The best and worst of my homeschooling

As I've already mentioned, my focus is continuing to turn to school. Tommy starts class next Monday, and I begin tutoring my class next Tuesday. This all means that this week is the week to prepare for the next. As I stand and stare at all of the books I either will use or am still pretending I'll use this year, I can't help but think about the things that have worked and the things that have gloriously bombed in our homeschool journey. I thought it might be fun to list them out to 1. Remind myself of what didn't work so I don't try it again (You'd be surprised how many times this happens) and 2. Maybe save someone a little bit of mommy guilt when those beautifulschool plans melt into an October puddle of "I'm ruining my kids!" The problem isn't necessarily you; you just need to find your own homeschool mommy mojo.

First, what's worked!

• Classical Conversations works for me. It makes me do the things. I need a little bit of structure to get things done, and CC gives that to me. It's worth every penny to me. I still get to be flexible in how I do school, but I have a framework to keep me on track. I have people that are doing the same thing as me so I don't feel like I'm reinventing the wheel or out on my own.
• Workboxes worked for me when I did them. I still hope to go back to it this year for Matthew at least. If you don't know what I'm talking about, click here to read up on Sue Patrick's workbox system. I never found a way to do it well when we lived in apartments, but now that I have more space, I'm excited to use it again. It helped me get to the fun stuff that usually gets pushed to the side.
• Making a copy of Tommy's guide so that we each have a copy. What can I say? Tommy and I need as many buffers as possible to get through homeschooling. Now that we're getting deep into high school, I'm trying to come to him as more of a partner than an authoritarian teacher. I mean, he still knows I'll take his screen time away in a second, but he's not a kid anymore. If he's not on board, I can't make him do anything he doesn't want to do. If we both have copies of things, it seems to make things go more smoothly. If a $6 print job at Office Depot can make our year go more smoothly, I'm spending the $6. By the way, if you're in CC, get the CC Office Depot card. My price went from $30+ for the copy of the guide to $6. 
• Netflix for science documentaries and shows. I don't care what anyone says. It's more impressive to watch a volcano erupt than to read about it. Sometimes I need visuals, and sometimes I'm sick and can't school. Netflix is a lifesaver.

Now, what doesn't work no matter how many times I try to make it work...

• Micromanaging my schedule. I can't handle it. You might has well handcuff me because that's what it feels like to my brain to try to follow a minute by minute school plan. One year I did that thing where I planned out every. single. week. I printed out my papers over the summer and divided them by week in a filing box so that I simply had to pull out my folder for the week. That crashed and burned magnificently. It was too much pressure to stay on schedule. I've actually tried this in a few different ways over the years and I'm burned out within 6 weeks. At this point, some of you might be saying, "But Mindy! You do that planning weekend every summer!" Yes, yes I do. I get familiar with my books, and do a lot of my tutoring prep. I do not try to schedule out my lessons for the year. 
• Saying that we will start school by 8am. It's hard to let this idyllic vision of school go, but 8am does not work for us. I am naturally a night person and my husband works 2nd shift. We sleep in a little later, and morning is our family time. We do school too, but the only way early mornings work for us is if I go to bed before Jon gets home every night, and that's not going to work for me. So...We start later in the day, and that is okay.
• Getting schoolwork, housework, and meal...work (Parallelism. It's important!) done well and on the same day. I can't do all three. I've said this before, and I'll say it again. Pick two. One day out of the school year, I'll get all three done well. Other than that magical day that shows up out of nowhere, one of those three things is going to be half done. 

And finally, a bonus list of things I hope will work, but probably won't. But they might. Please, Lord. Let them work.

• Morning time. I read the book on it. I know what to do. I have a vision for what my morning basket will look like. We will read Shakespeare and poetry! It will be beautiful! Or it won't. Still, I'm going to try. Without hope, I have nothing!
• Better meals with my Instant Pot. I've been using my IP about once a week to get the feel for it. So far everything has worked well. I did baked potatoes today in them, and they were great! It didn't take an hour in the oven, and my kitchen didn't get hot. I'm hoping my IP will help greatly me in the meal arena.
• Google calendar school planning. I think I'm going to make the older two do their own google calendars and input their own schoolwork for the day. There's no reason for me to do this for them now. They can do it themselves. I'll also give them the option of using a bullet journal or student planner instead, but I need it to be clear, up to date, and not my responsibility to keep up. Google docs are also going to become a part of Tommy's life so that I can see what he's doing without having to ask him for the papers. 
• Outsourcing a few more things. Charlotte will be doing musical theater on Thursday afternoons. Tommy is already doing guitar on Wednesday afternoons, and he'll hopefully be adding a Spanish class. Mondays are Tommy's CC day. Tuesdays are mine and the younger kids' CC day. All of this means that we'll be out and about a lot more during the day. I'm choosing to believe this will be a good thing for us.
• I'm setting school hours from 9am-ish to 3pm.  Basically, I'm thinking no screen time other than for school. This one will be tough for all of us. I'm not sure how dedicated I am to it yet, but I probably should be very dedicated to protecting this time. We'll see how it goes.

And that's it. Sometimes I have to reevaluate my strengths and weaknesses. My homeschool is not going to look like the Type A homeschooler's plan. And that's okay. My kids are okay. They're learning stuff. They're polite. They know how to work hard. That makes them more qualified for life than most people already.  

So there's my yes, no, and maybe list for the 2017-18 school year. Now to actually implement the plan...