"I would send you a bouquet of newly
sharpened pencils, if I knew your name and address."
Last Monday was our official first day of school.
The first day always has a special place in my heart. Even the most reluctant
child is excited the first day. Who could help being excited about fresh pencils,
new crayons and the books? Some of the best smells in the world are old books
and newly sharpened pencils. Glorious! (I know, can you say nerd?)
Getting an early start this year, has a dual
purpose. One we are moving, probably at the end of this month. For anyone who
has ever moved, you know this is a serious disruption of your normal everyday
lives. Add 7 kids and homeschooling and you can say bye-bye to mommy’s sanity!
But since school must go on, we must find ways to make it work. One of those is
to start early so when we take a break to do last minute packing, cleaning and
unpacking, we won’t get behind.
The other reason we are starting early is that
we are moving to a year-round schooling schedule.
For those of
you who didn’t grow up as a homeschooler,
you may never have experienced the benefits of not taking a huge break in the
middle of the year. Growing up, we always did school year-round and I loved it.
We took vacations when everyone else was busy with school so things were cooler
and quieter...much quieter. We basically had places to ourselves. Let me tell
you, that's the way to vacation!
There are an endless number of ways to do it.
Some take breaks throughout the year as it suits their families. Some will do
school for 3 weeks and then take a week off. We combined the two. We took
a month off for Christmas and enjoyed baking for our neighbors and creating
gifts for each other. It allowed us to be in the true spirit of Christmas and
to enjoy sharing with others, without all the crazy rush part. We also took one
week off a month to take advantage of other educational opportunities;
field trips, community service projects, church activities. Not all school
happens in a classroom.
For our family, we plan to take a month off for
Christmas (as long as the moving schedule change doesn’t disrupt us too much)
and still have time for those sick days that will come no matter how hard we
try NOT to get sick. We will also be open to times we all just need a day to
reboot. Those are what I call our flex days and that allows us to be malleable
without losing out on time we need to learn. I even have plans for those times
we need a low-key week. (More on that later…)
So this is our 2017-2018 school year in a
nutshell. What are your plans for this year? I’d love to hear them!
Blessings,
Momma H.
