Learning To Let Go
I began this year anew. I spent the summer embarking on a new planning method for our year. One where everything was planned out ahead of time over 36 weeks and placed into file folders. As I read about doing this from others who had pioneered it before me, there was one piece of the puzzle I knew would be both part of the key to the plans success, as well as the hardest part for me.
“I was tired of always finishing math in August instead of May, and it dawned on me one day that we always fall behind because of all of the extra unexpected things in life that take over like sick days, etc…
In the school system, if one person gets sick, the teacher doesn’t stop teaching while that child is missing. They keep on going and the child either skips the work, or does only the important parts (even if just orally).
So, I decided to split up all of our work into 36 weeks, and told myself that if the week got away from me, we would just keep on going the next week, by either throwing out the work we missed or doing it quickly out loud. This was crazy, but worked so well for us. You see, it’s ok to miss a math sheet here and there throughout the year. There’s enough review etc, that it’s not a big deal… But it IS a big deal if you miss the last big chunk of your book. This way of doing things helped me to finish the whole year by may with lots of breaks throughout.”
We started out the year with our 36 weeks all planned out, and everything moved along so much more smoothly this way! Science was even getting done as I had a little note card of supplies needed, handy for each week. Then a week would pop up where I forgot to get the supplies and wasn’t heading out at all where we could stop and pick them up. While breathing deeply, I took that science experiment out and let it go. Guess what? We all survived and still learned each concept! Sometimes we shift things to an evening, weekend, or into the next week, and others I truly walk away from.
Onward and upward through the year….we enter April and Spring Break. I spent two weeks reflecting on how things were going, and realized I was failing at letting go, at least in the big ways.
We had been doing a grammar program which had become drudgery for all of us. It caused stress and frustration for all. Did I let it go? Nope. While science had been great for awhile, the monotony of the curriculum got to us and it was no longer fun. Did I let it go? Nope. Instead we entered Spring Break mentally exhausted and at least partly unhappy with each other.
Not what I had envisioned or wanted for our homeschool. You’d think after 6 years I would have all (or at least a lot) of the answers, but I don’t. We ebb and flow as moods, seasons,…the weather changes, oh, and hormones rage! 😉 Then somewhere along the way I lost sight of what matters most, from our family ties, to the love and joy of learning.
Now for the learning part! After realizing things weren’t working, and that something had to give…..I learned to let go! We came home and dropped the formal grammar for the rest of the year, and dropped the science curriculum too! What we gained was a whole lot of outdoor time, art time, learning time, and together time because we picked up doing nature studies in place of the things we dropped.
I am all about schedules and checklists, dotting i’s and crossing t’s and somewhere in there I forgot about the joy of learning. There are many ways to learn, and while I believe in a set plan, I also believe you have to know when something is doing more harm than good. Homeschooling isn’t the easiest path, it is not the path of least resistance, and the road map for it isn’t very clear. We need to trust ourselves, our will for our children, knowing we have their best interests at heart and that one way isn’t the only way.
Realizing things weren’t working out like we wanted them to, and me learning to let go of those things has opened another door for us. There is so much to be seen and explored in our own backyards, streets, neighborhoods, parks, etc. We are learning so much about plants, animals, and the weather, as well as poetry and art. We find poems, or write poems relating to the world we are exploring; take photos of the things around us; search books and the Internet to find out what those things are; and we are seeking tutoritals to learn to draw – draw flowers, tress, and animals.
So for now, I let go. In the coming year we will spring into action with a new plan for formal grammar, and a less structured, more hands on/interactive plan for science. Until then we are on a slightly different path, somewhere in the knee deep Indian Grass (ok more like over our heads deep) next to the sidewalk, and life is good here.
We need to remember that there is no one right way, no magical formula for raising/teaching our children. Love them first, enjoy them second, then grow, live, and learn with them for a lifetime!
