Busy Mommy Media» Homeschooling

Gardening with Kids: 5 Easy Tips to Get you Started

Rachel — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 19:55:10 +0000

Gardening can be a great activity to teach kids about the world around them. It’s been a few years since we’ve had a full-fledged garden, and despite the fact that I am way too pregnant to do much of the work myself, I was determined that this year we were going to do some planting.

My boys are almost 9, 6, and 4 and they are old enough that they can do most of the work with a bit of supervision. We started gearing up for our garden by learning about composting with our soda bottle compost project. It was a huge hit and now, a few weeks later, we’re ready to move into planting our seeds.

Keep Things Simple

The goal of our gardening project this year is to just cover the basics (and hopefully get a few edible things out of the process). We’re not worried about getting bogged down with details at this point.

We’re focusing on only a few vegetable varieties so we can maximize our chance for success. Easy to grow vegetables like cucumbers, zucchinis, and tomatoes are a great place to start.

Take Short Cuts

In the effort of time (and energy since there’s a significant lack of that going on around here lately), we bought a Jiffy Mini Greenhouse to plant our seeds into. This saved us from having to fill pots with soil and dealing with the mess that comes along with that, and we were able to get all our seeds planted in under 20 minutes so no one lost interest.

We wanted to start our seeds indoors, partially because the weather can’t decide what it’s doing around here at the moment and partially so my kids could keep a close on eye on any changes as they happen. The Jiffy Greenhouse gave us an easy solution and kept everything contained.

If you want to reuse items you already have, you can plant seeds in eggshells (like we did in this preschool science project about how seeds grow) or empty produce containers as well.

Use Kid-Friendly Gardening Tools

Everything seems to go smoother when you give kids tools to work with that are just their size, whether you are working in the kitchen or the garden. Most hardware stores sell kid-sized gardening tools or you can make your own using things around the house like they suggest in the book, Green Thumbs.

I’ve found that giving kids their own tools is also a great way to teach responsibility because they have to be sure and clean them off and bring them inside so they don’t get lost or rust. For younger kids, this is a huge lesson to learn and there’s no faster way to learn it than having a favorite object get damaged when they don’t take responsibility for it.

Give Kids Ownership

I firmly believe that giving kids ownership over their projects helps them to feel more invested and ultimately helps them learn more in the process. If you have older kids, give them responsibility over a specific task or plot of land in your garden. The success or failure of the garden then directly relies on them and kids love seeing progress when they know they’ve made it happen.

My 6 year old has been assigned the job of watering the plants and he takes it very seriously. I try and avoid reminding my kids to do things as much as possible because I want them to step up and take charge on their own.

My 8 year old will have his own small grow box to plant whatever seeds he likes and he’ll be responsible for the full upkeep. Since it’s a small area, that’s very doable for him at his age and he’ll be able to understand the full process from start to finish. I’m hoping it will get him to eat more vegetables as he sees them grow as well.

Explore your Local Library

With any project we work on, I love to expand on what we learn by taking a trip to our library. My kids love getting baskets full of books on the subject we are studying and they discover all kinds of facts that I wouldn’t have known to teach them on my own. With gardening fresh on our minds, we’re going to be stocking up on books about plants, flowers, photosynthesis, and more to dig through as we wait for our veggies to grow.

Green Thumbs is a book I’ve heard great things about, but unfortunately isn’t stocked by my library so it’s on our wish list of things to buy.

What are your best tips for gardening with kids?

Why I Homeschool

Rachel — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 08:01:09 +0000

Schooling decisions have been complicated in our family. We’ve tried both public school and homeschooling and right now, homeschooling is what works for us.

I’m frequently asked why we decided to homeschool. I realize that for many people, homeschooling is just not something that has crossed their mind and some people wonder why we have made this choice for our family.

Like any decision, our reasons for homeschooling are varied and it’s hard to pin point one final thing that really made the decision for us. The truth was, it wasn’t an easy decision. There are pros and cons to nearly everything in life and I never expected the schooling choices I made for my kids to be so difficult. I’d always assumed my kids would head off to public school when they turned 5, but when that path didn’t work for my kids, we had to look into different options.

