When we planned a sleepover for the middle of the week that meant some scheduling changes. Not all my children were involved in the sleepover, but I was so I didn’t want to be teaching on this day. I had two choices

1. Cancel our normal Wednesday routine. Daniel to be with his friends, and the others to study what they could and needed to.
2. Swap Friday and Wednesday around. I had to ask myself “are the lessons planned for Wednesday more important than the lessons planned for Friday or vice versa?”

I chose to go with the first option – we will still have regular Friday lessons on Friday.

When interruptions happen it is good to see your options. You can still be in control. Here are some things that I do to stay in control when interruptions happen

1. Assess any learning opportunity in the interruption and see if any child can specifically learn or practice something by being involved.
2. Know my priorities so that I can ensure they get interrupted less frequently or I can schedule them in after the interruption regardless of the time of day.
3. I don’t have my lesson plans written with dates attached – just a long list of lesson plans (eg – I don’t plan Bible lesson 2-1 on Monday, and 2-2 on Tuesday etc… my plans are written simply as Bible 2-1, 2-2, 2-3 so that we flow from one lesson to the next whenever we are ready and able)

So though we didn’t have a regular routine the kids still had some focus study time:

Josh: Math, Latin, Drivers Ed, Reading, Library, maintenance around the house including supervising Daniel mowing the lawn.

Jess: Jess wasn’t feeling too well so she didn’t do a great deal but she did have a piano practice, do living math with the group, reading and time at the Library. Jess cooked dinner.

Nomi: living math with the group, reading, blogging, at time at the library

Daniel: a play date brings lots of learning – from character issues such as preferring one another, being hospitable, creative and imaginative play. One of his friends brought their guitar along so that sharpened Daniel’s desire to learn to play. Formally – he had the living math lesson and time at the library.