Last night I was whining at telling Hubby that I can’t wait until Saturday because I am soooo tired. School is going great but everything else is just piling up. I just need a day with nothing to do but clean my house. Blah blah blah. This is the conversation that followed:
H: You need to have the girls do more work on their own to free up some time.
Me: They do at least half of their work on their own. BUT I TEACH 5 KIDS!!! While they are working on their own I am feeding a baby and doing Phonics or Reading or 1st Grade Math or teaching the ABCs.
H: Well you should have thought about that before you had all those kids.
Me: It’s probably a good thing that I had no idea what I was getting into!
(FYI: we speak fluent Sarcasm in our house)
Jenny over at Life is Not a Cereal may have the solution to my woes. She does a 3 weeks on/ 1 week off schedule to regroup & organize. I am going to start taking the last week of the month off from our regular school schedule & see how it works.
Here are some ideas I have for our week off:
- deep clean the house
- catch up on laundry
- write out a menu for the month
- plan out the next month’s school activities
- make a list of library books we will need
- make those seasonal/holiday crafts that we never have time to do
- the big kids will work on a project, probably for history
- plan any Bible classes I will be teaching
- work on review posts
I am setting up my version of Dawn’s amazing File Crate System, which I think will go along perfectly with my new plan.
And for the cherry on top, yesterday I found a new planner that made my heart skip a beat. I think it was created just for me!! (the holiday themed pages! the lists! It’s so beautiful!) I am going to sell some curriculum that I don’t need so that it can come home and live with me and be my friend!
What do you do to keep your sanity while homeschooling?
I haven’t reached the sanity plateau this year yet. That is such a great idea with the 3/1 schedule. Hmmm…I will need to think & pray about that one. Hope it works out for you. 🙂
I didn’t know you were supposed to be sane while homeschooling! Seriously, I have found the thing that helps me keep sanity as making sure everything has it’s place and the kids have to put it back. Okay, we’re only on week 2 since I did a big clean up and organization of things in the boys room and school room. And, don’t ask to look in our guest room. But, where things have been put into place it is really helping with my constant reminders. I just hope it continues after the baby arrives.