August Plans

Firming up on my earlier thoughts, and posting a list to keep myself accountable:

Things To Do For Myself

• Throw out 30 more bags of stuff (surely one a day must be manageable?)
• Read at least part of a book everyday (even if it is just a few pages)
• Swim a couple of times a week
• Knit a cardigan for Cherub and finish two half-made pairs of socks
• Learn to use the sewing machine and make something wearable for Cherub
• Work at the record office one day a week

Things To Do With The Girls

• Help Angel and Star to sew something for themselves
• Help Cherub do some arty-crafty projects
• Read to Cherub everyday
• Movie evenings with the big girls
• Reorganise Playmobil with Cherub

Places To Go

• Pick your own farm
• Day trip to Wicksteed Park (I have some discount vouchers)
• Girly shopping days with Angel and Star
• Day at the zoo
• Trip to London to take Star and Cherub to the Science Museum
• Take Star to buy her first pair of pointe shoes for ballet

Checking back over July, I'm fairly happy with what I achieved:

• Knit something and finish it - even my knitting is drifting (socks? I feel a sock-knitting urge coming on) - check. One pair of socks and parts of two others knitted.
• Take Cherub to the butterfly farm - no, but we did go to the children's farm
• Visit the pick-your-own farm to pick strawberries - no 
• Spend more time outdoors - pretty good during the second half of the month, helped by our holiday
• Read (and finish!) at least four books - half there. Finished two books while we were away.
• Bake chocolate caramel shortbread - check
• Keep my flowers alive - check. Not exactly flourishing, but still alive and flowering.

July and August Plans

A halfway through the month update on how my July plans are coming along:

• Knit something and finish it - even my knitting is drifting (socks? I feel a sock-knitting urge coming on) - one and a half socks knitted
• Take Cherub to the butterfly farm - no, and can't see this happening now. We did make it to the local open farm though.
• Visit the pick-your-own farm to pick strawberries - weather permitting I'd like to take Star and Cherub on Wednesday (Angel has an extra day of school)
• Spend more time outdoors - not doing great. First it was too hot, now it is too wet.
• Read (and finish!) at least four books - oh dear! Does two chapters count?
• Bake chocolate caramel shortbread - check
• Keep my flowers alive - check (apart from two sad sunflowers that I think have passed the point of no return. They need to be put somewhere with room to grow, but have been abandoned in small pots.)

And a few things I am thinking of trying to do in August (which I need to write down before they fly out of my addled brain):

• Throw out 30 more bags of stuff (surely one a day must be manageable?)
• Learn to use the sewing machine and make something wearable for Cherub
• Help Angel and Star to sew something for themselves
• Pick your own farm (again)
• Day trip to Wicksteed Park (I have some discount vouchers)
• Read to Cherub everyday
• Do some arty-crafty projects with Cherub
• Girly shopping day with Angel and Star
• Movie evenings with the big girls
• Trip to London to do ??? 
• Read at least part of a book everyday (even if it is just a few pages)
• Swim a couple of times a week.

I will also be starting my archive work experience, which will take a day out of each week. If I can manage even two-thirds of that list, I'll be well pleased!

July Plans

Inspired by Jenn at As Cozy as Spring I thought I'd list a few plans for July ... I seem to be going through a drifting stage, where too little gets done. I know July is going to be a difficult month. My mother is having her knee replacement surgery on Wednesday, which will mean hospital visiting and then caring for her until she is fit enough to go home on her own. Even so, listing some things I would like to do makes it more likely that I will actually do them:

• Knit something and finish it - even my knitting is drifting (socks? I feel a sock-knitting urge coming on)
• Take Cherub to the butterfly farm
• Visit the pick-your-own farm to pick strawberries
• Spend more time outdoors
• Read (and finish!) at least four books
• Bake chocolate caramel shortbread
• Keep my flowers alive

Not much, but a few gentle targets to aim for.

New Year Resolutions 2009

I found it hard to narrow down my resolutions down to five this year, but after some thought I ended up with these:

Faith

• Go to adoration and benediction as often as possible on Saturday morning. As it is only for half an hour and fits in neatly after the First Communion class I teach, it should be quite easy to do.
  

Family

• To respond to needs and requests promptly, rather than saying "just a minute" (and then taking five ... or ten ... or more)
  

Fitness

• Lose 20lbs

Formation

• Finish the half-written book on Catholic history for children that has been left on hold since Little Cherub was born

Fun

• Finish three large cross-stitch projects that have been 95% done for years (two of them since before Angel was born!)

