I get this point in the year and start analyzing all the things that I wish we did differently this past school year. The bad habits and lazy tendencies and mental/spiritual clutter that we've accumulated from just trying to grind away at our 180 are discouraging. I wonder if we have actually accomplished anything worthwhile. Part of me wants to make life a delightful journey of learning. The other part of me is tired of the arguing and complaining and interruptions, and just wants to be done so I can send them outside.
Things I have learned: The term arrangement of this year withstood its trial run. So did the practice of daily routine and independent checklists. Open Court Rise Readers have excellent stories that helped the boys grow in their ability to read aloud fluently and with expression. Our white board calendar and checklist was very helpful. The boys filled a lot of their "extra time" with making various creations, from Legos, to forts in the woods, to a robot out of boxes.
On the less successful side, we cut chores from our morning routine, but never added them anywhere else. Our instrument practices became filling the time with messing about rather than practicing. Science did not go as planned at all, and we got enough to say we did science, but I need to improve there. We started really late every day, which made school go late into the afternoon. I also overcompensated from having a curriculum that covered lots of things lightly, to having more intense curricula that took longer, so our school day went from 3-4 hours last year to 4-6 hours this year, but I'm not sure we actually learned more and we definitely didn't enjoy it as well.
Usually by this time of year, I have a pretty good grasp on what curriculum we are going to do next year. This year, not so much. Tomorrow will be our last official day. However, we have a science fair to prepare for in June, so we will be doing a bit more school stuff. Hopefully it will be more of the delightful journey of learning.
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