Safety

As tempting as it is to wrap our kids in bubble wrap to keep them safe, the sad fact is that they are likely to be faced with unsafe situations during their lives. I’ve made an effort not to be a crazy, overprotective mom, but when a child abductor decided to start hanging around my oldest son’s kindergarten school (complete with stories about lost puppies and moms in the hospital) my guard was up. During second grade we were faced with a school shooter — some lunatic decided it was a good idea to come onto the playground during recess and start shooting. We’ve dealt with schoolyard bullies who sent my son home with a black eye and teasing that lasted throughout the school year — and we were in good school districts.

I watched as my once bright-eyed son became nervous and stressed and as my second son prepared to start kindergarten I knew I wanted better for them. We’d already homeschooled for one year and the difference in the confidence level and happiness of my son was drastic. The safety issue alone nearly made the homeschooling decision for us. Now, each time I hear about a school shooting (in schools where “that would never happen”) and another dangerous situation, it reinforces my decision all over again.

Style of Learning

Some kids do very well in public school — they have a learning style that matches the way the school teaches and they work well in large groups with a structured environment. Some kids don’t. Mine didn’t follow the curve. I have a kindergartener who has aspergers and is working at nearly a 2nd grade level and a 3rd grader who reads on a 7th grade level but who has trouble writing. Both of them are very hands-on learners (although one is more of an independent learner than the other) and neither one of them fits in a traditional classroom. We’ve tried twice with my oldest son and he’s been bored both times.

Homeschooling children with very different learning styles is challenging, but I know that they are getting the individualized attention that they need and they are thriving.

Special Needs

My 6 year old has very mild aspergers and the sensory issues that go with that. The public school system wanted him to spend half of his time in a special ed. classroom. For a child who is working well above grade level, it seemed silly to me to put him in a slower paced class. When you throw in the fact that he has severe asthma and ends up with pneumonia nearly every time he catches a cold, it just made sense to create a learning environment that worked for him as an individual.

Flexibility

When my oldest son was in first grade our family was going through a lot of changes. Our youngest son had just died, we’d sold our house, and we wanted to make some changes so we decided to travel a bit and figure out where we wanted to live. This would not have worked with public school. We spent several months in one place and then relocated to another area. Homeschooling allowed us to turn our travels into an educational experience rather than causing a disrupted education.

I got used to the flexibility of homeschooling and when we returned to public school the following year, I found myself getting irritated having to follow a predetermined schedule and curriculum when I knew that there were things that worked better for our family and for my children individually. I found myself pulling my oldest son out of school so we could go explore local tide pools and museums and when I realized that all he’d missed were a few worksheets and sometimes a movie that he’d already seen, I began to doubt whether public school was really the best long-term solution for us.

True Socialization

Lack of socialization is the biggest argument people have against homeschooling. Educationally, it’s obvious that one-on-one attention far exceeds what you get in a large classroom environment. But many parents believe that their kids need to be in a large group of kids to be properly socialized. Having gone back and forth between public school and homeschooling, we had the interesting opportunity to really see both sides of things.

In public school, my oldest son is a follower. He bases his interests around what his friends like and doesn’t stop to think about what it is he likes. He became anxious and stressed in public school and my once enthusiastic learner suddenly thought school was boring.

As a homeschooler, he is outgoing and friendly and will spend hours reading books or learning about subjects that he finds interesting. Right now he’s decided he is in love with Geometry and despite the fact that his public school friends tell him that they hate math, his opinions stay set. My younger children have never been to public school so they haven’t gone through the same transition as their brother has and my hope is that they’ll be happier for that.

I’m not against public school in any way and I firmly believe that every parent needs to make schooling decisions based on their family’s individual needs. We evaluate things each year to be sure that the choices we’re making are the right ones for our kids. I’m committed to educating my kids, not necessarily to educating them in a predetermined way. If homeschooling continues to work, we’ll keep going with it. If we get to a point where there’s a better choice for what our kids need, then we’ll look into that.