New Year Resolutions - Stock Take

Time to make that annual stock-take again ... how far did I get with last year's resolutions? And what do I want to aim for this year?

First, a review of last year:

Faith
A daily 30 minute quiet time for spiritual reading and prayer.

Failed abysmally.

Family
Keep on the Motivated Mom wagon for the entire year.

Not bad. I morphed Motivated Mom into my own list on Toodledo. After a while this got me into a fairly good cleaning routine and I now only need to use Toodledo to get myself back on track if things slip.

Fitness
Walk to Rivendell with Frodo. I think 458 miles in a year should be possible. If I aim at 10 miles a week that allows for the inevitable slippage. HT: Heather at Doodle Acres

I tried, but was very, very erratic, as you can see from my sidebar. Even after I joined the gym I didn't manage to get into a good routine. By November I had fallen apart completely and stopped counting.

Formation
Read at least one history book each month. It has been a while since I have done any serious historical reading and I would like to catch up a bit with what is going on in the historical world, plus read up on some topics I'm interested in.

Pathetic. I don't think I made it past a couple of books.

Fun
Knit. After doing virtually no knitting for years I have enjoyed the occasional knitting project over the last couple. I think I'll make 2008 the year of the knitting needle and take it up again properly.

I did well on this one, though I have realised I am a cold weather knitter. I stopped knitting in the summer and then started again in the autumn.

Even though my success rate is very hit and miss, I do find it helpful to make New Year Resolutions. It means I take time out to really think about what things I want to improve or change over the next year. I know from experience that I never manage to achieve all my goals, but some success is far better than none, and I like having something specific to aim at.

I will be posting next year's resolutions later in the week. I have some ideas, but want to ponder bit more first.

ToodleDo

I accepted some time ago that I am a failed FlyBaby and do better with the Motivated Moms planner. I downloaded the page-a-day option for 2008 ... and drowned in a sea of paper. In the end I decided I needed a simple to-do list rather than my paper ocean.

I use and love Google Calendar, but unlike iCal they have no to-do function. After bit of rooting around the internet I found ToodleDo ... and I love it almost as much as I love Google Calendar. It is the final piece in my organising jigsaw.

ToodleDo is both simple and flexible. To-do items can be allocated to dates and folders, given priority levels and set to repeat. I entered my Motivated Moms tasks for a couple of weeks, set to repeat daily, weekly or biweekly as appropriate. Then each month I look through my Motivated Moms checklists to add any extra tasks. I now have my own personalised housework checklist. The calendar feature on ToodleDo allows me to see the tasks I have lined up for each day. If things don't get done, it is easy to reallocate them to a future date.

But the absolutely best thing from my perspective is ...

ToodleDo works with Google Calendar

Once a connection to your Google Calendar is set, a little check box appears for each day. Click on the check box and it gives a dropdown ToodleDo menu, which makes it possible to both check off and edit tasks directly from Google Calendar.

It gets better. There is a slim version for iPhone / iPod Touch, which means I can manage my to-do list from my Touch as well as from both the desktop and laptop computers. And I notice there is now a new iPhone application that will allow me to use ToodleDo offline while I am out and about. Other options include Twittering your tasks, emailing reminders to yourself (be your own FlyLady!), linking to iCal, adding ToodleDo to your Google home page, and adding it to the Dashboard on a Mac (this is the one feature that wouldn't work properly for me).

And one more advantage ... it is free. There is a Pro version with additional features, but the free version is working fine for me.

If in doubt ... do less!

My planning mania struck again before Easter. My train of thought landed on Little Cherub's future schooling, and I found myself starting a list of topics I wanted to cover with her in the early years. I began scribbling down all sorts of great ideas for setting up Montessori-style trays, subject baskets, main lesson books ... then I wondered if I really needed to reinvent the wheel. I took a look at the Preparatory Level of Mater Amabilis and the introductory notes I wrote jumped out and hit me. Time to listen to my own advice!

IF IN DOUBT - DO LESS. Trying to do too much with a young child is worse than doing too little. It is better to start from scratch with a six year old than to find yourself dealing with one who doesn't want to do schoolwork any more. Be sensitive to your child's needs and readiness. If he or she isn't ready, then holding off for a year or so is fine.

