Balance in Homeschooling

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Balance. I am
constantly thinking about it. How can I
balance everything? I want to keep all of
the balls in the air at once; make sure that I am personally fulfilled, that my
marriage is healthy, my kids are happy, we are eating well and taking care of
the earth, all of it is important to me.

I haven’t thought as
much about balance with homeschooling until recently.

Emma is getting more involved with her schooling. She is interested in projects, but being just
6 she still needs a lot of one on one help from me. She has quite the imagination, and thoroughly
thinks through what she wants her projects to be like when she is finished with
them.

I love that dedicated time that we take for school, but at
the same time it makes getting “everything else” done pretty impossible – at least
for me.

We have always focused on play, but now there is a crossover
between play and projects.

Currently Emma is studying turtles. She loves all things turtles. We have books from the library. We have watched the Sci Girls Turtle episode
at least 50 times, she is building a basking platform outside (there are nails
and a hammer involved…), and she has a project board where she is putting her
drawings and little facts. It is fun, we
are enjoying it. But, she needs my help
with it constantly.

She isn’t allowed to go on the computer by herself, so every
time she needs help looking up a specific turtle fact or picture, I am there. She obviously isn’t allowed to use a hammer
and nails by herself. She needs help
spelling her words. All of this I
love doing, but when I turn around it is 5 o’clock and I haven’t started
dinner, and Matt is walking in the door from work.

Balance.

The school charts I made last week have
been working wonders with getting all of our school accomplished. Both kids want to check all their boxes as
quickly as possible. This has helped to not drag out school all day.

I like to let the kids do as much school as they want, while
still completing the portions that I have planned to cover throughout the week. What happens is I have very excited kids and they want to keep doing school that needs my oversight!

I’m not sure how to have complete balance with homeschooling
and homemaking and every other ball I have in the air, but I am working towards
it.

I am looking forward to going through some of these
homeschooling books from the Ultimate Homemaking Bundle that is on sale right
now – especially the Year Round Homeschooling Planner.