Weekly Wrap-Up: July 13

This week started with a swim meet and is ending with a swim meet.  Sunday was a crazy day, with a swim meet in the morning, and kayaking with friends in the afternoon.  The meet went a little longer than I expected, and I really didn't think we would be able to make it in time for kayaking, but somehow, we did.  I was glad, too, because it was a lovely day and we had a great time with good friends.  I would include a picture if I could figure out how to get a picture from an email message to a blog, but I am somewhat technologically challenged.  If I figure it out, I will add it later.

I did spend a little time considering plans for the coming year.  I took an idea from Julie's post last week at Brave Writer and thought about what I would change about last year.  The biggest change that I would like to see is more excitement about learning.  There were, at times, some rather "resigned" attitudes, a "What do I have to do now?" kind of attitude toward anything remotely academic.  While I don't expect anyone to jump with joy at the prospect of doing, for example, their math lesson for the day, I would like to see maybe a vague interest in the lesson/assignment.  That's one of the things I have always struggled with: I want my kids to want to learn for learning's sake, to be excited about learning, but when they're not, then what?  When they were younger, I tried to focus more on what they were interested in, and tried to keep the lower-interest subjects low-pressure.  But as they are getting older, I have to admit that I am starting to feel the pressure.  I know that there's still time and that when they decide that they want/need to know something, they will pick it up so much faster and easier than if we push them.  But still.  It is so hard to resist all the societal pressure.  There is no one actually telling me that my kids should be doing such and such, but it's there all the same: The Expectations.


Deep breath.  Go back to what I know works: encourage their interests; discuss with them what they will need to do to prepare for adulthood (and putting it that way helps me keep things in perspective, too); and get their input.


The other thing that I would improve from last year is time management.  We could all use a little help there.  Luckily, this one is a little more straight forward.  We'll figure out how many waking hours we have, subtract out the scheduled activities, and then divvy up the remaining time to create a study schedule.


Wish me luck! ;) 

This post is linked to the Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.