I decided last Spring to have a really slow and mellow fall this year. IT is so easy to get caught up in all the opportunities and to lose sight of just being home. Mind you, I am the most home based person I know, I really resist leaving home, and it has to be something REALLY good to get us to go. But even still there are a lot of great things in the fall. Lots of festivals, fun class like opportunities and social plans.
So this fall we will not sign up for anything that will mess up us having at LEAST three cosectuative days a week at home. This doesnt include the occasional field trip to a farm or something, but nothing on a regular basis. We chose not to sign back up for Explora this fall, but may revisit that choice in the spring. The kids love it but it falls at a really hard time for us.
We need at least three consecutive days to do our lessons and get our rhythm really rolling. We rock when our rhythm is set and we are flowing through our days. I love that feeling!! I long for it right now with all this house chaos. I really am wanting this to be over, and it barely has begun. I really dont like feeling so torn between all these obligations. It is not how I like to live my life. I know a lot of people thrive on having a long list of to-dos and people say you get more done when your busy, but that only works for me for about a week. Then I crash and burn!!!
Take this Zookeeper thing this week. It is AWESOME!!! I love it, the kids love it and GM is thriving with it. BUT it is killing me at home! I am having a hard time with being up at 5:30 and getting everything together to entertain and feed the two little ones for three hours, and packing GM his snack (cant have the provided one) and being sure we have gas to get throught the 40 minute drive each way. It isnt terrible or anything, but I am TIRED when we get home. The fact that it has been raining everyday for two weeks might not be helping matters. LOL
Anyway, this reminds me, that right now during the "oh look at that" phase of homeschooling, we are opting for the "oh, home is great" perspective! Sticking close to home and enjoying the pace of life that we thrive in. As we roll with this and our rhythm is solid we can add in things that really inspire us. It will be a great way to spend the rest of 2006!!
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3 comments:
I can really relate. Last year we were out of the house 3 mornings a week on a regular basis. That is one reason that afternoon lessons seemed to work better for us. But J-Baby rebelled and started to not want to go anywhere. When Campfire took a break after the holidays we decided to take a longer break (and the group ended up folding). Then we were gone 2 mornings a week, but once I got serious about Enki we dropped story time, even though it was at a great independent children's bookstore and we were very bonded to the story teller (we'd been going for 5 years).
Now park day is it for us in terms of regular weekly out-of-the-house activities (during the day). I was planning errands on Mondays, but it doesn't end up fitting in. We still occasionally have to go out for an appointment or errand, but it is pretty rare.
I hope you figure out a good balance.
I just blogged about this. I want to really think through how our Fall will look and commit to a rhythm. Its just finding the right one! Its so easy to get caught up in all the fun stuff do. But then, in the long run, it makes it harder being home because the kids get use to running around all the time. They forget how to just "be." Me too. I want our home to be our center.
I agree also. This is one of our goals to step back from doing so much.
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