Ups and down

Like every year, we had highs and lows and ups and downs but I felt so good about this homeschool year. I’ve been working on reframing what success looks like and I think that helped me this year. I really tried to take the wins when I got them and take the lows with a grain of salt knowing that they are just part of life! This year I really felt comfortable going outside of the lines and choosing things that were well suited to me as a teacher and to the individual personalities of both of my kids and that freedom was huge for me.

finding Rhythm

I realized a few reoccurring patterns this year as well so that helped me know a bit more of what to expect for next years rhythm. The weeks rhythm has been so important for me in homeschooling. It grounds me and my kids! The Waldorf learning pedagogy has so many ideas for creating rhythm if you need ideas! Specifically, I paid really close attention to burn out patterns in both me and the kids and when to push and when to pull back on stuff. I like to start the year out strong and keep consistent with our scheduling and not take the fall break week so we can take an extra week in December off. December seems to be a hard month to push through a lot of academics. I found this one out the hard way and pushed through a lot of December and had a total breakdown! I was overwhelmed and didn’t allow myself to have enough breaks. I also realized that homeschooling is a lot harder when there’s other deeper life things going on. Most of my December breakdown was because of some work issues and a few personal matters. After my little breakdown I eased up and cleared my plate for December. We had a stack of Christmas books and first thing every morning we snuggled up on the couch and just read books. Our days consisted of baking and making various holiday crafts and leaving room for the magic of Christmas. I also remembered from last year that May is BUSY! I definitely tried to plan accordingly for that and not leave anything extra to complete for that month. Personally, I love taking the summer starting the last day of May. It gives me the break I need and summer is just such a fun time to play and have as much fun as possible!

Stretching my wings

One of my favorite parts of this year was I found my wings to go outside of the lines in a lot of my curriculum. I chose to use a personalized conglomeration this year and I really enjoyed the freedom of using multiple different sources. I used the Language Arts portion of Sonlight alongside Explode the Code and I also chose to do Oak Meadow as well as various Waldorf resources. The magic and pedagogy of Waldorf always keeps me coming back. We used Right Start for Math again, and for history our co-op we chose something from Beautiful Feet and the kids learned about so many new countries. It was such a rich experience for all of us.

I loved finding the freedom to mix it up this year and do what works for me! The creativity of mixing and matching really worked well for me. I was used to the layout and feel of Sonlight as well as Right Start from last year so that really helped. Oak Meadow was such a nice balance for our family because of its focus on creativity and the weaving of arts throughout all the subjects. Plus, the stories and resources in Waldorf education have been such a great fit for me and the kids.

Here’s to a great summer where we get the rest and relaxation we all need to start the school year fresh again!

Alyssa