How did you decide how to educate your kids?

Homeschooling: Free LIVE Virtual Field Trip to Ellis Island

Rachel — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 17:23:38 +0000

One of the things I’ve missed as part of our homeschool plans this year is that we haven’t traveled or been on nearly as many field trips as I would have liked to. Exploring new places is one of my favorite things about homeschooling but between my pregnancy and my husband’s broken foot, our plans were sidelined.

We’ve been taking advantage of some great virtual field trips online to learn about historical places or science subjects and that’s been a great substitute. Certainly not the same as being there, but a great alternative when you are stuck at home.

Scholastic is hosting a free LIVE virtual field trip to Ellis Island on Thursday, March 29, 2012 at 1:00 pm EST / 10:00 am PST. You can register for the event now and then simply return to the site before the event to participate.

I think we’ll plan on doing some reading about Ellis Island before this event and we’ll definitely be participating. Virtual field trips are a great opportunity to explore new places when limited finances or health issues keep you at home.

Homeschooling When Mom is Sick

Rachel — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 19:32:48 +0000

Homeschooling can be rough when mom isn’t feeling at her best. My family has been taking turns going through a nasty cold this week — I’m thinking I should probably take the advice of a friend and just have everyone share a straw at the first sign of illness so we can get it over all at once. This is coming on the heels of several months of horrendous morning sickness so, needless to say, we aren’t functioning at our best at the moment.

The nice thing about homeschooling vs. public school though, is it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. If you’re sick, it isn’t a matter of calling it for the day and waiting until everyone feels better. You can take things at a slower pace and still learn quite a bit.

So how do you homeschool when mom is sick?

Watch Educational T.V. Together

I’m not usually a huge fan of T.V. but there are cases where it can be a great educational tool. On days when I’m really not feeling well, the T.V. is our go-to activity, but by using a bit of discretion in what we choose to watch, it can still help my kids learn the material we are working on as part of our regular homeschool curriculum. We’ve been learning about the solar system so we took our week of the never ending cold to watch several science shows about the solar system – about everything from aliens to what you’ll see on each planet. My kids loved it.We’ll often follow up our T.V. watching by drawing pictures of what we learned, writing journal entries, or writing fictional stories that incorporate the information we learned.

As an alternative to regular T.V., my kids love watching Brain Pop videos or searching for YouTube videos on some of their favorite subjects (although I’m always sure to supervise their time on YouTube).

Have Older Kids Teach Younger Siblings

One of the methods I’ve been taking advantage of lately is having my older son teach my younger kids. This is actually very productive for all of my kids because my oldest son gets some review on topics that he may not have thought about for a while and because my younger kids look up to their older brother so much, it’s like a game for them when he sits down to teach them. Learning how to be a good teacher is a great skill for kids to have too. I’ve watched my older son learn patience and improve his communication skills as he’s taught his younger siblings.

Have a Reading Day

there are few things more valuable to a child’s education than reading. Whether you are reading to your children, having them read silently, or having them read to you, they are bound to get something out of the experience. While dealing with morning sickness, my gag reflex was often set off by something as simple as talking so rather than reading to my younger children, I’d have my oldest son practice his oral reading by reading to his younger siblings. My kindergartener read stacks and stacks of Bob Books to me while my 4 year old had fun making up a story to go along with the pictures on each page of his favorite books.

To really amp up the fun, let your kids have a pajama day and make a fort that they can climb in and read in for the day. You’ll be surprised at how much they get out of the experience at the end of the day.

Work on Individual Projects

I’ve found that my kids are most interested in learning when I set them loose and give them the freedom to choose what they want to learn. We’ve taken to having Free Learning Friday’s since my energy level has been so low during this pregnancy. There are very few rules. I don’t allow T.V. or video games and my kids have to be actively involved in doing something. Other than that, it’s up to them.

