Seven Years, Seven Lessons - introduction

The days of the school year are winding down.  We have a few weeks left, but it has been incredible to see how well things are going.  It all started a few month ago, when I was so exhausted that I just didn't want to go on.

I'm still working out a schedule, but we follow a rough one.  I set up a routine to help my youngest daughter.  She was not focusing very well.  I began to implement diet changes to help her.  That helped, but our days were taking forever!

So, I began to streamline our school.  I stopped some of our notebooking assignments because, as intriguing as I found them, as artsy as my children are, they often spent so long on one thing that it was tough to get much else accomplished. They weren't as enthusiastic about the work as I had thought they would be. 

I slowly moved my youngest to the dreaded workbook programs.  Yes, we do a lot of reading.  I don't expect a workbook to be a complete education, but I needed a way to set goals for her and teach her to set them for herself.  I needed to make a schedule without it taking me hours to set up or hours for her to accomplish.  I had her jumping from notebooking to readers to the computer and back again.  She was frustrated.  I was frustrated.  

The timing never seemed to work.  All my children seemed to need the computer at the same time.  Making the notebooks or planning them took me hours.  I learned a lot from the experience, and it was fun for a change of pace, but I overdid it.  I still use notebooking assignments, but it is more of a project for the girls to add to something, not the base of their studies. 

I have a nice eclectic mix going on now of some computer learning, reading, and workbooks.  As I delved into simplifying our studies, I felt myself and my children relax and enjoy learning.  Now, they know exactly what they are to do each day, and it gets done.

I think reading about how others do thugs can be helpful, or it can be chaos.  For me, I enjoy reading what works for others, and will often implement those things into my school to see how they'll work for us.  Sadly, they don't always work out great. I don't always love the methods that others have used successfully.  

The all-in-one curricula also hasn't worked great for me long- term.  I have learned a lot from some of them, and I get excited over some of them, but after spending several small fortunes, much of the materials sit on shelves, partially used.  

Over the next few posts I plan to share some of what I've learned in my ups and downs of homeschooling the last seven years and what is working for us.  It is working for us, but that doesn't mean it is for everyone.  Do what works for you and your children!  The beauty of homeschooling is that you don't have to be just like someone else!