5 ways to finish the homeschool year strong

Photo credit: Deanna Blue

  The final push from the end of Spring Break to the first days of summer can feel a little like the movie "Groundhog Day".  There's nothing to break up the monotony; it's just all about pushing through and completing another day.  Here are 5 ways that you, a homeschooling momma can bust out of that monotony and into the summer with energy to spare!

1) Plan a fun field trip

If your kids were ever in public school, you may remember that this is the time of year that they would plan a field trip to cut a path through all the boring test prep.  For homeschool, this also works! Take a trip to the zoo, or an uncrowded amusement park, make a picnic lunch and take a frisbee and the dog. This is the time to take advantage of the fact that everyone is still in school!

2) Have a mental health day

When my kids were in public school, each year, I'd pick a day and surprise them by picking them up from school.  My lucky daughter of the day would get to decide where we ate lunch and (out of a few carefully chosen options) what we did for the day.  We called it mental health day.  Everyone needs a day like this every so often.  It could even be a veg day, where you catch up on stuff you've both been wanting to see on tv, or have a carpet picnic (can you tell I like picnics?).

3) Teacher for the day

A couple of times, to bust up the boring nature of this time of year, I've instituted "teacher for the day".  The kid I choose gets to be the teacher and I am one of the students, along with their sibling.  They LOVE doing this, and I think they actually learn more when teaching the material.

4) Do school in a weird place

We've done school in coffee shops, hotels, cars, on the trampoline, outside in the sun, in the pool, in one of their beds, and in my bed.  When they come to sit down for school in the morning, surprise them by moving them to another location.  Perspective changes.  It's good.

5) Add a movie, YouTube or Schoolhouse Rock to your day

Check out Amazon, Netflix, Brainpop and others for something relative to your history lesson for the day.  Kids retain more when they see the Civil War acted out on the computer or tv. Sometimes a random 80's song pops into my head.  I will play it on YouTube just to illustrate my point.  The kids think I'm weird. It's all part of my plan....

So, just when you think that there's no way you can possibly make it to the end of May, try out one of these little gems.  The change will not only add fun to your Spring, but give all of you the strength to carry on through to the infamous "Week 36".

When to change what you're doing and just move on

We are SO cold right now.  The President and his Dem friends say that there's a warming trend going on that is melting ice caps or something.  Penguins are dying!  Well.  The penguins need to come to Dallas/Ft. Worth or Atlanta or Chicago.  The Great Lakes are even freezing!

While Washington fears the heatwave, we are sitting in our house FREEZING!   We did turn down the heater a bit.  The 650 dollar electric bill last month was kinda scary.  So, blankets, hoodies and Uggs are the uniform during the homeschooling day.

I just changed Sophie's math curriculum and it got me thinking.  Some newer to homeschooling may feel they need to stick with a particular part of their curriculum or else.  Or else what!!???  They happily check off boxes, and their kiddos are accomplishing the tasks, but is it hitting their happiness zone?  Is it delighting them to learn this information?  Kids remember concepts better when there is something attached to it.  It is often that I will run a quick YouTube video to illustrate something that I think will help them remember a new concept.  I've shown Schoolhouse Rock to help them learn their multiplication facts, played an actual rain dance song to discuss weather (and we danced too!), and showed parts of movies during history.  My brain thinks that EVERYTHING is connected somehow, so it's not difficult for me to think of a random 80's song to illustrate my point about the Russian Czars! Weird, but true...

Of course, no kid LOVES every topic you can throw at them, but, for instance, if they hate math, is there a way to teach it so they are not SO miserable when they sit down to do it?  This is when you have to plug into your kids learning styles and interests and do a little research.  After a couple years (yes, I said years) of teaching my kids, I was much more aware of their interests and learning styles.  I know how to motivate each one and when I've hit the point at which they simply can not hear me any longer.  Taking that, along with resources like other mommas, Cathy Duffy's 101 best, Amazon reviews, home-school co-op friends, and the like, I can mold a program to fit each child.

My rule of thumb is that if I am homeschooling them, I can take the time to figure this stuff out and tailor a program that suits each of them.  No matter what, DON'T get discouraged and think that you are a failure if you try a bunch of different things and they haven't worked.  Ask the Lord, He knows your kid better than you do, and he is faithful to show you the way.  Incidentally, He also knows what info your kiddo needs in his/her toolbox for the future.  He is faithful!

Oh My Goodnesss....I'm SO Organized!!!

NOT that this has NEVER happened before....but with schooling, it's rare.  I'm pretty organized usually, but this is, well, incredible.  It is early July and I am staring at all of my books for NEXT YEAR!  What???  You may ask....  How??  Well, I can give you a super spiritual answer and say that the Lord was very clear and unusually early with His answer to "what do we do next year?".  Or, I could just show you a pic of my books (all organized by the date we will read them), and say "Wowweeee!!"

So, enough of that.  I know what you really want are some pics of people eating watermelon at our house on July 4th.  It's what we all demand...

Caycee.  Note the style at which she comes at the watermelon.  Nice approach.

Sophie.  It's weird how my iron work on the wall look like her antennae.

 My mom.  Cause that's just cute.

Sydney.  My child for sure.  Check out the crossed-eyes and flared nostrils.  She's ready.

 

Trevor.  Our friend from small group.  He thinks this whole thing is funny.  It's not.  It's VERY serious! This is watermelon-eating, people!!

Happy 4th, everyone!  God bless the USA....

Somebody's got a senior in the house!!

Ok, so we are a family of weirdoes.  We all think it's fun.  Imagine our excitement when we realized that Caycee needed a senior picture done and we all got to participate?  Also, in my love for combining things, I knew we also needed another family picture done!  Since Sydney and Sophie were 3 and 1 when we had our last pics taken and Caycee has come to live with us over the last year, we were a little deprived in that department.

 This is just the girls....

So, here is the almost graduated girl in her cowgirl boots.  Of course, we took these in the stockyards....where else??

 This is my newest student, Caycee.  Doesn't she look ready for school??

 Here's Sydney. We went on a horse drawn carriage ride through downtown Dallas.  She was good with it, I think!

And here's Sophie on a saddle at the Royal Gorge in Colorado.  She also looks very happy.  These are just a few of the things we did this summer.

Well, lots has changed since my last post....I am now getting ready to start the new homeschool year with my two kiddos and my niece Caycee.  She is 17 and is a senior.  She's already started her classes at my friend Karen's house; Marine Biology and American Lit.  I have never homeschooled a high schooler before, so this should be interesting!  Actually, I am super excited for the year, even with all of it's unknown bits.  I get lots of advice from friends who have already walked this road before me, and the Lord goes before me.  That's it for now.  Hope to post more in a week or so!

In the weeds

Well, we have moved, gotten all settled in, figured out how to take care of the pool, the well, and the septic system, and now spring has sprung!  Well, at least the weeds of spring....they are popping up all over my 1.1 acre, and that's A LOT of ground to cover with weed killer!!  Makes me think of God trying to weed stuff out of my life.  As I am squirting the weeds down, I am being ever so careful to not hit actual plants.  I notice also that good stuff and bad stuff can grow out of the same place.  Hmmmm..

Ok, so we are thinking that next year we will consider putting the kids into a 2 day a week co-op type program.  I am thinking about one that is just down the road, that I have never heard of, and where Sydney would be the highest grade they have.  I am also considering one that I have heard of that has lots of experienced people teaching and is a bit further away.  And so here are the complexities that come along with homeschooling....knowing when to give away some of the reins to someone else, and how to do it.  Praying to see God's best for my children in all of this.....