I’ve been amazed at what my kids have come up with. Earlier this year my kids took apart an old camera and looked up the various parts that they found inside on the internet. My 6 year old created a bound book and has been working for weeks to write and illustrate a book about all the things he likes to do. My 8 year old taught himself Power Point and created a presentation about the things he’d been learning in our astronomy assignments. He’s also been teaching himself to cook, with a bit of supervision, and has worked up to a long list of breakfast and lunch items that he can make, which has been an amazing help during the month’s I’ve been too sick to even look at food, let alone cook it.

Adjust your Schedule

One of the real benefits of homeschooling is you don’t have to do things on someone else’s schedule. If you don’t feel well in the morning, start school a few hours later. If you get an extra burst of energy in the evening, take some time to work on a few school subjects with your kids. For temporary illnesses, like our annoying cold this week, you can always just take the day off if you need to and makeup your schoolwork over the weekend. We typically don’t take all the school vacations we are allowed to so we’re often ahead of where we need to be anyway, which allows for the unexpected and in the end results in missing fewer days of school than if my kids were in public school.

If you’re having a rough day, there’s nothing wrong with taking a break. I’m always amazed at what I can get done in only 15-30 minute increments. Work when you can and take frequent breaks until you get feeling better.

Ask for Help

Friends and family members are often willing to help out when you are sick or dealing with a difficult pregnancy. If you have a family member who is great at math or art, ask if they’ll take over teaching those subjects to your children until you’re feeling better. I have difficult pregnancies and knowing that I would be at least partially out of commission for quite a while, we hired a mother’s helper to come in once a week and help with some of our schoolwork. School doesn’t have to happen during the day either. If Dad has a favorite subject have him take over that in the evenings when he’s home from work.

Take a Virtual Field Trip

Just because you are sick and feeling housebound, doesn’t mean you can’t do a bit of exploring. There are some great virtual field trips available for homeschoolers that can be a great way to spend the day when you aren’t feeling well. My kids love exploring the San Diego Zoo and the Safari Park online, especially since we used to spend so much time there. You can find a great virtual field trip scavenger hunt activity for the San Diego Zoo here.

Virtual field trips are available on nearly any subject and most larger museums and destinations have some sort of virtual destination you can visit. A few that we want to check out are Alcatraz Island, Mount Vernon, Ellis Island, and The White House.

How do you homeschool when Mom is sick?

Preschool Science – How Does a Seed Grow?

Rachel — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:37:28 +0000

I love science projects for kids that use things we have around the house already. It’s a great way to recycle things that would ordinarily be thrown away and it allows you to do some really educational science activities without spending a lot of money. This simple science activity is perfect for preschoolers and elementary school aged kids and it’s a great way to teach about the structure of a seed and how a plant grows.

To prepare for this project, I saved eggshells for several weeks. I washed each eggshell half out and kept them in the fridge just to make sure everything stayed fresh (I realize that once we started the project I put all the eggshells outside but it made me feel better knowing they weren’t rotting on my kitchen counter.

Materials Needed

A dozen or so eggshell halves, washed and stored in the egg carton

Potting soil

Seeds – Look for something that germinates quickly. We opted for green bean seeds but anything will do

Instructions

Once you have collected enough empty eggshells for this project you can take your egg carton outside and fill each eggshell half with potting soil.

This is a great chance for kids to get their hands dirty — something that doesn’t happen enough most of the time.

Have your kids gently place one seed on top of each eggshell and then push it down into the dirt with their finger. Be sure the seed is towards the middle of the eggshells so it has soil all around it.

Now For the Fun Part . . .

Water your seeds and leave them to grow for 3-4 days. You can watch them if you want. They don’t grow any faster unfortunately.

Once they have had a chance to be in there long enough for some changes to start taking place, have your kids pick one eggshell to crack open and have a really good look at the seed.

Have your kids notice how the seed has changed. It may be helpful to have your kids draw a picture of what the seed looked like at first (or take a picture) and draw a picture of what it looks like after being in the soil for a few days then compare the two.

Repeat every few days and have your kids pay attention to the details that are happening as the seed grows.

You may want to leave the last few seeds in the eggshell and allow them to grow into a mature plant. You can use the eggshells as planters and place them directly in the ground to grow.