I have to take this advice when it comes to the schooling of my youngest. I tend to dig my heels in and insist she gets things done – no matter what and then lie in bed and realise that I caused a totally miserable day for both of us.
Homeschooling affords us the time for so much joy and adventure and exploration – taking it outside away from desks and workbooks ….
Clearly,I need a new mantra.
Great post, I should print it out! xxx
Thank you Nicole. I hate those nights when you realize maybe you could have done it differently, made it a little brighter. I am trying very hard to work in the direction of letting go so that I have less nights like that. The more I release, the more the kids personalities settle out too!
Great idea–particularly with younger students! Wow–you ARE ambitious. Me, not so much. Basically what I do is chart out the whole year–for each subject area–using Excell as my planning sheet. I divvy up each subject (divide book pages/chapters by number of weeks in our year, 30), then also build in extra weeks here and there (I call these “carrot weeks”–like the carrot held in front of the donkey motivating the donkey to take one more step ahead…with the carrot continually a bit ahead of the donkey’s reach!). The “carrot weeks” are FREE TIME weeks if–if–if the child(ren) are caught up on assignments for the previous weeks.
It used to drive me crazy that my well-laid plans usually by the end of the first week were already “off” because we took an UNplanned field trip to the park or the hills or a day in town. With the Carrot Weeks built in, my plans/their assignments could STILL be done “on time.”
There were subjects that didn’t get set aside during Carrot Weeks: Bible time, timed math/basic facts practice, spelling and handwriting–we just kept going with those…but all the “reading, writing, ‘rithmetic,” science and history were set aside IF they had the assignments up-to-date. The reason I “kept” spelling & handwriting throughout the Carrot Weeks is because I was using materials that were based on a 36-week school-year, and we needed to keep going in order to finish “on time.” The math I kept because I didn’t want my children to back-slide. So, Carrot Weeks usually ended up with just MORNINGS for Bible, math facts, spelling and penmanship. Afternoons were completely FREE if and only if they were all caught up in the other areas.
Most of the time, it only took them a day or two of pushing themselves to get their late/tardy assignments caught up or corrected. We lived in the country (rural farmland) and they had loads of FUN things they’d rather be doing than sitting inside and “working.” When we first started the “Carrot Weeks” I had to do a lot of prompting until they figured out, “oh hey, she means business.”
ALSO this way the children didn’t see Mom so much as the meaner, but the schedule (despite the fact that I was the one who’d plugged all the chapters and page numbers into the Excell chart for the specific weeks!!). Typical conversation:
Child #1: Mom, can I go outside and play?
Mom: Well, are you all caught up with your work?
Child: Um, no, I still have last week’s history and my science drawings to finish.
Mom: Just remember if you’re not caught up when we have our Carrot Week next week….you won’t get to have any free-time til those assignments are done…..
Child: Okay, well, is it okay if I do half of the history and THEN go play for awhile and I’ll come back in and do the rest?
Mom: It’s your choice. But if it’s not done by next week, you know what happens….no free time til it IS done.
Child: Okay
Later….
Child: Guess what, Mom!
Mom: What?
Child: I finished almost all my history, because I want to have all my free time next week!
Mom: Great! When are you going to finish ALL of your history? And what about science?
Child: I’m going to do it right now or maybe tomorrow. So if I get it done in time for next week, I was thinking that I could take the dog and hike on the neighbor’s hills behind our house. Could I do that?
Mom: That sounds like a plan! What kind of hike?
Child: I want to pack a lunch and my sketchbook. Would Dad let me use his binoculars?
etc….
This really happened!
My plan took a LOT of time in the summer to lay out–particularly the first year as I worked out the wrinkles and set up a worksheet on Excell. And because I’m a complete and utter control freak! But once I had the stuff plugged in….wooohh! It was great!!!
