This year I'm trying out the popular idea of doing 'school' in 6 week terms, with a 1 week break. 6 on, 1 off. It should allow us to finish our year in early November and spend the rest of the year doing 'stuff' that is always put off - poetry, music, crafts, baking... cleaning & organising too I suppose - and to have a nice, fun, relaxing build up to Christmas.
We have just finished out first 6 week term. Now it's time to reflect and evaluate. I can say that my original plan was waaaaaaaaaaay too ambitious. I need to chop down the length of some of our studies. I also found our days too fragmented, rushing between 30 minutes of this to an hour of that. I hate being busy and rushed. LOATHE it. It makes my brain freeze so I become totally incompetent for even the most menial of tasks. I also want to have more time to delve into a subject. I'm going to try and find that elusive balance between spending time in a subject to enjoy it without it becoming to onerous for the children. For instance, they love maths, but too much in one sitting - especially of something that requires heavy brain work like Beast Academy - can be burdensome. But they need the time to sit with it a puzzle through it.
Some things went really well though. WG read me his first 'book' - a reader. Awwww, so cute, so sweet, so clever! We are loving History so far. It is exactly what I hoped for, though I need to be a little more organised next term. WR has been fascinated with Pompeii and loves her writing club. We are getting in a lot more reading and violin practice. The kids are really enjoying Latin and Russian (I need to get on with making the next 12 lessons for them now!), and WS is making great strides with his maths.
This 'holiday' week will be spent...
- cleaning
- redoing the schedule
- planning in more detail - especially for History and Science
- writing the russian workbook lessons
- sewing - I have a huge mending pile to deal with
- attending a homeschool group park day!
My children will spend this holiday week...
- finishing up their history work
- finishing their reading books (WR is still working on Black Beauty and Ballet Shoes)
- Watching Khan Academy etc.
- sewing (they borrowed a library book called 'Sewing School' and have caught the bug)
- cleaning with me.
I also finished another book recently. My first Murakami! Called 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle'. I heard a review of another Murakami book on ABC's The Book Club and was intrigued by their descriptions of the author. By chance I happened upon this book while at the library and decided to give it a go. It was... interesting. It was good, some parts were very engulfing. Some parts were a little slow for my taste and I actually lost a bit of steam about 2/3rd of the way through, but I kept going and it picked up again. Overall the story was mesmerising and had so much potential. I found the ending quite unsatisfying though! I like my endings to explain things, to tie up some loose ends. It felt like the book had spent so much time diving, twisting, and building up some very interesting and unique theories, that the ending was far too simplistic and left too much unfinished. I can appreciate not tying up every single loose end and leaving some ambiguity for the reader, but if you're going to meticulously craft a complicated theory then I need a little more closure please! All that said, Murakami is certainly a talented writer and I will probably be back for more...
We amended that to 5 weeks on and one week off, so we have one week lining up with state school term holidays. I work in term time and drove myself crazy not having a break from both homeschool and work at the same time!
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