I start out the year with a schedule where everything is broken down into which days I will do what. It all goes smoothly until right before Christmas and THEN I start feeling like I'm not getting anything done and I end up throwing the schedule aside (that I worked VERY hard on by the way) and try to fit everything in EVERY DAY... Then right before the end of the school year I decide to make a new schedule and try to break it all down again. And also try to add in MORE stuff that I wanted to do at the beginning of the year but decided it was too much.... I don't know WHY do I do this to myself...
I do about the same darn thing.. but then I start to feel like this isn't working or that isn't working and I spend every waking second obsessing over what to change.. and then I get all overwhelmed and I think I shut down because I go into total slacker mode!
(((HUGS))) We probably all do something similar. It's something about March, it's just too dang long! I go crazy this time of year... Take a DEEP BREATH. You're doing good mama! Just go ahead and do your schedule but DON'T ADD ANYTHING!!!
Ditto :/ I just keep reassuring myself that if they are learning then it's ok. Keep on going forward.
For me, this time of year is tough because I'm looking at what to buy for the next year. Is what I'm using with the money? Do I need to switch? If so, what? I agonize for hours over catelogs, forums and websites. Constantly second guessing myself. This year I'm debating on how full a schedule to start my daughter in for high school.
I would urge you NOT to schedule more than a week or two in advance. As far as adding more, that is a temptation to many of us, but it is not always wise. What kind of stuff do you want to add? More busy work or more fun stuff? That makes a big difference. Are your children young? If they are, the only thing I would add is more free time. Too much work is not good and too much laziness is not good. Find a balance and keep with it.
I get that way too. For me, it's because the closer we get to the end of the year, the more panicky I get because we've got too much book left! And I am the most laid back schooler I know! If this bothers me, the queen of slackers, I know it's bad.LOL. No matter how good I feel about how much my kids are learning, I still feel like it's not enough and try to cram some more in. I like to think I have shaken off the ps model, but this time of year finds me still apparently clinging to old thinking. Do we ever get better at this? Cabsmom offers good advise. Balance is good.
That happened to me this year as well, and we are finally getting back on track. Weirdly, what helped me was to plan out the rest of the school year- every single week until then. I think my panic was related to not having a clear enough vision of where I wanted to go, and what I wanted my children to learn. I also ended my schedules about a month before school will 'end' for us for the year, so if we have slacker days, it's ok. It isn't perfect by any stretch, but at least I feel like we are moving in the right direction.
I'm so glad I'm not alone... I'm really stressing this year because ds14 is wanting to go back to public school next year. He is classified as a freshman this year but He hasn't finished ANY of his books. And I have no credits to give him. So he will be going back as a freshman next year.. We are going to school through the summer and try to finish up on what he started but I don't know if we will get it done or not. We have a BUSY summer planned. We'll see..
My problem is not with our schedule or the work getting done, it's with knowing the end of the year testing is coming, and will my children, especially my son, fall into the pigeon hole that the state and school district expects him to be in?! I am a firm believer in letting children grow and learn at their own pace. They will eventually grasp the concepts they need to know, maybe just not when it is expected of them by the "professionals", but so what?! I don't like at all how our state ed dept. is so interested in cramming their philosphosies and ideas of what is good for the children to learn down our throats! Add to that a discontent ex who is always magnifying learning issues where there really doesn't have to be any, and who is unsupportive of my continued homeschooling of the children, and I get to be a nervous wreck at this time of the year!!
I homeschooled 16 years and I think I did that every year, but for me the crunch always came in Feb. Looking back on it, I see now that all of the lesson planning was probably the right thing to do, I just was not flexible enough with myself. I was too perfectionistic. I think we all tend to have in the back of our mind the traditional "school" thinking of "getting through the book", or the lesson plans, or whatever. Another factor, at least for me was always that I felt I needed to show everyone that I was doing it "right". I can admit that. I can also admit that I WAS doing it right and that it had nothing to do with following the days of the lesson plans, but following the ideas and oulines of the lesson plans. The lesson plans were there for guidance. They weren't a checklist. I just kept losing site of that during the year because of MY inhibitions. I have a couple of ideas of how to avoid this. Firstly, be sure you have a Statement of Purpose for your school and put something in it just for this purpose - and reread it every time you start feeling like this. Another thing I'd do myself is to set up my lesson plans differently next time around. I think I would do each subject separately, assigning lesson plans enough to fill a year, and then assigning priorities to the activities within each subject area. Maybe 1-2-3. 1 being things I felt I definitely wanted to cover - no skipping! 2 being things I felt were necessary and could only be left undone if something else was substituted of equal or greater value, and 3 being things I would LIKE to do, but I felt were not necessarily NECESSARY to the learning process. IOW - could be skipped if we started falling behind or something more important came up, like sickness, a new baby, whatever. I did find over the years that I needed a combination of structure and flexibility. I always struggled with the balance. I think most of us do. It always seemed like others were doing better, but I found, years later, that they weren't - they just presented a better image and maybe didn't have such high expectations of themselves. I hope some of this may be useful. It's pretty much just things I've mulled over and considered as I head into my second time around!
Thank you and I'm glad, TeacherMom. I will always remember that when I began homeschooling, there was a homeschooler who took a day out of her busy schedule to spend with me showing me her books, her routine, her curriculum, even her catalogues! She helped me so much and I am hopeful to be able to "Pay it Forward"
Country Gal thats awesome! I know that in all my years.. uh... ds is 19, we started when he was 5? so 14-15 yrs somewhere in there lol I go through ups and downs through the year. I think most teachers out there probably do too. When I was a pre/k level I would go through a temporary 'burn out' each year at some point too. The thing to do is get together with other home schooling parents and encourage one another. I think sometimes we can actually discourage one another too when we talk about only the 'working' areas and not the things that we feel we 'fail' at. So it is good when one can read through a post and come away ready to accept the things we cannot change and ready to conquer the things we can! Go get em! Be blessed not stressed!
