It's a new month. The first day of this new month happens to be on the first day of a whole, shiny new week. What better time to have a fresh start at this whole homeschooling thing. I've realized in the past several weeks that I'm feeling like I've gone astray. There's far too much emphasis placed on "sit down and do the work", which feels too much like I'm putting my child through school, only at home. We're losing a lot of the fun with homeschooling. That means it's time to start over and try something new. Who wants to do homeschooling when it's all boring work anyway?
Yup, I'm throwing out the workbooks! (Okay, not literally, those workbooks have their value...) I'm going to be turning over a new leaf in this whole homeschooling thing! November is going to be about making learning fun! I know I'm not going to be able to afford to do much. I'm just not the kind of person that's made of money. My supplies for crafts and things have dwindled with each move and each use. I somehow feel like I should have more somewhere around here, but until we're through unpacking and unearthing everything that's gone missing, I'm not going to be able to count on it. Even so, we're going to make the best with what we've got. We're going to try making learning fun again!
When I first set out with homeschooling, I had all these grand ideas. We were in New England back then, a place far more rich with history and environmental changes than the place I currently call home. I had imagined myself pressing flowers in the spring, then leaves in the fall. I had even thought of crafts I could do with pretty fall leaves that would be fun for kids. I imagined my kids, all dressed in light summer clothes, running around in a field of flowers while I showed my oldest how to weave flower wreathes and we talked about history, art, and mythology.
Yes, those days were filled with brilliant ideas that would never work in the real world. While the thought was beautiful, it wasn't exactly what I got. Instead I found myself ready to pull my hair out as my daughter managed to break free of my hand yet again to go running after this or that and I feared one of these days she'd shoot in the street and get hit by a car. I knew then that the idea of blissfully sitting by the fire and crafting while doing a lesson was completely insane, and there was no way a family of the modern world could make it work. Hell, I wondered how historic families made it work!
That was years ago when I only had one. Now that I have three, I can see the flaws in my plan. For starters, my children are not all girls dressed in lovely, flowing spring dresses. While my oldest is a girl, she prefers short-cropped boyish hair and dresses in wildly clashing colors and styles. She's definitely got her own idea of "fashionable". My boy is rough and tumble with a love for transformers and super heroes, and a fear of monsters, masks, and anything that might be considered scary. My youngest is a testement to the fact that babies are much more needy than expecting, new mothers seem to understand. Being a mom isn't about playing all the time and being hippies, running free through the long grass in the summer with skirts and hair all a tangle, collapsing in a pile of giggles with the kids at the end of it all while talking about the clouds in the sky. Yes, that can be a part of parenting, but that's not all of it. It's not at all what I expected it to be as a new mom.
Looking at the past few months alone I see a very different face. I see a stern mother that's been very much attached to the rules. I haven't been as playful and silly with the children as I'd like because, let's face it, I've got to work! Yes, my job may be teaching dance a few hours a week, but owning your own business, attracting students, and everything that goes with it is a lot of work. My life isn't just a walk in the park where I can devote every waking hour to my loving family. Add to that the concerns of a less than perfect divorce situation, our difficult economic times, and the trials and tribulations of daily life and I'm just not as available as sometimes I think I should be. The only breather I feel like I really get some days is nap time... Our school work time has been filled with sitting down at tables and working on workbooks for what seems like an eternity, then the kids go play, wanting nothing to do with me by that point, which is good because all I want is a break from them! It's been the polar opposite of ideal. I feel more like I'm running a two child boarding school than a family!
This month I intend to break out of the rut I've gotten myself into. Homeschooling is going to be fun again! We may not be able to be out collecting fall leaves for our latest craft project, but I'm sure we can find other ways to have our fun. We're going to be talking a little bit about history. I don't have many books pulled out of boxes on the subject yet, but we're going to be talking about the first Thanksgiving, in honor of the holiday, Puritans, Pilgrims, and everything else. I'm not sure how much of a mind we're going to put to the Native American side of it this year, as I was thinking if there's enough interest we could do this year from the Puritans and next year from the Native Americans. We'll see how much we cover and how long it takes me to run out of ideas and materials on one side of things first. Who knows? If there's interest, one month may not even be enough!
I think this project is going to need to touch upon all aspects of the holiday. I'm looking into stories to read, material to cover, and holiday crafts. I'm not so much on the turkey stuff, since we're going to be taking a more historic angle on the whole thing, but we'll see what I can manage. Would you believe I'm having a hard time finding information on period crafts for that time, though I suppose that shouldn't be surprising if you know me and a search engine! I think I'm going to have to use a combination of modern crafts, what few historically accurate things I do know, and a little bit of creativity. This is going to be an interesting holiday at the very least!
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