Today was an absolutely fabulous homeschooling day...definitely one of our top 10 ever! And we've been doing this for 5 years now :) What, you may ask, made it such a wonderful day? Well, we didn't really do anything extremely cool or exciting, but I changed things up a bit and just loved the results.
Let me explain, I always worry that I'm short-changing someone. If I spend too much time with the big ones, I worry that the littles may never learn their letter sounds, how to count past 20, etc., etc. But, if I spend too much time with the littles, my older ones may not be able to get into college....;) So today I decided to do things a little differently. We had our opening like usual, but then instead of everyone just scattering and mom trying to work from person to person like usual, I had a plan. I spent 30 minutes or so with each child from oldest to youngest. In that 30 minutes we could work on academics if needed, ask questions about assignments, or do something that each kiddo wanted to do. We ended up finishing "Just David" ( a fabulous book that I highly recommend to all!), playing Monopoly, having some one-on-one reading practice, playing a phonics game, playing go fish, Hi-Ho Cherry-O, practicing ABCs, and coloring. Each child got some needed one-on-one with Mom and then had time for regular assignments! It was fabulous. This is what I've always dreamed homeschooling would be like...let's see if we can do it again someday :)