Then this from a Parents' Union School Preparatory Class Programme:

Children of five still need plenty of quiet growing-time and as much out-of-door life as possible. Daily lessons should be regular but informal and the time-table regarded only as a flexible guide to a well-assorted arrangement of free play occupations, activities and quiet story times.

From there I took another look at the notes I made on gentle learning for the early years (still a work in progress), and went right back to the drawing board.

I made a list of the things I want to prioritise - outdoor time, nature study, stories, picture books, art and craft. Then, inspired by Donna Simmons' suggestions for three to six year olds, I worked out a routine that would allow me to include them all on a more or less daily basis.

• 8.00 Housework
• 8.30 Prayers, Bible or saint story, songs, poems (a sort of Circle Time, if it is possible to have Circle Time with just two of us)
  
• 9.00 Out and about - this could include any combination of Mass, trips to the park, outdoor play, walks, visits to the woods or lake, library trips, errands, visits to friends or Grandma, and other outside activities. Plenty of outdoor time should allow nature study to happen naturally.
  
• 12.00 Lunch
• 12.30 Story time
• 1.00 Rest (quiet play or look at books)
  
• 2.00 Craft activity - interpreted widely, to include crafts, handwork, painting, cookery and gardening
  
• 3.00 Picture books
• 3.30 Play time
• 6.00 Dinner

This is meant as a loose structure for our day, not a rigid timetable - something I simply don't have the self-discipline for. Writing it out means I can see what it is realistic to fit into a leisurely day. I know my own weaknesses, and know that I find it easy to miss out outdoor activities and crafts. They take effort, and if I don't have a plan of sorts, they won't happen. I also want Cherub to have a sense of order in her day. Boiled down to its simplest, the essence of the plan is "mornings for out and about stuff, afternoons for reading, quiet play and hands-on activities".

The timings are dictated in part by the older girls' school day - they leave at eight and get home soon after four. Going out in the morning works better for us as it gives as a clear block of time without any time pressure. It also means I won't get "behind" on my day and end up not getting out at all. I don't imagine that we will spend three hours out of the house every day, but if I think of the morning as "outdoor time" it will makes planning easy. Any morning time we spend indoors will be "free" time.

I am not going to plan any formal learning, but if Little Cherub is anything like her sisters, she will probably learn the basics of letters and numbers without needing formal instruction. Poor Angel got it whether she needed it or not, with Star I was more laid back, and this time round I'm just going to relax and let it happen when it happens. I will have letter and number activities available to do for fun if she wants, but I will follow her lead.

Google Calendar Glee

My love affair with Google Calendar deepens. I have made two new discoveries.

1. Google Calendars can easily be imported into iCal. That means I can then synchronise my calendars with my iPod Touch. As they are read-only in iCal I can't add to or amend them on my iPod if it is offline, but I can at least check my diary. If it is online, then I can add to the Calendars directly through Google Mobile.

2. I can set my menu plan up as a Google Calendar. This means:

• I can adjust my menu plan as necessary according to what is on the calendar. We are going to be out one evening? Bump dinner to another night at the touch of a button.
• I can see my menu plan at a glance on either computer or my iPod.
• I no longer have to print out my menu plan and / or remember which computer I used to compile it.

Who would have thought a mere calendar could be the cause of such delight?

Loveliness of Planning Fair

I am a little behind, but I finally got round to visiting Sarah's Loveliness of Planning Fair at Plainsong. As you know, I love plans, and there are some great planning ideas here. I particularly like Dawn's monthly Themes and Plans - this is something I could certainly use, for myself as much as for the children, to remind myself of feast days, nature highlights, seasonal foods, special family dates and so on. I do so much better when I have an overall picture of the next few weeks in my head, rather than blundering from one thing to the next in a state of constant surprise.

I love the various home management folders people have been putting together. My current "planner" is just a plain ring binder with my Motivated Moms pages for January, some scribbled menu plan pages, a couple of recipes needed for current menus, and my Walking to Rivendell route print-out. I haven't yet remembered to add section dividers, so it is definitely not yet set up for ease of use. I think I'll make tidying up and improving my folder a priority for next week.

New Year Resolutions 2008

I'm spending some of my Christmas season downtime pondering changes I need to make and getting organised for next year ... starting with my New Year resolutions. Every year I make new ones; every year I fail to keep them, but that is no reason not to keep trying. I did better with my 2006 resolutions for which I focused on five specific areas than I did with my 2007 short-and-sweet version, so I'm reverting to the 2006 format.

