The Managed Chaos

So my first week of experimenting with how to tame the chaos in our homeschooling schedule was a success. It wasn't perfect, but it was a success.

The first secret is to lower expectations. I sat down with my hubby and went over my homeschool lesson plans. And we discovered that I was teaching two different science lessons each day. Totally unnessesary however cool they may be. And although history and science are awesome, language arts and math must come first as they are the base to all learning.

The other expectation that needs to be adjusted is the amount of time for seat work. We are a busy family with chores, ministry, and just life. They are all rich learning experiences and should be considered a part of our school day. So seat work is limited to the morning hours. If the work is not finished during this time, and the parent is confident that it isn't caused by over planning, then the school work must be finished before any fun activities. The key to making that work is that mom is finished teaching at lunch. If they need more help with their work, it will be saved for the following school day.

The next secret I discovered is that housework comes before school. Gasp! A dear friend brought this to my attention. And then I realized, if I can't concentrate sitting in a messy house, neither can my kids. So it works like this: Bible study, chores, school, play. They picked up on that real quick. My house stayed cleaned and school was accomplished.

I designated our extra stuff on different days. Sunday evenings are for music, Mondays we sew, and Wednesdays are horse days. Scheduling these things in assures we make time to rest and play together.

I'm much calmer, days are easier, and the kids are less frustrated. To keep this rolling, I also had to admit that keeping a rigid schedule all day long is exhausting to me and destined to fail. So we schedule our mornings, but leave afternoons loosely scheduled. This helps tremendously!