The Well-Scheduled Life: An Exercise in Liberation

Posted on August 29, 2012 by homeschoolhappymess

It is that time again, the time when structure yields freedom.  Or when freedom must yield to structure.

All through our long, wonderful and carefree summer, I have been planning and organizing.   I have cleaned our schoolroom, filed our papers and redistributed the books.  I have reviewed various programs, met with my fellow homeschool mothers and debated the merits and pitfalls of specific options.  Finally the choices were made, the new books ordered, the desks cleaned one last time.   Each week as I became more enamored with summer, I have found myself relentlessly marching toward fall.

This year I am using Debra Bell’s Ultimate Homeschool Planner as my personal support system.  I love the way this book encourages me to plan for the year, establishing academic and personal goals for every member of the family.  Each goal is then broken into bite-sized pieces and redistributed across the weeks.  Debra has built in discussion times (2x/week!) with each child to review goals and encourage progress.  This system really guides our family to work both together and independently to achieve our goals.

A favorite friend, visiting from Paris, helped to organize my best intentions into a scheduled reality.  With some input from myself, and the Happymess students, she came up with a schedule that seems to work.  The kids are happy to know exactly what is expected of them and I am glad to see all the key subjects making a permanent appearance on the daily schedule.

Miraculously, I have been given the most amazing gift:  a private study.  This previously unusable and cluttered space has been transformed with navy paint and donated furniture.  Happymess kids are as happy as I am that we will now have a quiet place for private discussions, goal setting and frustration resolution.

And so, as we march inexorably toward September, we have cleaned, planned, arranged and scheduled.  We are up to the challenge and excited to begin anew.  A well-organized homeschool liberates our minds and souls to pursue higher learning and personal dreams.

Let Me Count the Days:  Homeschooling is finding that structure can set us free.

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So Long Sweet Summer, So Long…

Posted on August 28, 2012 by homeschoolhappymess

Summer is our favorite season.  The weather is warm and wild and thus prohibitive of difficult endeavors.  Freedom reigns.

Each person is free, like the wildflowers, to grow in any direction and to follow the sunshine of their dreams.

Happymess kids begin the summer with a trip to the zoo and a greenhouse.

The plastic gorilla is even more fun!

The Fourth of July was shared with friends and family.  Watching shards of light sparkle and reflect across the ocean waves is spectacular.

This summer Scooter got his first set of wheels.  He is finally able to ride to the library, church, candy store and beach with his brothers!  This is surely the high point of Scooter’s summer.

For the first time, Truth and Quantum left home to spend a week living in the woods.  We missed them, but loved coming up for the closing bonfire.

Athena traveled most of this summer.  We did manage to catch up with her long enough to enjoy kayaking on the lake together.

Oddly, perhaps, most of our summer was spent reading.

We read long, complicated historical novels like Anna Karenina by Tolstoy and fun, short books like Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown.  We read intriguing children’s books like A Single Shard by Sue Parks and we read Bob Books as we struggled to teach Scooter some basic reading skills.

One of our favorite activities is the Library Summer Reading Program.  Bounce and Scooter race to the library everyday to record the new number of hours they read.  They average 2-3 hours per day.

We allow Scooter to count his pre-reading activities towards his reading total.

One of the fun aspects of summer is that everyone enjoys the whimsy.  Here is the ceiling of our favorite summer diner.

Bounce loves art.  I am not a big fan of scraping paint off the floor so summer and art and I are best friends.  Bounce created an outdoor studio where he can paint whenever he likes.

 

As summer comes to its inevitable end, I begin organizing, arranging and planning for the unsentimental months ahead.  Here we have all the un-owned shoes looking for new feet so they can attend school next month.  I managed to find several pairs each for Bounce and Scooter.

And so the month of August draws to a close and we must finally say, “So long sweet summer.”  What a wonderful interlude it has been.

Let Me Count the Days:  Homeschooling is the freedom to dream, create and cherish the unscheduled and the free.

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