Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Back to School

Today was our first day back to “school.” So, what does that mean for homeschooled children that go to “school” year-round? Well, it means that my kids happily plunged into their new materials that have been sitting on the shelf waiting for them for the past few weeks. We still have a few loose ends to tie up from last year, but for the most part, everyone is moving forward with new materials.

With a new school year comes an updated family schedule. I wish I could tell you that wake up every morning, fly by the seat of our pants, and everything is magically completed at the end of the day. Unfortunately, that just isn’t so. I try every so often to work without a schedule, and find that we just don’t get as much done. So, the schedule is updated and perfected each year to reflect our needs. Again, we structure our time, not our content, still giving us quite a bit of flexibility with our day.



We have also updated our chore chart. The kids were getting tired of completing the same old chores each day, so to mix it up, we decided that we’d change chores every six months or so, so that everyone got a chance at the different chores.



In order to help us remember what we would like to get accomplished each day, the kids have a daily work chart.



If you can’t tell, I am a visual person, so the charts help me to know what we still have left to accomplish each day. I have each chart in a page protector on the refrigerator so the kids can mark off each item when they complete them, with a dry erase marker.

I am working to get a listing of each of their curricula and will post it as soon as I have it complied.

Here’s to a great “school year”!