Getting Into the Swing of Things
Conveyor belt of doom
Getting into the swing of things after a long winter break is always a bit of a challenge. Our week was jam-packed with the restart of the homeschool, community day at Classical Conversations, extracurricular activities and hospitality. Going into the week I knew that it was certain to be frantic but of course, I didn’t know experientially how it was going to turn out. And to top it off, the baby has been having many restless nights and therefore more mornings being awake and irritable.
When the week started, I felt like I was on a conveyor belt (of doom!) moving rapidly from one activity to another: wake up, sort out breakfast, vacuum, laundry, homeschool (insert chaos teaching multiple kids multiple subjects), tending to whiny baby, nursing baby while teaching, rocking baby to sleep on bouncy chair, finish homeschool, cook lunch, get dressed, yell at kids to get dressed, drive to extracurricular class, return home, tend baby, prepare dinner, send kids off to bed and finally crash into bed feeling sorry for myself!
Small changes
At the end of each day or major activity, I thought about how I could reduce the stress and made a note of lessons learnt for next week. There were some simple things I could easily change: for example, on a day that I had extracurricular activities, I could have bags packed in advance and kids dressed in the morning itself. I made lots of little notes like that this week, I couldn’t possibly have another week like this, I thought to myself. I vented to my poor husband who listened ever so patiently. He proceeded to give me some practical ideas to help alleviate the stress and finally suggested that we need to rely on the Lord and pray.
He also sent me a funny SpongeBob square pants gif which I thought hilariously epitomised my life right now!
On Wednesday morning, we went to our Classical Conversations community for week 13 of Cycle 1. The kids were so excited to go and catch up with all their friends again. CC mornings are quite chaotic for me, so I made a list and stuck it on the fridge. It serves as a quick reference in the morning to ensure that we don’t forget to take anything and that we get there on time. I can’t tell you how a simple list like this (below) makes my life just a little less stressful!
Scripture Memorisation
This week, I finally printed and laminated (with hubby’s help) Pack 1 of Simply Charlotte Mason’s Scripture Memory Verses. It’s a free PDF download of many Bible verses (in ESV) that can be printed to make Scripture memory cards. It’s so amazing that SCM provides it for free on their website, what an incredible resource!
Sonya Shafer also explains her system for memorising here on this link.
I’m quite eager to see how we will proceed with the memorisation and I’m excited to be learning alongside the kids as well.
