Bringing Balance back to Homeschooling

The holidays are now a distant memory. Sadly! We’re heading towards the end of week 2 of term 3, and I can hardly believe that we are now in term 3, this year is flying by far too quickly.

We had created a list of things we wanted to do over the holidays but sickness took us down. Instead, we spent the majority of the holidays at home. We did fit in a couple of movies at the Maroochy Cinema’s for the kids right at the beginning of the holidays before we became unwell. I endured the Minions movie and enjoyed ‘Inside Out’…The kids thoroughly enjoyed both the movies, and thanks to the Minions movie, Jaden is eating bananas again!

So here we are in term 3…

This term we are changing our routine around. Last term came and went very fast, and we used all of our available school time doing school work. Yes it needed to be done, but there were elements to life that we put on hold because we were so busy with school work. After talking to my very wise friend Melissa, I started rethinking how we manage our homeschooling time, and so we came up with a new plan for this term, that I am hoping will help us work smarter and enjoy the work load a little more than we have been of late due to the new curriculum changes.

We have a new plan of action for term three.

Our four main subjects are Maths, English, Sose (history and geography), and Science, so our plan for this term is to get our work done Monday to Thursday. Friday is our elective day, so that the girls can learn something new, catch up with friends.  Bethy wants to learn photography, Chanel would like to do art projects, and Amy wants time for her guitar lessons. Friday will also allow catch up time for any outstanding work.

Over the holidays Amy decided she would pick up her guitar again. I’m not sure when she decided that she’d love an electric guitar, but she’s decided on a particular . Hubby entertained the idea by taking her to Mooloolaba music to look at some electric guitars a couple of Saturday’s ago. Amy was thrilled because a ‘salesman’ set her up in a soundproof booth to let her have a go. Hubby called me while Amy was in the booth playing, to show me what Amy sounded like on an electric guitar. I think they had a plan to see if mum would ‘let them buy it’, but the answer had to be No – not yet!

Its Amy’s 13th Birthday in a few months, so she can wait a little while longer for that electric guitar. She can continue learning on her acoustic guitar in the meantime. Besides it wouldn’t have been fair to the other kids, and I think its important to be seen as fair parents.

We have found a brilliant app called ‘Yousician’ that Amy has started using in the last couple of weeks. She decided that she would do an hour lesson every day. There is a financial outlay of $150 for 12 months (if you pay it upfront, more if you pay monthly), but we haven’t done this yet. Amy is using the free month to make sure its going to be good for her. I must say that we can hear that Amy has improved considerably, and we can’t believe its only been 2 1/2 weeks since she has been using ‘Yousician’.

We will pay the subscription at the end of the trial to help her along, as she has well and truly proven that she can learn through this app. Amy also wants to learn how to cook a few meals and ‘get confident in the kitchen’, as she says.

Bethy has decided to learn photography, so we have agreed to set her up to learn via a $10 video course through udemy. She’s very excited, and is looking forward to starting on Friday.

I think its going to be an interesting term, I’m hoping it goes relatively fast as I feel like I need a holiday after being unwell over the last holidays…but not too fast because you should see the amount of work we have to get through! Chat soon, xo