It's working!

So I know many homeschoolers are in full school swing by this point in August, but we here are just starting to get slowly back into the groove. My biggest goal for the weeks I consider "warm up time" is to see what kind of daily schedule I can work out for us all.

I want to fit in the basic, and mostly independent, school stuff for Punky and have been trying out a few different methods to see how he can best know what he needs to accomplish during this time on his own in the day. So far, though we've had some days when he is clearly not all there and plugged in (he is a seven year old boy - I would expect no less!), he seems to be getting the hang of just setting to work and getting his independent work done quickly and efficiently, with much less tendency to be distracted than when we started.

During this time when he is productively occupied, I am also trying to figure out how I can best use my time elsewhere. Should that be a time to get all my household duties done? Would that make a good pre-k time for Finny and Goose? Should I make it a mommy-daughter time with Girly Pie before she has her nap? I'm not sure yet... but since GP's nap is in transition from two medium naps a day to one longer one, she's still not a concrete person to count on at any particular time in the day yet, so I am leaning towards chores or pre-k time.

I also want to make a time in the day (hopefully while GP is asleep) when I can dive into the fun stuff with P and F. We'll be doing some unit studies, though I do not want to make them super-duper academic. I want that part of our schooling to be fun, exciting, mentally stimulating but not overly taxing - and really the part of the day we all look forward to the most. So having one less distracting little one around is a good fit for that. That will be the time when we do related crafts, science experiments and any bigger games or activities involved with our topic of study. I might also do the reading on the topic then, but I'm not sure.

And of course I need to make sure I'm available every two hours to be heading up the OT exercise for Finny, so I'll need to fine tune what the others are doing during those short but important times when he and I work together. Distraction is particularly hard for Finny to work through, so I am learning way s to have others occupied so he and I can find those 5-10 minute times to just focus on our work (it's harder than it sounds in a house with four young children to keep the other three from distracting one in particular)

The other key to our new days is learning how to keep everyone directed, even when I am not personally involved with each of their activities. I am learning the art of assigning and rotating activities for all three boys - even just fun, simple stuff like Duplos, playdough, blocks and magnets. Instead of letting them roam freely in between set work times, choosing those same activites or others as they please, I want to have more of the day structured where they are focused on specific kinds of activities, though still mostly playing (since they are still so young!). The focus and direction is mainly for Finny, since his therapist has encouraged me to minimize his completely free-range time, as he tends to lose his self regulating ability when left to his own devices for more than a few minutes. This new kind of directing and rotation is not really my natural approach to things, so it's been a bit of a slow learning curve, but I am finding fruit in it for all of us, and as I get more accustomed to it, I think it will suit us well over the coming years.

So all this to say I have a lot to finagle into our days, and that's really not even including basics like meals, most household work, one-on-one time with any of the kids... and many other very important things. But it's a good start, and we're finding some ways that work - and some ways that don't!

But today, it really went beautifully for the morning, even though we got off on a late start. We had a false wake at 4:40 from Miss Girly Pie and though we all fell back asleep, we were slow moving when we did wake up. Then our aging dog surprised us with a nice smelly mess in his kennel this morning, so among other things, we just had a lot to do before we could really get moving this morning. So I was sure all the school/schedule stuff was going to be a wash this morning. But Punky, though late to start, cruised right through his independent work with not a lick of help needed from me, Goose happily spent his free time playing nicely with Finny, and I was able to finish the morning work later than usual and to put GP down for nap, again later than usual. But when I came down from GP's nap routine, I found Punky sitting at the work table diligently plodding away at his math book, and right across from him was happy, "just right engine" Finny, who had decided this looked like the perfect time to pull out his reading lesson and begin going through it on his own.

Normally we do that together, and it is not something I am at all looking to have him do independently. (what's the point of homeschooling if I can't even be the one to sit down and watch my kids learn to read!?) But I was just so tickled to see that with all the effort I've been putting into our mornings, it seems the idea of working and staying on task with productive efforts seems to be setting in. The fact that instead of coming down from the nap routine to find Punky distracted by Finny's play time with Goose, I found Finny drawn into the quiet table time. I guess it's time to find at least one or two kindergarten-ish workbooks so that Finny can have something to do for his own "work" time, since he clearly would like something of that nature to call his own.

And that is something I hope to see more of in the coming years, though I know there will still be many a day (month, year...) of finding the workers distracted by the players, I do hope that we will see more and more of the players joining in on the more directed learning experience.

So it is working. My children are learning routines and self direction. They still have plenty of time to play in the day, and much of their directed time is still spent in just doing simple activities that they enjoy, with none of the three R's covered through the process. But they are learning something through it all.

And so am I!