Tweaking

Homeschooling is a journey.  It is confusing, rewarding, tough, challenging, nerve racking, and fun.  It has been an interesting journey for me so far as a mom/teacher.  I was super excited when Sugar Plum began kindergarten 2 years ago.  We had fun units planned, we did lots of crafts, and we even went on field trips to learn things.

Fast forward to December of 2010 and a positive pregnancy test shook things up a bit.  The rest of that year went smoothly but with a few less fun creative things than the first half had as I was battling morning sickness and fatigue. Then came the fall of 2011, Sugar Plum was ready to start first grade and so we began when Copper Top was 3 weeks old.  I was wiped out most of the time.  I was just trying to survive most days.  We didn't have much fun that year. I had a good solid curriculum in place and we got through it each day.  Learning happened but it was not always fun.

As we began this new school year for 2012 and 2nd grade I was hopeful.  We had switched a major part of our curriculum to My Father's World and I was hoping for great things.  We are all loving MFW it has been a God send on easy planning and the simplicity of doing things each day.  We figured out how to do school each day with a toddler, and 2 preschoolers in the way (I baby sit my nephew). Once again learning was happening but some of the fun was missing.

Recently, I have been taking a look at our journey and how things are going.  I don't want Sugar Plum to think school time is boring.  I want her to enjoy it.  I have started tweaking things to make it more fun again.  I am not a one full of creativity.  I like to have a set curriculum to follow so I know where we are headed.  I recently set aside our language arts curriculum and switched to something new.  I am hoping it will help with the major complaining that was happening. I have also tried to start adding in more math games to make math more fun again too.

This journey for me is interesting.  I have to learn to adapt and change how I teach and what I do so that my kids are learning the most that they can.  I think that is the hard part for me. I want things to keep working the way they are because change is hard.  I am learning that tweaking things is a good thing.  So, here's to tweaking. :)