We took a good bit of time off in December. Children were sick, I was sick and Christmas and Advent stuff needed doing. ?It was nice to have a bit of a change and to get some projects done but now it’s time to get back into schooling, regular chores, and taking advantage of the colder days to do interesting projects indoors.
I’ve spent the past week moving the children’s bedrooms around and bringing the schoolroom up from the basement into one of the bedrooms. The basement is just too dark for us to spend three plus hours down there every day. We’ve tried adding lights and it still feels like descending into a cave!
The big bedroom on the front of the house will make a bright, yet cozy space for us and I’m concentrating on only bringing up the things that we will use regularly and keeping the basement for storage, projects, and electronics.
Next week is a bit crazy schedule-wise; not only do I have two doctor’ appointments but Bull and Mouse start dance again, all three bigs start the winter session of Swim and Gym at the YMCA and our homeschool group starts meeting again! When I looked at the calendar the other day I realized we would only get two full days of school in instead of our usual four which touched off a small panic moment!
Truthfully though, I need to spend much of next week getting everyone back into routines, and teaching the routine changes that come along with moving the classroom to ?a new space. I think we’ll just ease into our space and routines and I will just keep reminding myself that the point of this week isn’t accomplishing lots of schoolwork but learning how to work peacefully in our space!
As usual for me at about this stage in pregnancy, I’ve begun thinking (and making lists) of the things that I want to have accomplished before the baby comes! One big one is, of course, whether or not to potty train Jack. I’m not completely decided yet, but since he is completely uninterested and can’t quite manage pulling his own pants up, I’ll probably wait until summer. ?The other big one is getting everyone into a good school and chores routine where they are taking primary responsibility for accomplishing the things on their list and not hoping I don’t notice that they’ve skipped stuff!
Ideally of course I’d like school to be finished for the year by the end of April, but that’s not going to happen except for a few subjects. Instead I’m going to have to concentrate on teaching them to work well (whether at chores or school) even if I’m busy with something else. Mostly I need to do a better of job of setting time limits within which to accomplish tasks and inspecting completed jobs.
Today, I plan to spend finishing things up for Monday. I have some stuff to laminate and cut out for the little boys’ work trays and it isn’t actually possible to walk across the basement at the moment! S is going on a hunt for a piece of MDF for me to paint and put into the awesome blackboard frame a friend gave me. I’ve never done that before so I’ll be sure to post and let you know how it goes!
I’m starting back in with the “Working The Plan” series on Mondays as well as “Invitations to Play and Learn” and “Kitchen Kids” in the coming weeks. I’ll also be joining up with friends at Modern Proverbs 31 Woman for a weekly “Show Me” Series!