Homeschool Planning: Part I: Lessons Learned (or, look to the past to plan for the future)

BuffaloHeart fixed the truck!  Yay! It took him until 1:00 in the morning, and he had to enlist some help, but he did it!  Yay!

 

Meanwhile, back in the hills overlooking the valley...

 

we got our meals and housework done by 1:00 yesterday afternoon!  I have to continually remind the kids that if they just get their work done early in the morning, then we have the whole afternoon to create, play, hike, frolic, knit...but often times they get "lost" in something else, and get totally and utterly sidetracked. 

Hmmm...this sounds vaguely familiar...I wonder where they get this trait?

 

After lunch, I set up a work space outside and spent most of the afternoon working on homeschool plans!  Fun!

 

 

I basked in the sun and enjoyed a glorious view as I worked and re-worked and tweaked our plans for the year.  I got a bit of a late start again this year due to an unexpected but totally wonderful curriculum switch, but I am much more ahead of where I was last year. 

 

 I am coming off of two really rough years of homeschooling.  Not that it was necessarily bad, just extremely challenging.  I felt completely overwhelmed and just could not wrap my brain around how to do this job without feeling drained and exhausted...and that's just no fun for anyone!

 

I was shocked by this, and really beat myself up about it for a long time.  I felt that Dove and I had gotten such a great start.  Doing grades K through 3 with her were definitely challenging, and there was quite a learning curve over the years, but looking back we had accomplished so much and really connected in a very positive way through our homeschooling adventures together.

 

When Panther began Main Lessons, I was using (mostly) a Waldorf Grade 3 curriculum for Dove and Grade 1 for Panther as a jumping off point, and this is where things started going downhill, as they say (though, honestly, it felt more uphill at the time!).  Homeschooling one child who was eager and willing to do everything I asked was gloroius.  Sure, there were hard times.  Yes, there were even tears.  And...um...yes...I do believe I may have lost my temper a few times. 

 

But, homeschooling two kids in two different "grades", one of whom was working with material that was a lot for me to process at the time, and the other of whom has a temperment that presents many challenges for me to work with, became quite stressful for me...for all of us, really.

 

 

Enter Melisa Nielsen and Waldorf Essentials.  She has been a blessing in so many ways.  She has helped me to dive deeper into Anthroposophy and guide my inner work, which has become such an important turning point on my journey. 

 

For awhile, I hate to admit it, but, like so many others I have read about, I fell into the trap that seems so prevalent within the world of Waldorf: the pretty toys and the nature crafts and thinking I had to do it ALL...circle time and perfect chalkboard drawings, music and watercolor painting, and farming and woodworking and making everything from scratch, eating the right grains on the proper days and no media at all and on and on...It was quite easy to become dogmatic about all of it while simultaneously feeling like I am not good enough or don't have enough (I still struggle with this). 

 

However, Melisa has helped me begin to let go of the "surface" stuff and see that Anthroposophy and  Waldorf Education are so much more than any or all of those things.  You could do all of those things and have nothing to do with Waldorf Education.  You could not do or have any of those things, and be steeped in Anthroposphy.

 

Once I began really focusing on the inner work portion of the curriculum, I found a peace there that I hadn't before.  I found that I was able to come to a more centered and grounded place, and from there, I have been able to branch out and bring back some of the things I had to let go of. 

 

 

 

 Take knitting, for example.  I felt like a failure at knitting.  I would start projects I couldn't (or wouldn't finish), I would make mistakes and not know how or not take the time to fix them, I would get excited about all the different yarns - the colors!  The textures!  But then not do anything with them.

 Once I came to understand that knitting is called for in Waldorf for so much more than just the sake of knitting...or even having a warm, pretty sweater.  It is will development.  And perhaps to some, that doesn't sound like such a big deal or an important piece to the puzzle, but for me, it is one of the key pieces to having a strong and stable foundation. 

 

This was a part of the puzzle, MY puzzle, that had been lacking or under-developed or incomplete for so long.  I still have a long, long way to go, but I feel as though I have finally found the old skeleton key that unlocks that door that I have been banging my fists against for so long trying to bust through!  But now, I don't need to use fists.  I don't need to wear myself out trying to find ways to get through.  I can simply insert the key into the lock and open that door to a whole new and exciting world.  And each step is a baby step.  It doesn't matter that people around me are further ahead or on a different path altogether.  What matters is that I am present with my journey...right HERE, right NOW.  And while I have intellectually known these things for a long time now, I don't think I really understood them deep in my heart of hearts, enough that I could really embrace them and live them.  This is what my study of Anthroposophy has led me to thus far.  There is so much more I can share on this topic...I don't know if anyone is actually reading all of this stuff besides SunDaughter.  I just know that I can feel a huge shift in my deepest self, and while it is taking time to moonifest on the outside, I can feel it inside, as sure as I can feel the breath move through my body!