Faith
A daily 30 minute quiet time for spiritual reading and prayer.

Family
Keep on the Motivated Mom wagon for the entire year.

Fitness
Walk to Rivendell with Frodo. I think 458 miles in a year should be possible. If I aim at 10 miles a week that allows for the inevitable slippage. HT: Heather at Doodle Acres

Formation
Read at least one history book each month. It has been a while since I have done any serious historical reading and I would like to catch up a bit with what is going on in the historical world, plus read up on some topics I'm interested in.

Fun
Knit. After doing virtually no knitting for years I have enjoyed the occasional knitting project over the last couple. I think I'll make 2008 the year of the knitting needle and take it up again properly.

Toddler Days

Yesterday I sat down and planned out a new routine for my toddler days - the time I will have with Little Cherub during school term time. I like my plan :). We will be doing lots of different things, but all at toddler pace. No rushing from A to B.

Once Angel and Star leave for school at 8 I'll spend an hour on housework and laundry, with Little Cherub "helping" (or - more likely - hindering). We may not get much done to start with, but over time it should improve. I hope. After that we will go out for the rest of the morning, somewhere different each day:

Monday - Mass followed by the park
Tuesday - Mass, then a trip out somewhere (the farm, the zoo, the woods, visiting friends, shopping, anywhere else that takes our fancy). If I want to take a day trip somewhere, we can do that on a Tuesday.
Wednesday - visit Grandma
Thursday - Mass followed by the library
Friday - Jo Jingles music and movement class (I used to take Angel to this and she loved it. Star wasn't interested, but I have a hunch Little Cherub will be), then out for lunch with Grandma

I want to be home in time for lunch at 12, followed by a couple of hours quiet time for Cherub to nap while I have computer time or read. On Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays the rest of the afternoon will be free until Angel and Star get home; on Wednesday we will go to the toddler group at our Church, and on Thursday there is Toddler Playtime at the swimming pool so I may take her to that.

I'm planning to walk to as many places as possible, as it is the only way I can see to fit exercise into my routine. I only have the use of the car on Tuesdays and Thursdays anyway, which means that I have to walk the rest of the time anyway. It takes around 30 minutes to walk to the town centre (Church, shops, park, library and so on), so that will give me a fair amount of stroller-pushing exercise.

I'll never be late again

Not now that I have discovered GOOGLE CALENDAR!!!!!!!!

(I admit it may be an exaggeration to say I will never be late again, but at least I no longer have an excuse for double booking myself or forgetting something completely.)

I saw a calendar in someone's sidebar, clicked, experimented, and fell in love. I have planning mania, remember, and this is planning heaven. So far I have set up calendars for each member of the family, a general family calendar, my daily routine, and a schedule of the girls' weekly activities. Tevye and I can both view and amend them from any computer, and it is incredibly user friendly - click Quick Add, type "birthday party 2pm next Friday", and up it will pop in the right place. Cool!

It gets better. You can search for public calendars to add. So far I have ...

• Catholic liturgical calendar for England
• Jewish holy days
  
• Kids activities in Bedfordshire

So I can see at a glance that Friday is the feast of St.Apollinaris, and Saturday is Shabbat Hazon (whatever that is!). On Sunday we could go to a Pirates and Mermaids Adventure Day at a country park, take part in a Weekend of Wizardry at a shopping centre (no prizes for guessing what that's about), watch the planes at a model aeroplane weekend, or go to an archaeology fun day. Or at least, we could if we weren't going to Mass in the morning and the girls to a birthday party in the afternoon - but I had no idea about any of these events!

Individual calendars can be pulled up separately, or in any combination.

You can share calendars with friends!

You can put them on your web page, or in your blog!
(ETA: Take a look at my sidebar.)

Oh, the fun! The possibilities!

It's all too much. It has turned me into a walking exclamation mark!!!!!!!!

"There are timetable things everywhere!"

Indeed there are, Angel. Indeed there are!

Most unusually, yesterday was a free day for us. We went to Mass on Saturday night in anticipation of doing something yesterday that didn't happen, and Angel and I decided to miss our brass band rehearsal as we were tired.

