That’s it, folks! No more school for the next seven days. I am declaring a Thanksgiving Holiday this week. I need to catch up on housework, writing deadlines and editing my new book, 101 Tips for Kindergarten at Home. I can’t believe it has taken me so long to get it out, but it’s a great lesson. Our plans get interrupted by life. And we all know that life is what happens while you are busy making other plans…
I spoke with another homeschooling mom who shared the same dilemma: how do you get it all done? If you focus on housework, school work will lag behind. If you keep all the school assignments up to date, your house starts looking like a tornado just went through and the laundry piles turn into small hills.
Which reminds me of a humorous incident online a few years ago, when I was contemplating homeschooling. I joined a few Yahoo support groups for different types of homeschoolers and asked the question, “Is it really efficient? Can you really get school work done in the morning? If so, why do I hear that a lot of homeschooling moms give up because of dust bunnies?”
I got some clever answers which were avoiding the real issue, i.e. that homeschoolers are super-busy and school is rarely finished in the morning. I suppose nobody had the courage to say, “Hang on to your hat! You will be super-busy!”
The wittiest answer I received was, “You will not get done in the morning because you and your kids will have so much fun, you will not want to stop.” I appreciate framing the issue that way. How much fun am I having vs. Let’s get school out of the way so we can have fun. I really do. I learned a lot from that exchange.
And, may I just say, from talking to friends who put their children in public or private school, they are busy too. So busy, they have to tell their children to choose only one extra-curricular activity. If you are contemplating homeschooling or getting discouraged by it, remember that the grass is NOT greener on the other side. Life is crazy busy no matter how you school your children.
If you are looking for French Thanksgiving vocabulary, – and who isn’t? – I wrote about it here. If you want a Thanksgiving unit study lesson plan for elementary kids, click here.
With that, let me say Happy Thanksgiving to you! I hope you have lots of fun with family and friends, eat yummy food and count your blessings, for they are many.
