Halfway Mark Evaluation

Hmmmmm, well, its the halfway mark for the year and I figured it was about time I evaluate what we are doing. We took most of the month of December off, but since we had schooled all through the summer that's not a problem.

I feel like I am still trying to find my way. I could do any one of these things one at a time, but it has been hard for me to find a balance between what I need to do to maintain the house and the business end of our life, the husband, the cooking and shopping and errands, having some kind of time for my self AND homeschooling. I think later in life, I might become a juggler..... so far I think I have done "okay", not stellar, but "okay". Usually its the house that loses in the battle for my time, which tends to drives me a little crazy.

We have managed to always get the basics done... reading, math, phonics, but getting to the extra classes has been a challenge. Now don't get me wrong, the kids are doing marvelously, and Emma is far ahead of traditional school, most of her work is at a 2nd grade level now. It had crossed my mind that we are probably doing more than I am giving us credit for, but I am not counting it because its not a part of the written curriculum. For example, when we cook in the kitchen together, I'm not counting that as math or science, but both are involved. But I'm not counting it because it wasn't on my lesson plan sheet, or all the hours Emma spends reading on her own, or reading with me during free time.

So, my goals for this next semester are to try to get a better grip on our time. To incorporate more of the extra classes and the KONOS curriculum that we LOVE. I am hoping that this blog will help me to do that, and help me to plan and track what we are doing.

I have identified this past semester the tools that I personally need to make things easier. I plan to use them a whole lot more this semester.

• The crockpot: "Oh look the crackpot is using the crockpot!" has helped me a bunch in this department, just having the main course settled on and already cooked has made a huge difference to how smoothly things run. I do not know how I lived before http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/
• The Laptop: I discovered this late in the semester, when I inherited Brian's laptop. Having the laptop instead of the computer that only stays in one room means that I can pick up and do research, lesson plan, request a thousand library books (thats right, we are "those" coppocks if you happen to go to the same library we do, we take up an entire shelf!) etc for what we are studying for ANYWHERE. when Brian's old on gave out, we decided it was so valuable we had to replace it.
• Google Documents: I am horrible with paper trails. I am bad with filing and organizing them, google documents are my new bestest friend. I now do all my lists and menus, and now I am going to be doing all my lesson plans on google documents. What I love about them is I can share them with other people (especially Brian) easily and get their input.

Okay so, thats it for the halway year checkup. Hopefully we will continue to learn and grow through this whole homeschooling experiment. Stay tuned, I plan to try to post as close to daily as I can to detail our schooling journey! Comments are SOOOO welcome!