School Schedule

This is the time of year that the public schools are getting ready to start again and the homeschool community often follows suit. I want to start going through all our books and make a schedule. I want to list out what we'll do each day and week. The projects we'll undertake. The books we'll read. I want to be that school teacher - but at home, with the girls loving everything I set before them.

Somehow that never works out.

Why? Oh so many reasons.

1. I'm really, really good at organizing and planning, not so good at implementing.
2. Some things I think will be fabulous, we hate.
3. Some thing I've never heard of will end up being fabulous.
4. Getting the kids to focus and do something is half a day in itself
5. We get focused on one fun, interesting thing and do that all day
6. All our "side activities" take up all of our time and energy
7. I realize that the learning that is most memorable is the stuff they find for themselves
8. Half of what I plan is due to what I think school should be based on what it is in classrooms - and I know that's not what I want to do
9. Sleep is more important than spelling

None of this will stop me from trying to plan out a schedule. I like to have a plan, even if it has to be altered along the way. Here are some of our (my?) plans:

• Girl Scouts (and I'm leading one of the girls' troops)
  
• soccer
• more swimming lessons
• maybe more archery
• hopefully 4H (units on sewing and forestry)
• Latin class
  
• Options
• trying out the Math-U-See curriculum
• doing our Rome unit

That's just the stuff that I need to get scheduled before I can think about the other stuff we need to do. I don't know why I'm feeling busy and overwhelmed already. The box of curricula I borrowed from Options sits across the room staring, no leering, at me. I need to look at it all and plug it all into a chart that we'll never finish. Or maybe I'll just go read some Gatto and forget the whole thing :P