I am trying SO hard to get the girls school done for the year.. We REALLY need to finish the books they are in before the next school year.. It's so easy to slack off and let other things take priority.. Especially with all that's going on lately.. We haven't gotten a whole lot done.. I do lesson plans and they end up being moved to another day and then to another week.. Today I pulled out all the work that didn't get done last week.. yes, I didn't do lesson plans :/ So we just started with those few things. I really worked hard with my 9 year old today.. We read and talked about homophones and redid math worksheets and did our first spelling test in Sequential spelling.. Which she got all right so that was a good thing.. But I just feel so scatter brained and would rather be tending to the million of other things that's going on around me than to do school.. Next week we have 3 days that are doctors appointments.. It was unintentional.. I made dental appointments for the girls then got a call from the endocrinologist to come in the following day for my son's tests.. My husband also has an appointment with the pain specialist.. All three of the appointments are out of town... So school will probably be hit and miss.... i guess i set my expectations too high... I'm second guessing trying to go through the summer.. It may just be too much.. (((sigh)))
Take some of their work with you when you go to the appointments. I've done school in dentist and doctor waiting rooms. It isn't ideal, but it helps when you have a ton of appointments. Also, if you are on the go a bit look into some carschooling options. Perhaps your read aloud can be an audio book listened to while driving to different appointments. Maybe try to set aside a time each day that is untouchable or depending on your children's needs set aside 4 days a week that are untouchable. Do not schedule anything during those times or days. Have that school time be treated like you were going to your job at that time. With a job there are occasional sick days or doctor's appointments, but as with a job you need to go to work pretty faithfully to keep your job.
We have taken school work to numerous Dr appts, and to grandma's house, and the boys usually do their computer work first thing in the morning before we leave (they are early birds), or save that for when we get home. Or another thing we have done is just do two days worth of worksheets/workbooks on Dr appt days, and then the next day when we are home, we do two days worth of computer work. This is what is so great about homeschooling. The schedule is completely flexible. We even did school this past Saturday to make up for time off last week.
Calm down, you are doing fine. You see that you made a slip by not planning, so fix that. Next week may be crazy, so just flow with it. Get a book on cd or something for in the car, take along some of their work that they don't need extras to go with (a grammar workbook maybe and a book to read). Make up a folder that each girl can carry along with "fun sheets" in them, they will still be doing some learning or practicing skills. Find some pages on learningpage.com for them to work on. I plan on working year around here now... but we work a bit lighter each day than we would if we were doing a traditional 180 days. Math and Reading every day, other aspects of LA are scattered a bit.. grammar this day, writing, that one, spelling on this and that.. etc. Then I'm taking science, history, geography, social studies (economics, citizenship, etc), spanish, art, music and even an educational game day and putting them on a list. We do one each day, the next day we move on to the next. This cycle will take 2 weeks with Fridays off, or I may just keep moving through it, I'm not sure yet. I'm hoping it helps make me not feel so dragged down with it all.
We are trying to talk hubby into taking the whole day off Monday so we can go play in Lubbock.. Possibly go to the science spectrum and then grocery shopping at sams.. I see math and science being taken care of that day if we manage to get our way. Tuesday and Wednesday are normal days.. Thursday and Friday we are back at the doctors.. Thursday we may take off to a musem in the small town about 30 miles from us.. It's a REALLY neat little place.. But that's all depending on if my daughter has dental work done or not... Friday we will DEFINATELY go to a museum.. Silent Wings Museum in Lubbock is AMAZING!!! And SUPER cheap!!!! So looks like this may be a week filled with field trips.. Gonna leave it at that.. And have FUN with my kiddos.. Today was a REALLY good day.. I got some planning done while the girls did their schoolwork and we threw in some extra games too.. Daughter is having a hard time with money counting so we played a game and she won a blizzard .. She had a LOT of fun and so did I.. Looking forward to tomorrow.. We ARE progressing and I'm seeing differences in the girls work.. Especially Dd9.. Handwriting is improving my leaps and bounds and she is reading much better.. Those two things were really bothering me.. But we seem to be working them out.. I will definately be doing planning for next week.. It will be lighter compared to what we usually do.. But that's okay.. Beauty of Homeschooling right??
You can do it! I know totally how it feels and this is February this is the month I always have stressed over the work being behind, most years we re done on time, some early a couple we started doing two weeks of "summer School" for the review portions of the curric. Now when I feel behind I read ahead and lecture teach it then let them answer questions.
Have you ever read the book "Things We'd wished We'd known" complied by Bill and Diane Waring. It has been helping me tremendously this year. Kind of reminding me why I'm doing this in the first place. Today we read a portion of Psalm 119, there are 21 sections. this way in 3 weeks you have gone through is and in a year you will have read it through 17 times. i told my boys we were going to do that this year. Sometimes we might read it to ourselves and other times as group reading. Thrn we prayed, and then did our devotional Keys for Kids. Then we finished watching a wonderful video about Awakening Cambodia, about orphans and the church there. and then another one called God's amazing world. The boys loved the Sea Creature portion. My oldest read to us from Saving Levi, a true story about an abandoned baby in China. I also taught some math to 3 of them and discussed outlines at length with my 11 year old. All in all a great learning day, if not one that can be shown by a multitude of paper work. I know real learning took place in their hearts and minds. More learning will go on with you daughters next week because they will be experiencing life. Scheduling, traffic, patience in the waiting room, Doctors diagnosis and prescription and prognosis.... so the list goes on. Don't worry you are doing a fine job. Enjoy this "free from schoolwork" time God has provided for you! He knows when we need it.