 

Moving on...

 

Another thing I am welcoming with open arms and an open mind is planning, rhythm and organization.  Again, not my strong suit, but certainly another very important piece to the puzzle.  Another key that unlocks yet another door and makes space for so many opportunities!  Melisa has been helping me to not only work hard on organization and planning, but also on the execution of all of those beautifully laid-out plans. 

 

A good friend, Amanda over at the In Our Neighborhood blog, has really stepped up  her homeschool organization and planning as well, and found that when Healer (Panther's good buddy - and with a similar temperment) had a written schedule that he could actually see, it really helped with moving through Main Lesson time smoothly and with less fuss. 

With that in mind, while I am not a stick to the time on the clock kind of gal, I have begun thinking about our daily rhythm and how I can make it work better for the kids.  BuffaloHeart validated this last night when he said "well, it doesn't really matter if keeping an eye on the clock doesn't work for you, what matters what is best for the kids."  Right on!  While I don't want to be a slave to the clock, I also want to find ways to set my kids up for success.  That is one of the many reasons why we homeschool...so that we can tailor our lives to meet the needs of our children as they grow and blossom.  So, here is what I have come up with so far...

The kids were playing around me as I did my planning, and when I was about to write "circle time" in the 7:30 am timeslot, I realized that for some reason, sometimes my kids balk just because I call it "circle."  So we had a brainstorming session of what we could call our anchoring time together, and we all decided we liked "gather round" better.  They were so excited to have some input into our schedule.  I think it helped them to own it just a little bit more.

 

[sidenote: Next to the schedule in the picture above, you can see some hay (I think...what else could it be?  Wheat?  Some sort of grain, anyway) that the kids found growing out of the straw we have leftover from the ducks.  How exciting!  One of the blocks in Class 3 is all about grains...we grew some and I didn't even plan on it!  Thank you, duck doo!]

 

Below is a close-up of September and October sections of my homeschool plan for the year.  I love the idea of this way of doing the yearly plan.  It is all laid out on one page for me to see...On one side, main lesson blocks for each child, plus festival days and celebrations, on the other side, the dates of all birthdays, holy days, vacations, field trips, community activities, etc.  This one little thing has been a huge boon to my planning!

 

Now that I have been focusing on the inner work, planning and organizing, other things seem to just be falling into place.  I have learned that I don't have to do it all.  There are things I can turn over to someone else with more expertise who can teach my children. 

 

Music, for example.  Again, another mountain to climb, it seems.  I am surrounded by many muscially gifted people.  They make it seem so easy.  It is really hard for me.  I tried to teach recorder to the kids...it was easy with Dove, because she naturally took to the recorder and loves it so much...so much so that she surpassed my abilities (or lack thereof) within a couple of months!  Panther, on the other hand, hated recorder and it just kind of fizzled out with him.  However, now that I have turned music over to someone with more experience, both kids are taking recorder lessons, and both kids are loving it!  After only one lesson, both kids are reading music!  Dove's repetoire of songs has more than doubled, and our recorder teacher got more out of panther after one lesson that I could in 6 months! 

 

 

They both play every day, often times more than once, and are loving it!  They even play music on our long-ish drives into town and home again!  and the bonus for me is that I get to listen to their beautiful music!  (Okay, well, sometimes they squeak and it's not so beautiful...but it is so great to see them overcome the challenges and improve daily!) 

 

I have also found that the more organized and planned out I am, the more time I actually do have to go with the flow and work on things like painting and drawing.  One of the first blocks I do with Dove this year will be "The Human Being and the Animal World", which we didn't get to last year, so I have been practicing my animal drawings...

 

 

If you had asked me a year ago to draw a horse, I probably would have said "no way!"  I don't know how to do that!  But I am learning...right along side the kids...and they see that, and I am happy to know that they see me striving to do more and to improve.  That is the lesson that I think is most important: to challenge yourself, to keep at it even though it is hard, to be present within the process and be content with small successes.

 

Ahhh, well...Dove is awake at last!  Time for me to go and do the do!

 

Happy Wednesday to all!