So I spent the day getting organised. This past week I finally realised why I keep feeling as though I am wading through glue. Doing anything with a high maintenance eleven month old baby is like driving across the Alps - you have to assume it will take at least twice as long as you expect. I'm a slow learner, but I get there eventually. Faced with this realisation I picked A Mother's Rule of Life by Holly Pierlot off the shelf to browse through in search of inspiration.

While I know I will never manage to fully implement a Rule in the way she recommends, I did find myself inspired to put things on paper, trying to work out a routine that will allow me to fit in everything necessary without that paddling like fury feeling. I now have copies of the following in a nice neat binder and displayed in the kitchen ...

• Daily schedule for all five of us, in half hour increments. Yep. Even Little Cherub has a schedule (along the lines of "with Mum", "with Dad", "with Angel", and a slightly optimistic "nap")
• Weekly schedule, in morning, afternoon and evening blocks
  
• Evening schedule of who does what when and who drives them. Again even Little Cherub is included ("go with Dad to take Angel to dance" for example). This schedule alone made me realise why my brain was hurting trying to remember everything - and why one child ... ahem! ... got forgotten at dance one day.
  
• Schoolwork and daytime activities for this week
• Menu plan for this week
• Basic weekly housework task list

Now, I am not by nature a "schedule every half hour" person, but I found it a surprisingly useful exercise. Drawing up a detailed schedule allowed me to see just what was realistic, and how to overcome the logistical problems in my day. Today I put the schedule to the test, and had the calmest, most orderly day we have had for longer than I care to remember (at least until Star had a five star bedtime meltdown).

I noticed that two things made a very big difference. Firstly, I was focused on what I should be doing at any given time and didn't let myself get distracted by what I wanted to be doing. Secondly, I had a couple of planned times to get on with practical tasks while someone else was responsible for Little Cherub, which meant the amount I could do increased exponentially.

Will it last? Watch this space!

Plans for this term

Angel is on a basics-only schedule (so that I can spend more time with Star) ...

Maths - Conquer Maths / a.k.a. Maths 2XL, sections on measurement, area, volume and statistics
French - plugging on slowly with Skoldo 3
English - finishing So You Really Want to Learn English 1 (3 out of 10 chapters to go)
Religion - on hold, waiting for a couple of books to arrive from Amazon for me to check out
Science - working on chemistry from So You Really Want to Learn Science 2. I'm thinking of buying Apologia General Science for next year for her. If I do, then we will probably start it early. I'm not sure whether it would allow her to work independently (more-or-less) for science, or whether it would simply cause traumas. I don't like the young-earth stance, but think I can work round that.

For Star I want to do some more time-intensive, hands-on and outdoor-oriented stuff ...

Maths - finish off My Pals Are Here 3B
Latin - chapters 4 and 5 of Latin Prep
Religion - read The Life of Our Lord by Marigold Hunt
Science - nature study, focusing on birds, trees and insects in that order
History / geography - making a lapbook about our local area, with lots of field trips to take photos.
Art - projects from Artists Workshop: Animals for the first half of term. We will probably use another book from the same series after that.

I used my wilting and under-the-weather weekend to plan out the term, and have nice schedules mostly finished. I have to have those boxes to tick! Not that we have ticked all of them over the past two days, but on the whole we have got off to a reasonable start. This term will be very light on "real" books, relying mainly on texts and activities - we need a change of focus for a while.

Getting out and about

We are enjoying an unusually warm April, which is whetting my appetite for getting out and about during the summer. Some ideas I have so far ...

• Have Star do a local history project with lots of field trips (more on that later)
• Start homeschool gym classes on Friday mornings - you are right, that is an indoor activity, but it means reorganising our week so that we have the car on Fridays, then we can stop off on the way home for a picnic lunch and some nature study, or take a trip somewhere else on Friday afternoons.
• Take Little Cherub to the park.
• Take Star to Legoland (a long promised treat)
• A family trip to Chessington World of Adventures - Tevye used to go on annual trips there as a child but has never been back since, so he is coming along with us.
  
• Visit Cadbury World - no, not outdoors either, but it will be a fun trip. And they give away free chocolate!

I am taking advantage of supermarket loyalty card deals for the last three - I can cash in vouchers for four times their value if I use them for day trips. For some reason Tesco seems to be particularly generous with bonus points on nappies and baby clothes, so I may as well make the most of them!