You can expand this activity by talking about the parts of a seed, what things a plant needs to grow, the parts of a plant, and the plant life cycle.

Additional Resources

Parts of a Seed

Science Fun you can Eat – Parts of a Plant Salad

Plant Seeds and Watch them Grow

How a Seed Grows (Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science 1) - I HIGHLY recommend this series

Easy Homemade Matching Game

Rachel — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 18:52:27 +0000

Now that Easter is over, you probably have all kinds of leftover candy and plastic eggs that you need to do something with. This homemade matching game is really, really simple to make and is a great way to use up some of those extra plastic Easter eggs.

Matching games are a fantastic way to introduce preschoolers to early math skills and this simple game helps with number recognition at the same time.

Materials

Plastic Easter Eggs

A permanent marker or small round stickers

Instructions

Count out 10 plastic Easter eggs. You can use more if your preschooler has already mastered counting to 10 and recognizing the numbers 1-10.

Use a permanent marker to write the numbers 1-10 on the top and bottom of the plastic Easter Eggs. You can make this game a bit easier by putting matching numbers on the same color eggs or a bit more difficult by mixing the colors up so that the matching numbers are on different color eggs.

Allow the marker to fully dry so it doesn’t rub off. Depending on what type of marker you use, the numbers will likely start to rub off eventually but considering this game took me less than 5 minutes to put together, I’m not really concerned with long-term durability.

If you want, you can write or print numbers on small stickers and use those to label the plastic eggs.

Variation for Older Kids

While my preschoolers were enjoying using this activity as a matching game, we changed up the rules a bit for my 7 year old. Since he is working on memorizing all his addition tables we turned this into a quick math game.

Take all the plastic eggs apart and drop them into your Easter basket (or another container). Reach in and pull out two egg halves and fit them together. Have your older child then add the two numbers together (or multiply them together if your child has already mastered addition). This activity turns into a fun way to quiz your child on his addition (or multiplication) tables!

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Free Classroom Oral Health Kit from Colgate

Rachel — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 19:13:14 +0000

Colgate has a great educational program they sent out every year for FREE to kindergarten classrooms, home daycares, preschools, and homeschoolers. I used this program every February for dental health month with my preschool dental health theme when I ran a home daycare and I continued to use during the year we homeschooled. I’m excited to incorporate it into our preschool co-op this year because the kids always love it and it comes with some great toothbrush and toothpaste samples for each of the kids.

This year’s Bright Smiles, Bright Futures kit includes:

For the Teacher

Dr. Rabbit and Friends Sing-along CD
I Know What To Do! Classroom Big Book
Dr. Rabbit and Friends Teacher’s Guide
Bright Smiles for Children Oral Health Digest

For the Kids

My Bright Smile Storybook (English & Spanish)
Bright Smiles at Home Family Booklet
Colgate Kid’s Toothbrush
Colgate Kid’s Toothpaste

If you are a teacher, whether as a homeschooler, home daycare provider, or preschool/kindergarten teacher, sign up for your Free Classroom Kit from Colage Here.

How to Survive Public School as a Parent

Rachel — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 18:46:57 +0000

There was a time when I thought the baby years were the hard ones. I had no idea that one day, I would look back with fond memories on the days when I was sleep deprived because of a baby’s cries rather than losing sleep over the many complicated worries of childhood drama. My oldest is only in 2nd grade and I’m already terrified of the teenage years. If I could shrink my kids down small enough to carry them around in a sling again and take them with me everywhere I went, I would do it. Judge me all you want but after a hard day in the trenches of parenting, you would do it too.

We homeschooled last year and, while we loved it, my now 2nd grader wanted to give public school a try. As a work at home mom, I certainly wasn’t going to turn down the extra time in my day but I’ve been surprised at how hard the transition has been for both of us.

I went to public school for my entire school career, and like anyone else in the public school system there were ups and downs. I can’t remember what I did this morning but I have vivid memories of spit wads being thrown at me on the bus and nicknames that just wouldn’t seem to go away. On graduation day, I washed my hands of all that and joined the real world. I had no idea that school would actually be harder as a parent.

