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EVALUATE!!
It’s so hard to believe that it’s 2009! Happy New Year to everyone!
Even though we are in the middle of the school year, I always look over my homeschooling and make resolutions about how I want to finish the school year out and plans for the coming years. It’s always good to take a close look at what we’re doing and decide what is working and what isn’t. It’s okay to decide that something isn’t working for your family and to move on from it.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve set something aside knowing that it just isn’t working for us! When this first happened, I felt really guilty. After all – I had spent money on the curriculum or the unit study and to not finish using it really bothered me. However, my husband being the wise man he is, assured me that if something isn’t working for our children or me, we should just set it aside and find something that does work for us. He further stated that we wouldn’t have known if it worked or not without trying it and it didn’t happen a lot, so it was okay to move on. What a relief!
He is right, of course. This doesn’t happen to any of us very much and it really is okay to decide that something else will work better or to even go back to what did work before.
We started out using one curriculum that worked just fine for us, but I decided that maybe something else would be better. We went with a new form of curriculum only to discover that our former way of learning worked perfectly fine for us. In fact, my younger son was so used to the first curriculum that it was pure agony for him to try something new. Like so many of us, he felt more comfortable with the familiar. That’s fine! Whatever works!
When you find that you need to make changes, go to your husband and get his counsel. Pray about it and get the Lord’s wisdom. He really does care about our homeschooling and what we are doing. If you still know you need to change, do it! Don’t feel bad. If your children aren’t learning as well as they could or there is just way too much busy work with the curriculum, make changes. If money is an issue (as it is for most of us!) there are lots of wonderful free studies on the internet. You can also create your own studies using the library. Many of our happiest and most productive learning times were spent in the library!
Also, evaluate how you’re spending your time. This is a good time to figure out where you’re wasting time or where you could use your time more productively. And please – don’t forget that most important of times – down time! You don’t need to be busy, busy, busy all the time! During these cold winter months, spend some afternoons snuggled with your children reading literature and/or good books. Yes! This is learning, too!
Enjoy your time schooling and being with your children. It goes by so fast!
©2008 Julie Danielson
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