A Healer’s Geste

Starting a New School Year

So this week is our first week of school. We’ll have a first day “let’s learn the ropes” Tuesday, a complete day Wednesday, then Thursday through Monday Hans is going camping with my parents (!) while I try to be a fun-mom for Jaeger and Ilse, then next Tuesday is the used curriculum sale which I won’t miss, then next Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we’ll settle into our routine — except we will have swimming lessons in the morning.

First, the adjusted schedule.

Last year we kept a 4-day school week even though I always planned for a 5-day school week. This year I’m going with a planned 4-day school week. Generally people take off Friday, and last year Wednesday was usually the day I took off (because it was extra-busy for us), but this year I am planning on Monday being our day off. It seems that even if Friday or Saturday is a housecleaning day, by Monday morning the house is out of sorts and I don’t have things together to get off to a good start. So, I am using Monday for my housecleaning day. I’ll take 30 minutes to put school stuff together for the week, an hour to clean the house, and 30 minutes to do food stuff for the week (chop veggies, make granola, etc.). Here’s the kicker: For the first time, I am going to use movies as a babysitter. We have a set-up for movies and computer games downstairs now, and I plan to let them watch something (or play something, once they learn the ropes sufficiently) while I clean the house for an hour and a half Monday mornings. They will also have a couple extra weekly jobs to do after breakfast and before they may begin their brain-rotting time.

To make up for said brain-rotting time, to allow the house to stay clean for a couple hours, and to overcome my biases and weaknesses, we’ll use Monday late morning and early afternoon for a nature adventure day. I created a list of five local nature areas and we’ll try to hit each one once a term, weather permitting: Zintel Canyon, Badger Mountain, Sacajawea Park, the Master Gardeners’ garden, and Amon Basin (if I can find it; anyone ever been there?). Several of these are only 5 minutes or less away, and none are more than 10-15 minutes or so. Now, I’m not yet revealing to the children that my plan is to go frequently to these places, because I have been to almost none of these places and so our first visit will tell if we can handle it at this point (with baby, a toddler — stroller? — and all). If all goes well, we’ll take a picnic lunch and our nature journal stuff and focus on finding, identifying, and sketching plants (we’re doing Botany this year — birding next year). I put the Master Gardeners’ garden on the list as my cop-out: it’s half a mile away, has a paved trail, and has signs that identify all the plants.

I have not only a separate schedule for Mondays as opposed to the rest of the week, but also an alternate morning & early afternoon schedule so that we can still go do fun summer stuff like swimming lessons or play days at the park. I just don’t think it’s necessary to have to say, “I’m afraid we must turn down that fun summer invitation because we’re doing school” and yet I do want to get some productive time out of this term, seeing how little we have done this calendar year so far.

The new school year plan and weekly routine.

This isn’t too different from last year’s routine. New this year will be independent work for Hans. He will have his own daily checklist to work from while I work with Jaeger, then Hans will report to me and have lesson & narration time. Then lunch. Then I hide in a hole for a couple hours. Oh, wait, I mean we have quiet time. He is a list-lover after my own heart, so I think this will work well with him, better than me issuing directives constantly, anyway. I’ve found we work best together when there’s a little mediation for some subjects, whether that mediation be a video lesson (Math-U-See), a recording (our memory work or audio books), or a pre-made list. Something, anyway, where he can see and know that I’m not making stuff up off the top of my head as it suits me — and so that I do not make stuff off the top of my head as it suits me.

Our new subjects this year are American history & geography (using books & a timeline, but no curriculum) and Botany (Apologia’s elementary book). I decided not to add Latin this year, but save it for the following year. We’ll also be learning manners (i.e. “yes, you must talk politely to guests and the nice lady at the grocery store”) during circle time. I also set up a reading plan for myself and decided upon a few overarching habit-goals I want to work on through all our schoolwork and life.

All those specifics will be hashed out in upcoming posts, along with the fun part — books!