I’ve decided that my ability to survive elementary school as a parent will boil down to trust and communication.

Trust

Turning your child over to a complete stranger for 6 hours a day is a bit overwhelming. you hope that everything will go smoothly but it’s hard to ignore the stories of bullying and school violence that appear in the news far too often for comfort. While my son is young, I’ve decided that the person I need to have trust in is not necessary his teacher (although that helps too) but him. From the moment kids are born they work to be independent and as a parent, we have to trust that they can make good choices. Children may not have experience on their side but they understand right and wrong far better than most adults and that by itself can go a long way.

Communication in Public School

One of my biggest complaints when I sent my son to kindergarten in public school was the lack of communication. My son, while generally chatty, could never be counted on to give me an account of his day at school unless I wanted to know about which games were played at recess. I was hoping that as an older and wiser 2nd grader things would be different, but personality is fairly ingrained and my accounts of the day still consist of lunch menus and playground games.

After hearing that my son was physically bullied on the playground during the first week of school (likely on one of the days when all I heard was that he ate his full sandwich at lunch), I made a point to do my part to communicate better with his classroom teacher. Several lengthy conversations later and I finally feel like I have a better idea what is going on during his day.

Returning to public school has also made me realize how vital it is that my son and I communicate with each other. I’ve always thought we knew how to talk to each other but I’m starting to suspect that I didn’t teach him how to express his feelings. As the oldest, he’s used to taking charge of a situation and fixing it. He’s not used to asking for help. The first few weeks of school could have gone much more smoothly for my son if he had known how to open up with me and his teacher about things that he didn’t understand and a few things that were causing him stress.

This is a new stage of parenting for me and it certainly comes with it’s challenges. We’re all still undecided whether or not we’ll ultimately continue on with public school or go back to being a homeschooling family long term. For us, the decision will be determined by our kids and what is ultimately best for them as individuals.

Photo by Megan Skelly

Back to (Public) School

Rachel — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 19:01:13 +0000

My 7 year old son started 2nd grade this week and it’s a big milestone for him because he’s making the transition from homeschooling to public school. We homeschooled last year using the K12 curriculum, which I LOVED by the way, but we’re new to the area and my son wanted the chance to meet more kids (and for some reason he was really, really excited about the chance to eat lunch at school). It’s going to be an adjustment for our family for sure. The first night my son was so excited he couldn’t fall asleep until after midnight. The second morning, I couldn’t drag him out of bed. I’m not sure public school was exactly what he thought it would be but I’m hoping once he adjusts, it will be a good experience.

The Difference Between Homeschool and Public School

We had a unique homeschooling experience. Our family was in the process of moving out of state and we spend some time living in timeshares while we figured out exactly where we wanted to be. That gave us the chance to explore areas that were brand new to us and turn homeschooling into an adventure. For our ocean science unit we dissected seaweed on the beach and went on a whale watching tour. For the desert unit we went camping in Moab and discovered desert plants and animals up close. We read book after book after book and counted money until it was second nature.

Educational Pace

My son was homeschooling for 1st grade but as a family, we all learned (my 4 year old can tell you all about ancient Egypt now). We didn’t do many worksheets though and while we tried to keep some semblance of a routine, we mostly followed a child-led daily routine, focusing on the things that were interesting to the kid’s at the time. Public school requires constant classroom management and the one-on-one attention that my son is used to is simply not possible. Education happens in the closed environment of the school, and requires kids to a learning style that may not be ideal for them to be successful.

Homeschooling allowed my son to work at whatever pace he was comfortable with. Public school follows a stricter schedule. We’ve spent quite a bit of time over the past few days wondering if we’ve done our son a disservice by helping him progress beyond his grade level – until we realize how silly that sounds and that we just need to help find a way for him to continue to progress, where he is at and not where the class is, at public school.

