Learning to Pace Ourselves...

Turns out that having this much garden area to weed, so many nursery plants to tend, large areas of lawn to mow, irrigation pipes to change, animals to feed, and things that need water is a lot of hard work.  I knew that going into it, but I don't think I had realized just how much time each and every day it would take to keep up.

So much time, in fact, that it makes it difficult to get the kids' schooling done on a consistent basis each and every week.  We've been on a great consistent schedule all year but when late March came we found it difficult to remain focused on school lessons.  We've probably only been able to finish a whole week of schooling 3 out of the last 6 weeks.  The 3 other weeks we might have only completely at most 1-2 days of lessons and the rest of the week was swallowed up by projects, chores, and town errands.

I have been feeling conflicted about not being able to be consistent, on one hand we've been enjoying the lighter school schedule and more time doing hands on things.  Yet, I'm feeling some worry that if we don't keep up on math and reading and learning new skills we'll fall behind.

Several options keep floating around in my head.  For instance, maybe stopping for summer break early and picking back up late July.   Or possibly cut back to just math and reading for a could months and let go of some other subjects for a while.  Or keep schooling on a lighter schedule (a couple days a week) all summer long and not take a larger break.

Overall, I'd say this is our best school year yet as far as consistency goes, and as far as depth in learning and lessons.  This is also the strongest our scripture and spiritual aspects of schooling have been.  That being said, it still isn't where I'd consider it ideal.  I might never attain my ideal of what school would be in a year because I have a tendency to have unrealistic expectations.

I enjoy reading this book to the boys.

If I can wrap my head around the bigger picture, and not just focus on lesson numbers, scope and sequence, and grade level expectations.... sometimes I think that these kids are learning more than they ever could from book lessons in our everyday activities!  We could just make the farm projects the lessons for a while, similar to what we have been doing already but adding more intentional lessons to it (Shhh they won't even know they are doing school).  Make them calculate the things, measure, divide, find %'s etc.  Make them weigh and measure things to do with the farm.  Help them with patience, perseverance, and proper techniques of skills that will serve them later into life.

I think we already do all this pretty well, but I know I could amp it up another notch to make it even more useful....which would mean me taking the time to help them to do more when it comes to the math, figuring, estimating for projects.  They are very hands-on with helping me, we work through problems together, talk about how to solve issues.  I know they are learning so much, but I still worry about all that proper book learning too.  Reading, writing, and math especially concern me at this time.

I sense the kids are just as much out of school mode as I am, if I try to force it in a traditional sense (books, worksheets, and formal lessons) we will likely all suffer and so will the farm projects.  I have been thinking about how much they'd REALLY learn if their heads and hearts are outside.  Then, I think about how often as a child in public school we actually finished an entire textbook.  Food for thought I guess.

Sometimes, I think they'd really enjoy having a tutor come once or twice a week, they might like having someone other than Mom have them do learning things.  I would like having a little pressure taken off and lightening the load some too, plus, having someone help me gauge progress would be nice.  I have faith that God will give me the strength to educate these children if I continue to seek to be obedient to Him.  Who knows, maybe He will send me a tutor for a little divine help too!

As you can see, we are learning how important it is to pace ourselves.  I used to commonly fall into the all-or-nothing trap, where I thought getting it all done equaled success, and getting only some of it done equaled a failure.  I am getting wiser as I go along and I am learning that progress is progress and should be celebrated even if it wasn't as much as I'd have liked to have gotten done.  Something is always better than nothing when it comes to working hard, setting goals, and staying focused long term.