When No One WANTS to Focus on School

This summer it's not just my boys who are having a hard time with the thought of going back to school.   I too am having a real hard time with wrapping my head around the thought of getting any lessons done.



We planned to take the month of June off and just enjoy not having any planned activities or school work.

We planned to review math, reading, and spelling concepts for July and August.... and yet here we are at the beginning of August and my boys have each worked on maybe 4 pages each in their summer math books.  4!  We have not even opened our spelling books at all...

I haven't had the desire to do any reading aloud with the boys either!

I am trying not to let it stress me out or get to me too much.  Sure I hate the thought that we spent money on these review books but really the cost was pretty minimal.

I have to keep reminding myself that my boys did finish up all of their school work last year and that it's OK to take a break!

We have been learning and having fun together; we're just not using any school books.

I have to remind myself that even thought I can't point to completed workbook pages each day that doesn't mean what they are doing isn't educational or valid.

I have to remind myself that even though I am not reading aloud and we aren't listening to any books on CD in the car, the boys are still reading and enjoying stories on their own.

Learning is happening.

Taking a break when we all obviously needed one is important.  Meanwhile we're going to keep enjoying our summer and take time to stop and smell the roses... or sunflowers as the case may be.



We will get around to more traditional schooling eventually and if my boys need a bit more review in those first few weeks because we took the whole summer off then we'll have a few weeks of review time.

We turned to homeschooling so we could be masters of our own schedule and I am trying really hard to let go of the guilt and this feeling that I SHOULD be encouraging them to do more.

We used to homeschool year round with just a few short breaks in the summer but perhaps this year we'll be following a more traditional schooling schedule and that's OK too.  We can change how and when we school.

That's the beauty of homeschooling!

Comments

  1. Michele MorinAugust 2, 2017 at 7:04 AM

    Yes! Celebrate summer -- a time when learning opportunities are everywhere!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Andrea NineAugust 2, 2017 at 10:07 AM

    I love that you can change course and have the learning The palm of your hands! So incredibly important to take breaks and you're right, learning is all around us whether we're on a break or not.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mia WhiteAugust 2, 2017 at 4:43 PM

    Ah homeschool mom guilt... the struggle is all too real. And I'm right there with ya with our summer-- we usually do a loose year-round schedule, but things have just laxed over the past couple of months. Que sera! Thanks for the reminder to have perspective, and thanks for sharing at What to Read Wednesday!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jodie FitzAugust 8, 2017 at 12:05 PM

    Thanks for joining the first ever Reader Tip Tuesday! I hope you join us at this week's party: http://www.jodiefitz.com/2017/08/08/reader-tip-tuesday-food-craft-party/
    Have a GREAT day...

    ReplyDelete
  5. L. E. MastilockAugust 11, 2017 at 3:20 AM

    We planned to do a lot more traditional learning over the summer, too, and now it's August and our workbooks have gone untouched! There was much learning and much needed time to just be carefree and let the day take us where it would. Good reminder not to discount education just because it can't be measured by pages in a workbook.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Favorite TV Shows Growing Up in the 80's and early 90's

Image
Do you remember the TGIF lineups on Friday nights? I can remember planning sleepovers and time with friends around TV Show lineups of our favorite shows... or else trying to set the VCR to record our favorite shows if we weren't going to be home. And through the years I had SO MANY favorites! Growing pains aired in 1985 which put me around age 8 and it stayed on the air until I was 15 or so; I'm pretty sure most people in my age group watched mostly for Kirk Cameron and all his antics.  I still have a soft spot for family sit-coms!  The Facts of Life aired when I was just 2  and stayed on the air until I was 11 so I'm sure the episodes I remember so fondly were either some of the later ones and then reruns shown later on when I was old enough to watch from the beginning. I think everyone would have loved an Edna Garret in their lives.   Benson another sitcom that began airing when I was just 2 and was done by the time I was 9 (another one I must have watched mai...
Read more

Things That Make Me Laugh

Image
I loved the challenge of this week's list for our 26 lists link up.  I don't know about you but I really need to laugh more lately.  It's such a great stress reliever. 1.  Books-- I love a good funny book that makes me laugh out loud.  I haven't read one in a while but if you have any recommendations I'm all ears.  The last book I can remember making me laugh was the Un-Honeymooners. 2  The boys being silly. 3.  Watching shows like America's Funniest Videos or Family Feud. 4. My husband.  Most people don't realize it but he's actually pretty funny and often makes me laugh. 5.  Whenever my sisters/ family get together and we get to reminiscing (particularly if my Aunt Elaine is around) we end up laughing so hard at all the old family stories that we are all in tears by the end of the night.  It's fabulous. 6. Movies like Mom's Night Out, Christmas Vacation, and Grown Ups make me laugh out loud. 7.  When my ...
Read more

Making Gift Card and Money Holders Using Scrapbooking and Cardmaking Supples

Image
I don't tend to keep a lot of crafting supplies on hand so when I saw this month's de-stash challenge I wasn't sure what I was going to make.  I finally realized that with so many of my Christmas gifts being cash and gift cards this year that I needed to make up some fun paper crafting/ creative ways to gift them.   I still want my nieces and nephews to have something to open so I pulled out my papers and stamps and made up some cute little money/gift card holders. They were much easier to make than I thought.  The first one I worked on was to hold some oversized Nintendo gift cards.  I made a standard sized card and folded down one corner of the card front.  Then I ran my double sided tape along the bottom an 1/2 way up the side creating a cute little pocket.  Finally I added some cute embellishments and ribbons.   Voila! A simple and easy gift card holder for those larger sized gift cards.  The bulk of the tweens and teens on my list j...
Read more

Making a Sugar Cookie "Gingerbread" House

Image
 Alec really wanted to try making his own gingerbread house this year without using a premade kit.  We talked about how we never really eat the house since they don't taste very good.  Years ago we gave up on the frosting that comes in the kit and began making our own so we thought perhaps we should try making our our house too. Only problem is that no one in the house likes gingerbread.  We talked about trying to make the house using a sugar cookie recipe.  Alec was so excited at that idea since he just LOVES sugar cookies.   He found a recipe online for a simple sugar cookie recipe and mixed up the dough.  He rolled it out an cut it to the size of our cookie sheets-- we had read that it's easiest to cut the house pieces out after the dough has been baked and is still warm and soft because then you don't have to worry about any of the pieces losing their shape while baking. I had picked out a simple cookie cutter set on Amazon and as soon as the ...
Read more

52 Book Challenge of 2024; How I Did and What I Read

Image
 I finished up the 52 Book challenge by mid-July this year despite reading lots of other books along the way.  1. Locked Room Mystery--  Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney-  2. Bibliosmia: A Smelly Book-- Heidi by Johanna Spyri  3. More than 40 chapters -- Betting on You by Lynn Painter 4. Lowercase Letters on the Spine-- The Book Proposal by KJ Micciche (read in Jan) 5. Magical Realism--   The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer 6. Women in STEM-- The Women by Kristin Hannah 7. At Least 4 Different POV-- A Fatal Affair by A. R Torre 8. Features the Ocean-- Blue Hawaiian by Carla Luna 9. A Character-Driven Novel--  Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close 10. Told in Non-Chronological Order-- The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins  11. Title Starts with the Letter "K" -- Key Lime Garden Inn by Annie Cabot-  12. Title Starts with the Letter "L" -- The Last Love Note by Emma Gray 13. An Academic Thriller -- One of Us Is Next by Karen McManus (read in Jan) 14. ...
Read more