One of the gifts of having walked the homeschool path for five years is the little bit of experience I have gained.
After taking a couple weeks off for Christmas, I know that the best way for us to gear back up is to ease into our normal rhythms.
It is important to take cue's from the kiddos when starting back up.
It is OK to go slow the first few days.
Today we made it through half of a phonics lesson before the glazed look started taking over my six year olds eyes. So, before he went into meltdown mode I told him "Great job, we're done with phonics for the day!" and we put it away. Tomorrow we'll pick back up and keep going.
We spent long, glorious days over the break doing a whole bunch of nothing. It feels good to do that and it feels good to get back into the swing of things.
On the home front...my house is looking good. By that I mean I have been throwing things away. This week is kitchen week. In the last few days, I've tossed 5 grocery sacks full of stuff I don't love or use in my kitchen. The craziest thing I tossed were the tea spoons. You know...the long, skinny spoons used for stirring sugar into tea? We never use them so I tossed them. All of them.
When Shane came home I told him about all of my progress. I told him how ruthless I was being in tossing the unused. I told him of the tea spoon's fate. His face dropped. Are you serious? I use them for getting the peanut butter out of the jar every day.
Oops.
I guess you win some and you loose some.
Thank heavens I kept the butter knives which are equally handy in scooping from the peanut butter jar.
If you are looking for inspiration geared toward getting your house whipped into shape, check this out. I am using this for a guide in giving me ideas on where to clean out. It is 365 days worth of missions. Last week I got on a roll and knocked out a few days worth all at once. Tomorrow I'll tell ya what I spent yesterday afternoon doing. It is EXTREME...
