*Deep breaths….*
Now that I’m a bit calmer, I know this isn’t true, they are always learning and we did do some great things this week. But by the end of the week I’m feeling depressed, lonely, unsure of homeschooling… I even had the thought that maybe my son would be better off in school so he could play with friends and stop asking me to play over and over and over again! I know there’s a balance somewhere that we’ll eventually find. It’s hard to figure out how much to commit to doing and how much time to allow at home. Hard to say no to all the great field trips and classes offered and make time to be home, especially if that time at home doesn’t always feel productive and growing up in our society, if you’re not visibly, tangibly productive, then you’re just wasting time. Even if no one tells me this, it’s still ingrained in my head. And I still have not gotten any business work done! I need to schedule time in for that and make myself stick to it! Talk about lazy!!
Okay, I’ll give myself a small break, it’s not like I lay around napping or watching tv, ever. Not ever. No, never. Even if I really wanted to! Man, that would be nice.
Rather than give in to my self doubt and insecurities, I am now reflecting on some of the things we did this week and realizing, wow, we actually did do a lot!
Monday, much needed sleeping in and relaxing after our busy weekend of camping and fishing, as well as unpacking, laundry, and cleaning the house for my own sanity. The kids played, built things, counted and made patterns with buttons, rode bikes, etc. Also we dressed in silly clothes all day to show off our “awesomeness” on my birthday. They dressed me in a tutu, tiara, and flower leis. Went to dinner and the park after; yes, I sported my awesome attire out!
Tuesday, Monkey went to school, Boo and I had some time together playing at home. Then to history club. We forgot to read our chapter in The Story of the World V1., so just listened to it in the car on the way to history club while eating our lunch, just made it in time! He made a mummy with a Barbie doll! Probably the best project ever! Time to play with friends on the playground after. Home to ride bikes and then to Karate class.
Wednesday, Daddy was home and we went on a spontaneous field trip to the new Marine Sanctuary in Santa Cruz, http://montereybay.noaa.gov/vc/sec/welcome.html, explored the exhibits and watched a movie there about our bay. It had amazing visuals as well as music, Boo danced up in front the whole time! I don’t know if I enjoyed watching her or the movie more! Then we walked to the end of the wharf, reading the signs about the wharf and our bay, looked through telescopes, watched the sea lions, pelicans, and gulls, then played in the sand on the beach for a couple hours. We ran home to shower then headed to dinner at our church and then to our Awanas classes there (a kids club).
Thursday, wrote get well cards for a friend, drew pictures, read in a math story book and did a few pages from a workbook. Read our verse for the next Awanas. Made apple sauce from apples we picked a few weeks ago. Had planned to make pie, but waited too long! We ended up with some cider, too! The kids used our crank apple parer and corer. I used too much water (we were out of apple juice) so ended up with runny apple sauce with the consistency of baby food and some cider from the water I removed before blending them. Maybe I should have looked at a recipe? Oh well, both tasted wonderful! Ran a couple errands, but came home because Boo was tired and throwing tantrums and I wanted to join her! Read books, played memory, built forts with Monkey while she napped.
Friday, more forts while listening to opera. Love Andrea Bocelli’! His voice makes me want to cry! Monkey pretended to be an Indian, dressed up and made a tepee. Played card games, and seek and find books, rode bikes, read and watched videos about Native American Indians and some other videos on National Geographic Kids. Monkey played a game on that site called AnimalJam for a while. Went to an adoption party and played with friends till really late. He brought some treasures in a little leather pouch and had them all pretending to be Indians or nature explorers!
Now I feel so much better! We really did do a lot of learning! It just seemed so low key, it’s hard to realize we are learning sometimes. I just need to remember kids learn through play and they played all week! And I don’t need to listen to the lies in my head that we have to have something in hand to grade to know they learned. It really was a great week. Phew! Maybe I’m not destroying my kids lives after all. At least not this week.
Loved reading this. I struggle with these same doubts. Writing down what we do, taking pictures, documenting spontaneous moments helps me, but I think I need to make my reflections more of a daily habit to avoid getting in the worry rut. Anyway, encouraging to hear all the wonderful learning you are doing… Without trying too hard 🙂
Nice to know I'm not the only one! I used to be great at writing down what we did each day, but got out of the habit. Definitely helped me feel better about what we're doing since I can hardly remember yesterday if I don't write it down! I do take tons of pics and that helps too. Thank you!
Great blog Leah! Really enjoyed it! I was tired thinking about how much you did during your week. A huge amount of learning and learning through playing. Also appreciated the links.
Monica
Glad you enjoyed it! It felt like we didn't do much until I wrote it all down and wow! I'm amazed myself! Guess I'm not so lazy and shouldn't listen to my little self doubt demon. 😉
Sounds like you are doing a great job, so relax already, lol! I'm learning through the high school years that all we do when they're younger does work together to create a great education. I had many days when I worried we were falling behind, but now I'm getting some great results. I only regret not spending more time relaxing and doing fun things with them when they were small.