Day 4

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Every have a great beginning to a new school year?

One that confirms all you ever hoped about homeschooling?  A day that you and your children click along and you can almost hear their brain neurons firing.... And then you wake up the next morning and catch yourself thinking, "What! I have to do it all over again for the next ___ years!?!"

Or what about a day where everything falls apart?  Interruptions, missing book, tears....

Yesterday was hard.  The day started with my kindergartner crying when I had to wake him up.  "I'm too tired, I need to be in bed," he complained.  The day ended with a different child calling some difficult German work, "Stupid."  Not a word I take kindly to.  Not my favorite way to end the day.

But... no matter my failings as a teacher, nor my children's failings as their own independent persons, today is the day that matters.  I don't have to look ahead or behind.

Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed,

   for his compassions never fail.

 They are new every morning;

   great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23

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On Paper

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I'm sitting on my front porch sipping coffee on the first cool we've had in months. My littles have pulled out every bike, trike, scooter and skateboard we own and are building a "store."  Right in the middle of the front walk, of course.

I have paper and pen and am trying to write out a schedule for this year's school. This year marks the largest range in levels and learning styles that I've ever tried to teach at once. It's not just the age range that has me a bit stumped but the need that everyone will have this year for one-on-one instruction.

Long gone are the days of sitting snuggled with my three eldest, reading aloud their history and literature and everyone doing the same science experiments. Also gone is my ability to keep everyone doing the same subject at the same hour with me as wandering tutor. This year I'm going to be teaching "conference" style.

Johanna Gilbert calls it block scheduling and wrote a fabulous description of it in her blog, Life Of the Gilbert Gang.

I can't wait to give it a whirl.  I think this it will help sort out a schedule complicated by not only multiple levels and abilities but also multiple teen part-time jobs and extra-curricular activities. 

Time will tell.