Parent Involvement

One of the things that frustrated me the most when my son attended kindergarten in public school was that I felt out of the loop. Beyond a few vague details I got at the end of the day, I didn’t know what he’d spent his time doing and what he was learning on a daily basis. I felt disconnected from my child. He had a life apart from our family, which is healthy and normal, but I wanted to catch a few glimpses of it from time to time. At the end of the year I was shocked to hear that my son, who had known how to read before entering kindergarten, was still working on his ABC’s every day at school. It felt like a waste of a year. I’m determined not to make that same mistake again this time. I’m going to be as involved as I can be and make sure I’m aware of the material that is being covered in the classroom and if it doesn’t meet the needs of my son – I’m going to step in and make some changes.

Being Defined as a Homeschooler

Transitioning to public school has been an adjustment for all of us because it doesn’t just involve the student, it involves the whole family. My family grew closer together through our year of homeschooling than we ever have before. The experience taught us to rely on each other and taught us how to learn together and progress together. I think we all miss that a bit. My younger children miss having their brother around and I miss seeing the boy who has grown into such a responsible, caring child.

There’s no denying that homeschooling is lifestyle. For over a year I’ve defined myself as a homeschooler. It’s changed the way my family has looked at every day experiences. Everything is an opportunity to learn. There’s almost a sense of loss at not being a homeschooler now and I didn’t expect that. Homeschooling is a full time job and while I won’t complain about being given some extra time (my laundry pile will surely appreciate that) it’s a huge adjustment. I’m homeschooling my younger 2 for preschool (keep an eye out for our week by week preschool lesson plans that you can do at home) because I don’t see the purpose of sending a 4 year old who is nearly reading and who knows his addition and subtraction tables to preschool but things have changed and we’re not quite a homeschooling family anymore. I feel very mainstream all of a sudden.

I used to think the baby stage was the hardest part of parenting. I’m quickly realizing that parenting gets a lot more complicated as kids get older. There are so many schooling options available now and I’m glad that I’m aware of them now. I don’t know what my children’s educational future will hold but I do know that we have choices and we won’t be afraid to make changes if we need to.

Tips to Avoid Over Scheduling

Becky — Wed, 12 May 2010 05:41:30 +0000

Do you find yourself spending more time hustling your children out the front door than you spend enjoying your time together at home? You are not alone. In today’s world, there are so many worthy causes pressing for our time that it becomes very easy to over-commit ourselves with responsibilities and activities. However, when we over schedule ourselves and our children we are not teaching them how to recognize their own limits and prioritize their time.

The Benefits of Scheduling Less

You will have more time to spend one-on-one time with your children.
You can spend more time providing your family with a fresh, homemade dinner. You can eat it while sitting down at the table together rather than grabbing a quick sandwich as you load up the car.
You will have more time to perform better at the responsibilities you choose to keep.
Downtime. A popular buzz word today, but it is true. We all need time to sit down, relax and enjoy some time doing something that lifts our spirits and rejuvenates our souls.

Think of other benefits unique to your family and write them down so you’ll remember just why you need to say no to one more activity.

Reduce Your Outside Commitments

While it is important to complete the task or responsibility you committed to doing, you can excuse yourself. Any respectable organization will admire and respect your decision to put your family first. Recognize your limitations, decide what you can still do and excuse yourself from the responsibilities that you can not fit into your new schedule. You do not have to explain further than “My family needs more of my time.” You may provide a more in depth explanation if you want, but do not feel obligated to do so. If your schedule later opens up and you want to return, you can do that, too.

Involve Your Children

Involve your children as you learn to schedule less. Talk to them about your reasons for excusing yourself from various activities. Role play with them to help all of you to grow more comfortable with saying no to new responsibilities and activities when they do not fit in your schedules. When your child comes to you with another activity she wants to do, walk her through the steps of determining what will have to go if she takes on a new activity. Also, take a look at what it will require from you to help him keep his commitment.

Send the Right Message

Each time you put your family ahead of outside obligations, you are telling your children that they are very important people in your life. That knowledge will go a long way in helping them to feel confident and secure in your love and create a bond between you that will help you all through the rough times that do come from time to time in parenting. As you help your children to learn how to recognize they abilities & limitations, problem solve, prioritize their time and put family first, you are helping them to become a healthy and successful adults.

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