Sunday, November 22, 2009

Planning! That is what I do.

Planning for special occasions
I thought this would be an appropriate time to talk about planning that goes into our activities sometimes. Right now I'm planning Christmas activities for us. I need to come up with books, crafts, themes, trips, etc. There are details in this as well. What do I want to focus on? This year I'd like to look at Christmas around the world and Pioneer Christmas. I want to make cards, send cards out, make gifts, make crafts, bake cookies and other treats, go to some local Christmas events and read about some history of Christmas. I want to look at other holidays around now like Hanukkah.

Planning our homeschool experience with different styles
I also went through a period where our homeschool actives were not being enjoyed as much as I'd have liked by Austyn. I researched as much as I could without having to purchase books and set up a simple schedule for following Charlotte Mason for the next month to see how it goes. I'll be borrowing some unschool books as well and will be unschooling with CM. Trial and error is what we are doing and it's not all that uncommon for the first year or so. There are so many different learning styles and as a homeschool mom I need to see what works best for my kids and also what works for our family.

Planning for our local homeschool groups
When we want our kids to be involved in extracurricular activities it's important as a homeschool mom to get involved in those activities if it's possible. I have two small children and find it easy right now to help out with some activities outside of our home, so I'm also planning activities for our homeschool groups.

Work?
It may all sound like so much work but I find it fun most of the time. It really doesn't feel like work. It feels like parenting. I'd research to decide if my kids are getting a shot or to find out when they lose their teeth or what I should do for a cough. I research and plan recipes to decide what we will be cooking for supper. I research and plan where we might want to go for our family vacation. I research what to do for good parenting practices. These are all a part of parenting and so is educating our kids. To me it is all the same. As any mom would understand... you do what you need to do for your child. This is what moms do. I don't see homeschooling as any different than any other parenting practice and believe that if we(parents) were not pushed to believe we are not able to educate our kids we'd all just do it naturally. We did for thousands of years until only about 200 years ago. It's in our nature.

“God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers.”~Proverb

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