May God give us all strength and peace as we keep our eyes and hearts focused on Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
“…for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”
2 Timothy 1:7
I pray that you and your family have a blessed Christmas and New Year!
One of the best things about homeschooling is the ability to schedule your life without being tied to a school calendar. So, in that sense, ANYTIME can be the “perfect time” for your homeschooling family’s vacation, depending on your needs and goals.
But, I’ve found there’s a vacation sweet spot that has worked out best for us and that time is…
I’ve been thinking about how to word my end-of-year greeting…
I’d like to say “Let’s pretend this year never happened and try again in January.” But I won’t.
I’d like to shout “Good Riddance, 2020!” But I won’t.
”Do you ask a fish how it swims? Or a bird how it flies? No sirree, you don’t! They do it because they were born to do it!”
– Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Just like Willy Wonka was born to invent new candy bars, kids were born to learn!
This isn’t the first time I’ve written about why homeschooling works easily for kids of all ages. They’re even learning on sick days. And, on our recent trip to the lake, I was reminded (yet again) how kids are always learning – even on vacation!
THANK YOU, readers and subscribers, for joining me as we travel this homeschooling road together! I pray this blog has blessed you in some way!
May the love of Christ fill your hearts and homes this season as we celebrate the birth of our Savior!
If you’ve been following this series (if not, start here), you’ll probably have noticed a pattern by now. We seem to keep ping-ponging back and forth between work-focused summers and play-focused summers, always trying to find the sweet spot.
Year 3 was a summer of virtually no advanced planning and no academic work. So, you probably won’t be too surprised when I tell you that Year 4 was the complete opposite.
(And, according to my oldest son who was just reading over my shoulder a minute ago, Year 4’s summer was “horrible!” Can’t win ‘em all, I guess.)
In the last post, I promised you a summer on the other side of the continuum, so here it is! The summer of our mega home renovation! When all bets were off, plans were non-existent, and I was living way, way outside my Type-A, Planner-Person comfort zone.
You can see more about the renovation, including before and after pictures, in this post.
I didn’t try to plan a more relaxed summer. I didn’t decide that we needed less formal school-ish work. By the time I had my head far enough above water to think about our summer homeschool plans, it was already August.
In the last post, I described the summer break we had after our first official year of homeschooling. If you read it, you may recall that I said it was a “fun and balanced summer.”
“Fun and balanced” sounds pretty good to me – so why, I ask myself now, why-oh-why did I try and fix what wasn’t broken?
Looking back on Year 2 from a Year 5 perspective, I think it’s ultimately because I let the “you’re-not-doing-enough” worry-monster get to me.
I never know what to do with summer break.
Wait. Let me rephrase that.
I never know what to do for our homeschool during summer break.
If I ever had the luxury of my own summer break, I’d know exactly what to do with it (i.e. unlimited ice cream, a beach, and a stack of good books)!
But I digress.
When it comes to planning out what to do for my kids’ education over summer break, I perpetually bounce back and forth between two extremes.
To the tune of Auld Lang Syne…
Christmas gifts strewn all around,
Party messes still piled high,
Decorations to repack…
I think I’m about to cry.And add to this the pressure felt
– words by Sensible Homeschool
To analyze your life,
And come up with some lofty goals
That will solve all of your strife.
That’s how the song goes, isn’t it?