Deb, I like your “carrot weeks”. What a great idea! I had already decided I was going to plan out 30 weeks instead of 36 for this coming year. Not because we won’t do 36 weeks, but because some “weeks” only have 2 days where we can really get things done, so I figured when those times come, we can turn 1 week of planning into 2 actual weeks of time.
Thank you for reminding me to
a. Be more organized with my yearly goals
and
b. That it is o.k. to let go even toward the end of the year.
Renee, for me organization is key. Having the year laid out made it so that I knew I would be finishing most of the material during those 36 weeks. Before I would stress so much about breaks, or hiccups in our schedule because we “needed to stay on track”, only I didn’t really know what on track was until I laid it all out. Now I can clearly see what things we “skip”, when we can add, when we need to push, etc.
But this year taught me most about learning to let go of things that are not working! As homeschoolers we have the flexiblitly to change things if they don’t work, and we should use it to our advantage!
Heidi,
Good for you! I have never been as organized as you, although I did allow Sonlight to do the organization for us for a while. I even failed at that. Those big, beautifully organized notebooks made my head spin. I realized that we became more focused on “doing school” than learning. I found that too much structure made me feel like my kids were at the public school down the street.
I have been blogging for several months about trying to simplify our lives. How I homeschool now is much different than how it was when I began. I wrote a post called “The Best Homeschool Year” and several other posts about how we’ve changed how we do things.
I love your comments about dumping a program that doesn’t work for you. I do the same thing. I’ve posted on that, too!
As for science, you might want to check out SuperchargedScience. It’s interactive and full of fun experiments. It’s an online course, so there is a fee – we pay $37/month. But it’s worth it. My kids love science now and can tell anyone about atoms, black holes, Newton’s Laws of Motion…
Sounds like we’re on the same page. It’s the right way to do things for our family.
Love,
Laura
Laura, It is truly amazing to me what a journey homeschooling is. You can think you have everything worked out, and then BAM! Something changes. Thank you for the heads up about SuperchargedScience. We actually just did a free online science thing with them about roller coasters and the kids loved it (even if mom was a little tired of stepping on all the marbles from it)!
Heidi,
We did the same webinar on roller coasters! How funny. I’m still finding marbles all over the house. Our roller coaster ran from the bedroom upstairs into the livingroom on the main floor. That was NOT her best webinar, though. In fact, I think we only watched the first 20 minutes or so. I don’t know if I would have signed up for her program if we had not been introduced to it after a webinar on Astronomy. It was amazing. Nothing to do but listen to an hour of fascinating information about our universe. That’s where we learned what a black hole is and so much more. She took very difficult information and brought it down to our level (my kids are 11 and 12 – I’m 47!)
So true, that homeschooling is a journey. What an adventure, huh?
Hi Heidi, Thanks for sharing this post on NOBH! I love this tip and believe that many homeschoolers will be relieved to read that you need a plan B for those tricky times. Every blessing!
Thank you Kelly. I believe in being real and honest about myself and where I am at. I think that we can often get a skewed picture of what we think we should be, or be doing based on others, who may not really show you the “other side” of themselves. We are human, and trial and error is essential. Learning to let go is just one hurdle I am learning to leap!
Silly but that is one of my biggest problems. Thanks for the great advice – I have to learn to let it go. When my first was a baby I wanted to do Glen Doman’s Teach Your Baby to Read program. I diligently cut out the posterboard and wrote words in red marker just like they said. But I never started – because I did not have the 100 cards to start with. So ridiculous – I never saw any fruits from my labors because I could not just let go and start anyway. Instead I have kicked myself for years for wasting so much time and money on a program I never started.
How liberating to hear of another homeschool family that can just let go of a curriculum that is not working. Why do we continue to torture ourselves? I too lost sight of the joy of learning!
Got to this article by way of reading your blog on Homeschool Tracker. This story was just perfect for me to read. I’m pretty good at the letting go part, maybe to good. My issue becomes getting those great moments outdoors logged. How have you managed those random art, outdoor exploration, etc. moments into your record keeping?