mornings

We've been starting our mornings with 20 min. walks.

Get dressed,

Breakfast,

Make bed/brush teeth,

go on walk,

THEN start school.

school, not on purpose, has been starting at 9am and going until about noon.

scenes from our walk today:

Sophie swears she saw a 'PARADE' this morning ;-)

well Sophie, if you want to put it that way, we march to the beat of our own drum in our own parade...

Nora holds my hand almost the whole time, every time.

first week and a half:

it's going well.

I feel like we are going to get SO much more done this year....we have our groove.

It works. I still have to fend the 'getting involved' fairies off for the morning times.

So many 'good' things we could be doing in the mornings but they all take away from individual learning time.

My struggle so far is the pattern of who gets me to themselves when.  

Everyone needs me for a chunk of time every day. 

They are not large chunks but I don't want to 'loose' the other three while I work with one.

I have made going into their rooms to play with 'toys' off limits for school hours (once they are in that 'realm' it's almost impossible to get them out).  

There are crafty things, games/coloring and computer time they can choose from while they are waiting for their turn instead.

Still needing to tweak this but I can see it panning out soon.

Some creativity and planning ahead on my part will do wonders.

I have limited my planning/creativity time to Sunday nights.

I do little bits of research here and there but nothing is official until Sunday afternoon/night.

If it requires me gathering stuff or researching, we don't do it until after I've had a Sunday night.

I've had the rule for two weeks so I pretty much can't say anything with authority but without authority, that is good for me.

I like things in pretty boxes tied up with bows and scheduled to be opened.

who doesn't!?

I also LOVE to break my own rules....or so it would seem looking at my life.

We are loving our Co-op...had a mom's night out last night with about 15 ladies.

no kidding we laughed for 3 hours straight.

SO REFRESHING.

my soul needed that desperately.

Thank you Jesus for the idea of laughter....at ourselves.

there was some serious homeschool humor goin' on....love it.

I don't think anyone knows how to make fun of a homeschooler better than a homeschooler.

the end.