I keep going back and forth between being overwhelmed with homeschool curriculum, and feeling like I’m not doing enough. When I follow our awesome curriculum, I usually tend to overload myself and the kids by trying to cram in as much as possible. And when I revert to the unschooling approach, I feel like I’m twiddling my thumbs. So after some trial, error, and prayer, I think we’ve final found some middle ground.
Our Current Homeschool Routine
Right now I have the boys do their morning routine (made beds, brush teeth, get dressed, do handwriting, piano practice) before they can have screen time. Then we go about our usual day, doing any chores or errands that need to be done, or just having fun and playing. Once Ryan wakes up, I go into the school room with one of the older boys and work on a Language Arts and Math lesson with the door locked.
We don’t always do our lessons at the same time each day, but it really helps to wait until Ryan is available to entertain Mason so that I can have that one on one time with the older boys. Sometimes we only have about an hour and a half before the boys need to go to whatever sports practice they have that day, so I do lessons with one boy per day. Mondays and Wednesdays are Kender’s days, and Tuesdays and Thursdays are for Rhett. Fridays we will work on a science lesson, or learn whatever they are interested in. I need the structure of curriculum, but I still want to hold on to the interest-led approach of unschooling. Kender’s most recent interest is photography. I taught him to use my fancy camera, and he’s taken some pretty nice pictures! Like these two:
Sweet Boys
Mason had a pretty hard stretch a couple weeks ago. He LOVES Lego guys. Specifically, he loves to put little swords and guns in their hands and make them fight. The problem is that his motor skills haven’t quite caught up to his little imagination yet, and his fingers can’t get the little accessories into the tiny Lego claw hands. So he makes the little guys fight, they lose the swords, and he loses his marbles. Lots of screaming and throwing follows. One day I’d had all I could take of his Lego tantrums, so I sent Ryan to the toy store with Mason to find some age appropriate toys. They came home with some Duplos, bubbles, and play dough, and while they were gone I hid all the Legos. He still asked for them, but he’s banned from them until further notice.
Mason very rarely takes naps anymore, but when he does, it usually happens in either my or Ryan’s arms. We try not to let him nap because when he does, he won’t go to sleep at bed time. But once in a while we get exhausted and his cute sleepy snuggles get the better of us. The other day he took a two hour nap on top of me. I very much enjoyed those snuggles.
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This time he had actually fallen asleep on the floor first, and I scooped him up and let him sleep another 20 minutes or so. |
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| He’s not asleep here, just snuggling his big brother |
In Other News…
Our little bunnies are getting SO big and fluffy!! They’ll be opening their eyes and venturing out of the nest soon.
I also decided to delete my remaining social media account, which means no more Instagram! I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I had pretty much decided to get off social media, but then discovered my little straggler Instagram account and picked it up again… But in the end, I feel like it does more harm than good to me personally. So if you need me, I’ll be here on the blog. Or if you actually need to get ahold of me, try texting, email, or just give me a call. Just make sure you leave a message, or I’ll never call you back
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| Cute bath buddies |
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| After much thought, I decided to get my first round of the Pfizer vaccine. Not looking forward to that second dose though! Hopefully I don’t feel too bleh after. |
That’s all for now. See ya next time!
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