Adventures in Homeschooling / Web 2012 / Getting Back in the Swing of Things, by Jennifer

Jan 20, 201206:49 AMAdventures in Homeschooling

Getting Back in the Swing of Things, by Jennifer

You want some truth in advertising? You know all those things I told you to do to start the new year off right?  Um…I didn’t do them.  Yeah, that’s right.  Sometimes you need to do what I say and not what I do.

I had good intentions, of course.  Plans were made in my head, but never written down. I did some preparation by requesting library books and gathering supplies, so that was good.  Our new morning routine has been practiced and I’ve already decided to pitch it soon. And polishing?  Well, let’s just not even talk about that.

The last couple of weeks have been a bit chaotic.  My son’s PE class added an extra day (for the same price!  Score!).  This is great, but it’s been an adjustment. And if the calendar says it’s January and the temperatures are in the 70s, we’re going to have to make it to the park. It seems like every time we’ve turned around lately there’s been something else to do. (More on that another time!)

In spite of my failure to get things on paper while on break, and even though we’ve been somewhere almost every day, we’re finally getting back into the swing of things. We started with a short week because I’m pretty sure if we’d started back full steam, none of us would have been speaking to each other by the middle of the week. Also, the first days back were spent reviewing content from the previous semester.  We played games, looked over my son’s notebook, and did a lot of read alouds.

When we began the next Monday, we started a new book (Mr. Popper’s Penguins!) and a new on-going unit (Presidents!) and a new artist (Van Gogh!). We usually do one unit study a week, so switching things up a bit with a novel and adding in the new presidents unit drew my son in. We’ve kept some of our favorite things, too, like Wednesday afternoon “tea” time—the quotation marks used since no one actually consumes any tea—and crafts.

Sometimes it’s hard to get started again in January. It’s cold and dark and spring seems to be three years away and really the only thing that sounds good is staying in bed all day with the stack of books you got for Christmas.  Once you get going, though, this is one of the best times of the year.  You’ve got your choice of hundreds of fabulous winter books, a gazillion great ideas floating around Pinterest, and the perfect weather to stay inside and learn with your kids!  Enjoy it!