First, let me clarify. I genuinely enjoy homeschooling. The planning and organization can, yes, be a tad overwhelming. Nevertheless, they fall in the sweet spot of my wheelhouse. I look ahead. It's what I do. In March 2014, I was already planning our whole 2015-2016 academic year. It is January now, we are about half way through the year and my brain can't help but skip ahead to July and August when my little school will house a 5th grader, KINDERGARTNER, and a 4 year old. It's what I do.
Before you write me off as crazy, I would like to point out that I don't hash out every detail. The farther away I am from an event, the broader my brush strokes. At the start of the year I catch the flavor, figure out our direction. In March-April-May I start making decisions and buying curriculum. By the time our academic year starts in July I have a pretty good birds eye view of what we're going to cover. Since this is our second year of preschool (and next year will be our third!), much of the guess work is done. We are still learning the alphabet, numbers, etc, and we re-vist themes and books each year, we just approach them from a different angle.
So I laugh and scold myself a little when it's July and I'm up until the wee hours of the dawn stressing about what we're going to do for Valentine's Day the next year. Then I remind myself that I have plenty of time, a lot can change in the next seven months, and it's time to go to bed. All that to say, my summer planning stress paid off in a big way this week!
We took a nice break for the holidays, so on one level I was really refreshed and ready to get going. But another side of me (the side that wishes everyday could be a stay-in-your-pajamas-and-don't-start-school-until-noon kind of day!) balked at the idea of getting back into routine. This resulted in procrastination which meant that Monday night arrived and I was 0% ready to start school Tuesday morning. Things really could have been chaos, but thanks to my ridiculously early planning sessions, I had enough ideas to cobble together our lessons. I know a chaotic day is not the worst thing in the world and a couple of extra "non school" days certainly isn't going to hurt anyone - especially in preschool! But when it comes to things like routine and habit, I have a tendency to fall into the "well I guess we'll get to it tomorrow camp" and then before you know it the year is gone and all my great intentions and desires for our family are gone forever! (Can we say dramatic? I think so...). So the schedule is for me. A little structure to help my parenting stay intentional and the building blocks of good study habits for when the littles are big and the stakes really are higher.
The moral of the story is, I will find my motivation to plan again. I won't stress out over every little detail down the road, but I also won't laugh at myself when it's snowing outside and I'm dreaming up lessons for springtime. Strike while the iron is hot and you'll get through the inevitable slumps without derailing the whole year!
Before you write me off as crazy, I would like to point out that I don't hash out every detail. The farther away I am from an event, the broader my brush strokes. At the start of the year I catch the flavor, figure out our direction. In March-April-May I start making decisions and buying curriculum. By the time our academic year starts in July I have a pretty good birds eye view of what we're going to cover. Since this is our second year of preschool (and next year will be our third!), much of the guess work is done. We are still learning the alphabet, numbers, etc, and we re-vist themes and books each year, we just approach them from a different angle.
So I laugh and scold myself a little when it's July and I'm up until the wee hours of the dawn stressing about what we're going to do for Valentine's Day the next year. Then I remind myself that I have plenty of time, a lot can change in the next seven months, and it's time to go to bed. All that to say, my summer planning stress paid off in a big way this week!
We took a nice break for the holidays, so on one level I was really refreshed and ready to get going. But another side of me (the side that wishes everyday could be a stay-in-your-pajamas-and-don't-start-school-until-noon kind of day!) balked at the idea of getting back into routine. This resulted in procrastination which meant that Monday night arrived and I was 0% ready to start school Tuesday morning. Things really could have been chaos, but thanks to my ridiculously early planning sessions, I had enough ideas to cobble together our lessons. I know a chaotic day is not the worst thing in the world and a couple of extra "non school" days certainly isn't going to hurt anyone - especially in preschool! But when it comes to things like routine and habit, I have a tendency to fall into the "well I guess we'll get to it tomorrow camp" and then before you know it the year is gone and all my great intentions and desires for our family are gone forever! (Can we say dramatic? I think so...). So the schedule is for me. A little structure to help my parenting stay intentional and the building blocks of good study habits for when the littles are big and the stakes really are higher.
The moral of the story is, I will find my motivation to plan again. I won't stress out over every little detail down the road, but I also won't laugh at myself when it's snowing outside and I'm dreaming up lessons for springtime. Strike while the iron is hot and you'll get through the inevitable slumps without derailing the whole year!
Love the reality and love the dreamer!
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