Tomorrow's the day...maybe, sort of...

So, tomorrow's the day we're finally starting our school year. Maybe. Sort of. The last 6-9 months have been quite tumultuous for the AAA family (that's how I'll refer to our family, in keeping with the on-line safety practice of not being too self-identifying - "AAA" for Aquinas Academy Adventures, not any sort of self-serving "grade", lol!). Dh lost a job last spring, we couldn't buy a house we were building, which meant we couldn't move when we thought we would, for awhile it looked like we couldn't buy a house at all, but then we could, and then we moved. Moving is a pain, have I mentioned that? We've been here over 8 weeks, and I still have boxes upon boxes to unpack. Sigh...Anyway, having moved the beginning of August, I just did not have the energy, or organization, to start school the day after Labor Day the way that I prefer. Then, last week, my parents came for a wonderful visit, so I didn't want to start our formal schoolwork until after they had left. Though, while they were here, we did get to have a fabulous field trip to the Georgia Aquarium which I will detail in a future post. So, anyway, tomorrow was to be the day to formally start our school year.

And two days ago I was struck with a horrible, nasty, no-good, very bad COLD. I feel more awful than I have in almost two years! As dh said, "Teacher is sick and there is no substitute, so school opening is delayed for a day or two..."

I will see how much I can accomplish today. I can write on this blog because I can sit quietly in my chair, coughing, sniffling, having a love-hate relationship with my blanket - if I don't move too much or breathe too much I'm ok. I think I might be able to organize some of our binders, too, but we'll see how the afternoon goes. I will detail my school planning system in an upcoming post - I finally found a method that really works for us last year, and I'd love to tell you about it. If I can get our binders together, I might at least start my oldest in a couple subjects, maybe start the middle two off on their handwriting and reading (the two subjects that will their focus this year). We'll see how it goes.

In thinking about all our delays, I've decided that it might be a Good Thing. As much as I consider homelearning to be just a natural part of our life, I also have always fallen into the Big First Day trap. You know, you start off bright and cheery, take pictures, fix a special breakfast, with all the hopes and dreams of your upcoming school year fixated in your brain. And within a few weeks, or perhaps a few days, you are down in the dumps, wondering how on earth you will Accomplish It All. The kids don't cooperate, the house is a mess, and you're already behind in your carefully thought out schedule. So, this year, we won't have a big First Day Production. We will ease into our formal school work, add a bit here and there, figure out what is Important and what is Not without trying to Do It All, all at once.

In my next post, I will give more details about the resources we use, and after that I will show you how I put it all together for the week. I plan by the week right now, sometimes I'll do two weeks at once. If I plan any further ahead than that, we just fall behind and I get discouraged. Weekly or bi-weekly planning works well for us.

What works for your family?