Silver lining to a cloud

We have some unidentified but unpleasant bug - I have a headache and feel wobbly if I move, Little Cherub's temperature shot up to 103 last night (then mercifully went rapidly back down after being stripped off, dumped - protesting! - in a cool bath, and dosed alternately on ibuprofen and paracetamol), Star is off colour and Tevye's neck aches.

The silver lining to this particular cloud is that I am taking a sick day and spending the morning in bed with the laptop planning for our next term which starts on Monday. I also had an email about a resources day a friend is organising for May 1st which has turned my mind to thinking about next year. I already have a fair idea of what we will be doing, but there are still some holes (mostly science-shaped ones) to fill, and it will be a good opportunity to check some things out. Resources days and curriculum fairs are few and far between here, so I'm looking forward to it.

Next term - and next year - I want to focus on Star, who for too long has been playing second fiddle to Angel. I'm planning to spend more time with her while Angel plugs on more independently with the basics. I hope. It is summer, so I want us to get out and about more - partly doing educational things, partly just fun stuff. It will be a term of two halves, with a long break in the middle. The first half term is a short one, just four weeks before we leave for a two week holiday in Corfu. When we get home it will be half-term for the schools here, so we will take an extended break - I know from experience that trying to work when all their friends are home is not a recipe for success! After that we will have a seven week stretch before we finish for the summer, which I hope will be broken up by enough time outdoors not to feel like a long haul.

Finding the new normal

Little Cherub is ten months old.
Grandma is settled in her new home and (almost) everything is unpacked.
We are all fit and healthy (thank God!) and my energy levels are pretty good.

After an eighteen month run of crises and survival mode, life is finally getting back to normal. But ... what is normal? In many ways we are having to make a fresh start, with completely new daily routines. Over Easter Tevye and I tried to pin down a routine we think will work. It looks something like this ...

Morning routine
7.15 Get up. Change and dress Little Cherub.
7.30 Exercise (I'm trying out exercise videos) while Tevye gets showered and dressed if he is home. Little Cherub can either watch my efforts or snuggle with a big sister if one is awake.
8.00 Shower and dress while Tevye looks after Little Cherub (on days when Tevye is at the office a big sister gets the job). Make breakfast.
8.30 Eat and clear up breakfast. Angel and Star dress and get ready for the day. Play with Little Cherub.
9.15 Prayers and start schoolwork.

Late afternoon and evening routine
In the days of the "old normal" Angel and Star were either in bed or well on the way there by 8, leaving Tevye and I with two or three hours to ourselves in the evenings. As the girls get older, that time is disappearing fast, so we are now trying to fit in time together earlier so that we can give the girls the time and attention they need later in the evening. Although it will vary according to the older girls' various outside activities our evenings should look something like this ...

5.00 (on office days Tevye usually gets in around this time) Sit down together for a drink and a chat. If possible go out for a walk together with Little Cherub - this depends on the weather, the dinner and the girls' schedule.
6.00 to 6.30 (again depending on the day's schedule) dinner and clean up. Bath Little Cherub.
7.00 Family time for whoever is in and wants it - time to play with Little Cherub, play a board game, watch TV or a DVD together, and so on.
8.00 Bedtime for Little Cherub (in theory at least!). Star gets ready for bed.
8.30 Bedtime for Star.
9.00 Bedtime for Angel (who can be relied on to get herself organised and ready for bed).

The morning routine is looking good so far, after all of two days. The evening routine will be trial and error, as Angel and Star have so many evening activities that no two evenings are quite the same. This week we are still on our Easter break, and I'm not sure yet quite how our schooldays will work. Again, I think it will be trial and error to start with. I definitely need to plan it around meal and snack times, as if the girls (or myself!) get hungry things tend to fall apart.

It all looks far more structured than I expect it to be in practice - it really is routine we are looking for, not a regimented timetable, but I know from experience that I need to start off with something specific and detailed to work towards or everything will just collapse back into muddle and chaos. I also have to write it down to get myself focused and to see that I have a realistic plan. Having the self-discipline to stick to it is the hard part.

