"Another first day of school and everybody survived". That's what I used to say in past years when my kids were younger and more work was needed from me.Now, my kids are older and have become more independent in many areas.
Today was withot doubt, a very different first day of school. We started the day by joining the team of Food Matters Chilliwack and spent 2 1/2 hrs picking apples and raking. It was fun!
After lunch, we had a short devotional to put our school year,goals and plans before God.
Then,the kids started with their school work. Esteban did his on-line courses and so does Fernanda. Andrea started with writing using Story Starters.It wasn't a full day but a good start.
Every year God shows his mercy and love to us by guiding us and helping us to accomplish different goals. Eventhough I like planning for everything, sometimes short term plans are better for us as we never know if things will run smoothly or if we will encounter little bumps on the way that will make us slow down and even sometimes just to change things completely.
As I have learned for the past 8 years of homeschooling, having short term goals help me to prevent us to feel overwhelmed or frusttaed when we don't accomplish what we thought we had to accomplish. I have learned to slow down and wait until making the next step.
For example: I used to plan the entire month and once or twice I tried to plan the entire year. When the kids used to get stuck with something, get sick or maybe even enjoying a topic too much to quit.
That's when I felt overwhelmed because my timeline and goals suddenly changed!
Now, when planning, I don't start a new plan until completing the previous one.This means that if I schedule a series of activities or a study, I don't go ahead because the schedule says so but I have the time and no pressure to stop and slow down because I don't have something coming up right away or I don't have anything that makes me feel I am behind on schedule.
I have learned to attend the needs of my kids and not the needs of a schedule.
I hope you get the idea!
Every year God shows his mercy and love to us by guiding us and helping us to accomplish different goals. Eventhough I like planning for everything, sometimes short term plans are better for us as we never know if things will run smoothly or if we will encounter little bumps on the way that will make us slow down and even sometimes just to change things completely.
As I have learned for the past 8 years of homeschooling, having short term goals help me to prevent us to feel overwhelmed or frusttaed when we don't accomplish what we thought we had to accomplish. I have learned to slow down and wait until making the next step.
For example: I used to plan the entire month and once or twice I tried to plan the entire year. When the kids used to get stuck with something, get sick or maybe even enjoying a topic too much to quit.
That's when I felt overwhelmed because my timeline and goals suddenly changed!
Now, when planning, I don't start a new plan until completing the previous one.This means that if I schedule a series of activities or a study, I don't go ahead because the schedule says so but I have the time and no pressure to stop and slow down because I don't have something coming up right away or I don't have anything that makes me feel I am behind on schedule.
I have learned to attend the needs of my kids and not the needs of a schedule.
I hope you get the idea!
Tomorrow, we will start using Thinking Like a Christian, a study of the Christian worldview. Fernanda will be doing on-line courses like English 10,Apprenticeship and Workplace Math 10, Music 10 and Italian 11. She will continue with her piano lessons and probably with pottery or visual art classes.
Esteban will be doing English 11, Robotics 11 and Information Technology.He will also be taking some cooking classes at UFV(University of the Fraser Valley),a Food Safe course as well as a IOS App design ipad and ipod course.
Andrea will be doing writing with Story Startes and other different resources through the year, Math using Teaching Textbooks.Different unit studies starting this month with Al Capone. She prepared a long list of topics she would like to study for the year.
She will befull time involved with CSOPA ( Chilliwack of Performing Arts School) preparing to performed in Annie as "Pepper"one of the orphans.
This year is all about their interests. We'll see how this approach works for this year.
Ta ta
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