Getting Back on Schedule After the Holidays
I love the holidays! It’s such a relaxing time and yet hurried, too. We take the month of December off from regular school because we have so much going on with our supplemental school, church activities and rehearsals, and family gatherings, that in the past we simply fell behind and I became frustrated easily.
You may be wondering, “How do you get back to school when you have taken off a full month?” It’s not easy. But just as when we plan our start to school over the summer for the fall, we have to plan our getting back to school as well. We talk about the date we will resume our studies with our children so there are no surprises and so that we can all mentally prepare for that day to arrive.
Something I also allow my children to do is to do their school work if they want to. I don’t have lesson plans to worry about (we use www.allinonehomeschool.com for our curriculum needs), so it’s really just a matter of them working ahead in a stress-free manner.
In January, I evaluate where each student is relative to where they were and where I want them to be at the end of our schooling year. The second half of our year is focused on getting them prepared for completion of most of the coursework for each subject. I don’t expect them to finish to the final page of any text we use, but I do expect them to make significant progress each year. That comes with planning and plotting what the desired results will be. And that takes scheduling.
I hope your return to schooling after the holidays is a smoother transition this year!
Lyn~
We took six weeks off over Christmas and Thanksgiving, and I witnessed so much learning despite the fact of having”no school” that we emerged from break as full-fledged unschoolers. So, we’re off on a new adventure!
Shelly, it is so wonderful that you have begun an unschooling journey! You’ll notice in my post that we only use textbooks for SOME of our schooling. We are also an unschooling family because so many of life’s lessons, character builiding and skills don’t come from texts but from experience.
Blessings on your new adventure!