Changing gear

It is that time of year when I usually change gear with our homeschooling to kickstart things after our customary February slump. This year it wasn't so much a slump as a series of interruptions, but we still certainly need kickstarting. We have another 14 or so weeks of this school year to go, and now Grandma's big move is over we badly need to get back into a reasonable routine. Our week has also changed shape, in that we always used to take Thursday as a light day - on alternate Thursdays we went to our Catholic homeschool group, and on other Thursdays we usually visited Grandma. Now Grandma is almost on our doorstep we can visit any time and the homeschool group has recently folded, so we now have no regular daytime commitments (after-school is another story!). As we head into spring and summer I want to get into the habit of doing all our formal schoolwork in the mornings, leaving the afternoons free. This week I have been road-testing a barebones schedule, which seemed almost too easy! Maybe I am so used to having to slot around other commitments that when we have a run of free mornings it just falls into place.

The ebb and flow of having the girls working together seems to have ebbed again. They really are not in the same place at all as regards their needs, aptitudes and modus operandi. When they work together, even if the material is appropriate to both, they niggle each other and go at different speeds. After a bit of tweaking my experimental schedule now looks like this ...

Angel - religion and independent reading daily
Monday - maths, geography (Journey North mystery class), science (reading and notebook page)
Tuesday - French, English, history notebook page
Wednesday - maths, French, science (experiment)
Thursday - French, English, science (exercise from textbook)
Friday - maths, English, geography (reading and notebook page)

Star - maths, Latin and read aloud daily
Monday - geography (Journey North mystery class), science (reading and notebook page)
Tuesday - religion, history
Wednesday - religion, history
Thursday - religion (notebook page), nature study
Friday - geography (reading and notebook page), science experiment

When possible I will still be taking one of the girls to Mass on Tuesdays, which will mean working in the afternoon, but sometimes there is no Tuesday Mass and other times we have no transport, so in practice it only works out about half the time.

Now we are getting back into the swing of things, I will be trying to post daily notes on my Bookworm's Diary blog again from next week.

The Plan for Tomorrow

I'm taking a leaf out of Dawn's book (or should that be blog?) at By Sun and Candlelight and posting a list of what I hope to achieve tomorrow. Today, for various reasons, was one of those just-about-holding-it-together days, and I'm feeling the need for a checklist and some accountability.

Education

• Both
• Religion - read Saints for Young Readers for Every Day
  
• Geography - read one chapter of 52 Days by Camel
  
• History - read two chapters of Number the Stars; watch second half of 1940s House video

• Angel
• English - So You Really Want To Learn English Exercise 5.5 (use of hyphens)
  
• French - Skoldo 3 Exercise 2.1 (words with -eau)
• Geography - learn African geographic regions and/or countries

• Star
• Geography - notebook page about Morocco
  
• Maths - do next exercise in My Pals Are Here 3A Practice Book
• Latin - copy out 2nd declension noun and begin to learn. Revise cases.
• Narration - section on young King Alfred in The Nursery History of England

Other

• Be up, showered and dressed by 8.00am
• Do ironing
• Update accounts on MS Money
• Play a game with Star
  
• Take Star to opticians for eye test
• (If time) Go to Hobbycraft to buy scrapbooking supplies with Christmas gift money

Relaxed home schooling

Since realising last week that I was hitting overload I have been experimenting a little with the structure of our days. I'm feeling pleased with myself as I think I have it cracked. Next week is our half-term break, then when we start back we will be trying a new routine I think will keep our days simple and relaxed.

I'm going to split our days into three parts ...

• Read alouds - relaxed and informal, reading to one or other or both in whatever order works best on a given day. If nobody is dressed at 9am when I aim to start "work" they can listen in pyjamas and get dressed as and when I am reading to the other girl. That way I will not get stressed because nobody is ready and I am behind. And I will also not get stressed about my failure to get everyone into a better morning routine. Everyone is enjoying read aloud time this year, after a bad run last year when we had a series of books that just didn't fly for one reason or another. (And yes, I have learned the lesson about not ploughing on too long with a book we are not really enjoying!)
• Written work - the more formal stuff. Maths, English, French or Latin, and researching and writing notebook pages. The later part of the morning seems to be working best for this at the moment as Angel and Star don't switch their brains on very early, and we lose impetus in the afternoons.
  
• Activities - after lunch and some quiet reading time, the rest of the afternoon will be free to do more hands-on things - science experiments, art, crafts, music practice, computer, cooking, trips out, walks, watching a DVD, playing games.
  

We will just "do the next thing" in each session, apart from the afternoons which will be more free-flowing - I'll keep a running list of activity ideas, but not plan in any detail. If we miss a session on a given day, we will get to it again on then next.