama-Girly pedi, then we watched Robin Hood.

She has a soccer game at 3pm, the boys come home at 5, and there’s a block party on our former block that we’ll head to for dinner.

Tomorrow there is NOTHING. ON. THE CALENDAR.  Which is good because mama needs to prep for the week and we really need to preserve a LOT of produce.  Srsly.  In fact, I think we’ll be making another batch of ketchup because we just have so many tomatoes.  Cray-cray.

The schedule is coming together…

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So today, BigGuy went to his first Young Philosophers gathering and he really loved it.  And dude… I REALLY love that he loved it because THAT is what is going to make him THINK.  This week they read “Siddhartha and the Swan” and some other version of the same story.  Some of the questions included “What does it mean to be wise?” and then a list of challenges to their potential answers.  Holy moly–I’m thrilled.

Since the group meets 11:30am-1pm each Friday, last year the parents gathered on Friday afternoons to do local field trips since pretty much, the day is otherwise shot.  WOOT!  Love that!

I’m also really kind of looking forward to having this chunk of time available to take Girly to the library and just read with her.  ❤

I’m thinking that Fridays will go like this:

Mornings will start with usual routine of reading our “Character Building Day by Day”, getting dressed, eating, etc. and then BigGuy and I will discuss his review questions for Tapestry of Grace.  I think we’re breaking these up a bit over the course of the week so it’s not going to leave a ton to do on Friday.  I’m also going to go over and make sure all his other assigned work will be done.

Midday: Young Philosophers for BigGuy while Girly and I either explore nature or go to the library to read together and snuggle.

Afternoon: If there’s a field trip with the group–great.  If not, we’ll come home and do our weekly housecleaning since that will have to be done no matter what.

Evening: picking up our farm share.  We moved it to Fridays because Tuesdays were too insane.

I can’t lie that on one hand, I hate that this is the end of Papa’s vacation and I feel like it wasn’t a great one for him.  On the other hand, I’m really chomping at the bit to get into a routine already.  Especially since I feel like Girly is being “neglected” on the engagement front.

OH!  And I’m trying to dig out my Root’s & Shoots manual and PRAYING that it didn’t get thrown out (although I think it did).  😦  Doesn’t look like they produce a manual anymore.  (double 😦  )  I’d love Girly to be involved in something, but I’m not sure Girl Scouts is going to be “it”.   *sigh*

Sunday, Sundaaaaaaayyyy

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Here I sit… on my back deck… laptop, sunshine (although I’m in the shade of my crabapple), cool breeze, coffee, Girly hollering for me to watch her climb up the slide and get onto the trapeze bar THAT way…

And wondering wth I’m going to do with BigGuy this week.

Upside: I got a free digital planner (thanks to Educents) and inside, there were pages to set goals.  It was completely awesome and totally helpful.  Because really, it’s hard to lay out a plan when you don’t know what the goal is.

Seriously?  DUH!  I TAUGHT THIS!  FOR YEARS!  Geesh, I STILL teach it by way of teleclass!

So I laid out semester goals for things above and beyond academics, but then I also laid out academic goals by subject.  *deep breath of relief*

Now I need to get better at PREPARING.  Honestly, I’m REALLY loving the way that this program is forcing us into this Socratic discussion and BigGuy is really understanding that he needs to exercise his brain better.  Win-win.  But I feel really ill-prepared and I haven’t looked in my teaching binder for this stuff but I’m sure I saw some kind of prep for this in there.  :/

This week, I’m kind of returning to worldview and various faiths rather than our regular social studies/geography/writing/literature core from Tapestry of Grace .  Papa is off of work for the next two weeks and we have a trip to Minnesota over the long weekend.  So we’re going to take it slow and light.  I’m going to try to tackle “What Counts as History?” from Tolerance.org’s Classroom Resources page (which, btw, is AWESOOOOME).  Of course, that’s going to require some prep, too.  😉