I constantly feel that my kids are not doing enough and then I look at what is in front of them and I feel they do too much and there is not enough time for them to discover and contemplate; to be kids. There is this tension between being productive and being free to mull over things; a tension between going with the flow and being self-disciplined.
In my constant search to be true with the philosophies/directions that are in my heart and the real life that happens in our house I have been looking again at the balance in our days.
I have decided to work with a list of priorities for the day, instead of a time slot by time slot type of schedule. Believe me, I have that schedule there tucked away in files but for my day to day working I am going to give a to-do list a go. Because I have worked out our “½ hour time slots” schedule I know we can fit it all in, but . I wonder what will happen if I remove the time constraints?
When I have written my list of each subject that each child will cover for each day, I start to see a balance or imbalance in their day.
For example, does Jess need to do a writing lesson every day when she is going through the writing process, with various genres in her Discipleship studies? I dont think so.
Does Josh need to do grammar every day when he is correcting his grammar errors in his daily writing pieces? I dont think so.
Does Nomi need to do Math every day when she has some hands on math skills happening in the kitchen or at the science table? I dont think so.
I have started to see these overlaps. Once a skill overlap has been noted I can start to delete some of these time slots or expectations and the children end up with more time for their creative outlets their discretionary studies their projects their pure thinking time or time to enjoy life!
I know what you mean! Although I find ti hard to put into words. I too, found that I doubled up on so many subjects and areas. A lot of it was because of the ‘school’ mentality I had (not saying that you do but where my head was at) instead of looking at each individual child and seeing what skills they *needed* rather than simply needing to cover. Oh, I don’t know. You said it so well so I’ll just say, Amen!
I’ve even been doubling up on history studies- and it doesn’t help that it is also Abi’s passion and delight. But, in my mind I have to streamline and simplify…working on this. 🙂
~smile~
Susan <
Not that one needs to be invited but you’re invited!!!! To HOMEschool Fellowship.
http://hsfellowship.proboards45.com/index.cgi?
Cheers,
Susan <
I am so bad at goals. I get general ideas in my head, but I never write them down or actually decide to be “goal focused”. I should work on that!! LOL
Any more great tips??!!
Melissa