I know one of the reasons our first couple of days were rough began with ME! I love schooling my children during the day but we started kind of suddenly this year. I was hoping to "ease into it" but the last batch of books arrived and the kids announced they were ready...
too bad I wasn't :/
In fact not even 30 minutes after the books arrived on our door step my self-motivated little 3rd born was doing the worksheet for Lesson 1 and 2 of her math worksheets! How do you say "no, we're not doing school right now to THAT!"
But I went into the start of school with a 4th grader, 2nd grader, 1st grader and a 2yr old tornado without a PLAN... a SCHEDULE for our days.... missing the answers to the questions "what are we doing first? or next? or when can we paint?" LOL!! Meanwhile the tornado is decorating with rice...
and Momma is left in the middle of the room... it's loud, cluttered and choatic... and I just don't function well there for long.
So early in the week I came up with a plan. And thankfully the few days we've used it, it's worked for us. In fact we finished earlier than expected and got to add in a few calls to friends and grandparents... Yippeee!!
Here is a direct link if the graphic doesn't work.
It's a "flow chart" with times added to give us a little structure so we're not eating lunch at 3pm;) But it gives us the ability to know what is next. To fit everything thing into our days and bring what could be chaos into order (at least for the first few hours... then it's crazy again... LOL!)
I also didn't include our evenings. Right now we eat a late, late dinner so we can eat with Daddy after he works on the shed until dark. And then soccer is about to start up again... so that will be a new routine as well. Basically the kids play or hang out until dinner, then we watch a bit of a movie (or read) and they go to bed. Usually kid bedtime is about 9ish, but between the Olympics and the building of the shed the kids have been little night owls! Definitely working on that in the next few weeks so I can get a couple moments before midnight to work.
Linking up to Not-Back-to-School Week - Day in the Life.
too bad I wasn't :/
In fact not even 30 minutes after the books arrived on our door step my self-motivated little 3rd born was doing the worksheet for Lesson 1 and 2 of her math worksheets! How do you say "no, we're not doing school right now to THAT!"
But I went into the start of school with a 4th grader, 2nd grader, 1st grader and a 2yr old tornado without a PLAN... a SCHEDULE for our days.... missing the answers to the questions "what are we doing first? or next? or when can we paint?" LOL!! Meanwhile the tornado is decorating with rice...
and Momma is left in the middle of the room... it's loud, cluttered and choatic... and I just don't function well there for long.
So early in the week I came up with a plan. And thankfully the few days we've used it, it's worked for us. In fact we finished earlier than expected and got to add in a few calls to friends and grandparents... Yippeee!!
Here is a direct link if the graphic doesn't work.
It's a "flow chart" with times added to give us a little structure so we're not eating lunch at 3pm;) But it gives us the ability to know what is next. To fit everything thing into our days and bring what could be chaos into order (at least for the first few hours... then it's crazy again... LOL!)
I also didn't include our evenings. Right now we eat a late, late dinner so we can eat with Daddy after he works on the shed until dark. And then soccer is about to start up again... so that will be a new routine as well. Basically the kids play or hang out until dinner, then we watch a bit of a movie (or read) and they go to bed. Usually kid bedtime is about 9ish, but between the Olympics and the building of the shed the kids have been little night owls! Definitely working on that in the next few weeks so I can get a couple moments before midnight to work.
Linking up to Not-Back-to-School Week - Day in the Life.
4 comments:
Our little night owls have been giving us a run for our money! We finally drew the line last week, and so far, so good. Once Daddy saw the tired kiddos trying to cope with their feelings during the days, he spoke up. I said "they're tired, they don't go to be until 10:30, and don't fall asleep until after 11."
We've implemented quiet time at 8:30. They need to be showered, and getting their bedtime snacks (limited choices here) by then. By 9:30, in bed, lights out, no tv. So far, it seems to be working. Our days are much better. Good luck!
http://ajoyfulmess.blogspot.com
I like that schedule and I love Google Docs. I think I am gonna use that more this year and not save so much on my hard drive. :)
I'm glad you were able to put a schedule together to save your sanity. LOL about tornado Nate.
Glad you're getting it all figured out!
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