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Now let’s get the rhythm of the head

Ding Dong! You got the rhythm of the head, ding dong. Now let’s the rhythm of the hips…Do yall remember that street song with the hand claps and stuff? Man, life in those days was simple. Well, outside from the ocassional fights with the girl who didn’t like the fact that I had longer hair than her or the frequent run-ins I had with my sister’s many adversaries due to her BIG mouth, life was sorta simple.

Now, I’m up at 5, well today 4 a.m. with congested BBB who once we cleared his nasal passages (he has real bad seasonal allergies and the allergist is backed up for months), he was up and ready for brekfast at 4:30. My DH entertained him for a half-hour, fed him some waffles with some homemade blueberry sauce (don’t like blueberries, but loved the fact my DH hooked it up) and went off to work by 6. I know he has to be tired, gotta make sure the kids give him some space tonight. I fought with that little baby for awhile and the moment I gave in, got up, tried to blog, he went to sleep and the younger ones were up and ready to eat.

Enough about my hectic life, let’s talk about scheduling. I get emails often about how do I get it done…well, I have a routine, but it’s probably not one that would work for most people because it’s sooo fluid. I tried to pidgeonhole my day down to the minute, but toddlers and preschoolers don’t work on a rigid program. They need love when they need love. They need diaper changes. They need food spills cleaned up. None of this stuff is scheduled. I’ve had to change my schedule from last year because I’m schooling more children. Here’s my day in a nutshell (different days, different issues…I’ll be doing this all week):

Mon: Mega-Laundry Monday. The two older kids have a challenge to do 4 loads from start to finish without being prompted. They only do laundry 3 days a week, so we gotta make it stick. Monday is the one day that we don’t schedule out of the house activities and I LOVE it.

Starting out the week in a still place has been great for me. If you are new at homeschooling, please take one day to just be. I work with my 6 yo first because he has the shorter attention span and he wakes up before everyone else. He can make his own breakfast (french toast sticks or oatmeal in the microwave, along with juice and a vitamin). I am looking into some different vitamin options for them, but really have focused on getting fresh fruit and vegetables at every meal. We can talk about this in another blog. I get math and english out of the way first. If I get that much accomplished with him, we are in the black. He’s my kinetic learner (have we talked about learning styles?) so I have to keep him moving.

He likes to cut and paste/stopped liking to color recently which is hard for me because I personally love coloring projects, so I have him do a collage on something we’re discussing in science using the National Geographic and the Boy’s Life magazines, along with some stuff that we might copy out of books from the library.

11 yo daughter: Math (most challenging subjects first, while the mind is fresh)/Vocabulary (she’s studying the latin and greek roots of a ton of words preparing for the SAT/ACT)/Critical Thinking (logic puzzles/fallacies)/Literature (we’re finishing up A Midsummer’s Night Dream and we’ll be seeing a Children’s Theatre production of it on Saturday)/Grammar (I use a strict, rigid curriculum by Rod and Staff which focuses on sentence diagramming, breaking down every part of speech. Hey, it ain’t sexy, but that’s how I learned and it works, which is probably why I became an English major)/Writing (we write reports, essays, commercials, journal entries, poetry across the curriculum. I also let them pick some research topics related to our discussion). Science and History–we do on Tuesday/Wednesday and Friday. She also has a Life Skills class where she’s getting ready to start reading the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens which goes along with the planner that she uses by Premier Agenda.

Because she’s the oldest, most independent, I am really moving her toward self directed learning by giving her projects that she can develop from start to finish like starting a teen newsletter for homeschooled teens or developing a business plan for her mommy helper business.

I’ll talk to you all about what I do with the other kids tomorrow. Also, want to tell you about the classes that I’ve been taking at church. Lots goin’ on. Sometimes wish I back on Lee Place with my Garanimals apple outfit playing street games like Miss Mary Mack and Little Sally Walker or the one I remembered in the beginning…”Now let’s get the rhythm of the head. Ding Dong…

© 2006 DahGurl.