Looking Forward to School Starting...I think.

We set a date for the first day of school.  Caleb was very sober about it.  He enjoys the carefree days so much!  Annalise was very excited - she thinks worksheets are fun.  I am somewhere between the two of them :)  I miss having a defined schedule, but the planning gets tedious to me.

In looking forward I am trying again to find that elusive perfect balance between school and housework.  How much school will the kids be able to focus on (consistently) without a break, how much housework can I/should I/will I expect to do on a typical day, how much time does each kid need individually?  Right before we took our break we had some things working beautifully and other thing that we just endured.  Here are the things I liked:

1.  A work folder for Caleb.  I simply put all his seatwork-type items in the left pocket and transferred them to the right pocket when each was completed.  At the end of the week I paper clipped it all together with our completed weekly plan  (as shown here) on the top.  That goes in the...

2.  Completed work box.  I found the perfect box at Aldi's for this.  I think it's a grape juice box.  It is about the size of a sheet of paper and plenty tall enough to stack and stack and stack.  My plan is to attack this thing this summer and pick from it to compile his portfolio.

3.  Our Laundry Routine.  It feels good to list this among the things I like - because I do not like having our washer and dryer in the garage.  I do (at least) one load of laundry per (normal) day and set the timer on my phone to change it out.  Laundry folding time is 4pm.  C and A fold enough of each load to make me chipper, which helps when they want to complain.  I try to make it a fun time if possible.  (We sing "Whistle While You Work", but when they are really grouchy, I sing "Grumble While You Work" and instead of whistling I make a grumbly sound that usually even gets Annalise to laugh.)

4.  School's out at 3pm.  A lot of times last year it was out much earlier, but setting a dismissal time was helpful for me and guaranteed at least an hour of free time for everyone.

Here are some things that are not working:

1.  Housecleaning.  Cooking to me is relaxing...or at least natural.  Housecleaning makes me feel defeated before I even start.  I have a very hard time with any cleaning that does not need to be done daily.  The bottom line is this - we all have our own set of assigned daily chores...and the house still doesn't seem that much neater.

2. Recess.  There are three playgrounds 5 minutes from our house, the problem is - it just seems so hard to transition from home to playground and back without it seeming to take an unnecessarily long time.  Some days they get just as much out of playing at home, but often they need some climbing time too.

3.  Spanish Class.  I think the solution for this is to change the time of our class.  For Caleb especially, having a 30 minute class mid morning just throws everything off.  Add that to being a Monday and things really go downhill.

We had been starting the day:
Breakfast
Chores
Recess
Bible
Independent School Work

and I think we will switch to:
Breakfast
Bible
Chores
Independent School Work
Recess

The main issue with this is if Recess is late in the morning, the sun is relentlessly bright.  I usually try to stay indoors between 10 and 2.   I guess we can run it as a trial the first week and see how it goes.  But if any of you (homeschoolers or not) have any suggestions, I welcome them!

Maybe I need to ask my kids for suggestions:  Today they decided to "play Pre-K".  When they "play Pre-K" Caleb plays the teacher and Annalise plays the student.  Today Natalie got to be a student too.  Caleb succeeded in getting them to take a nap and do a worksheet (pictured below).

When I complimented their work, Natalie said proudly, "I scribbled!"