The Beginning…

This week started pretty intensely.   Monday night, after a crazy day, I realized that I was pretty far behind in the grading and checking of the high schooler’s papers for history and science.  Over the last month, the grading for the kids has been slipping further and further behind.  I was still getting their math graded pretty much daily, but some of the other stuff was slipping.  So I gave myself and the kids a couple of “in-service” days.  More or less catch up days.

The Analysis…

We really, really needed this break in routine.  After our first “in-service” day, I felt more relaxed and caught up than I had in a long time.  Everyone needs a day or two like this occasionally, with time to re-center yourself.

Some Specifics…

The younger kids caught up in a few subjects that they were falling behind in.  They mostly worked on their Spanish schoolwork and did some extra reading in their chapter books.  I allowed a couple of games of chess.  Mostly, it was a lot of reading and catching up that we all needed.  I was able to have the high-schooler sit beside me and go over all of the stuff he had questions on and grade through a bunch of papers so we are now mostly caught up and ready to start back up.

We also a couple of our vacation days mid-week to be with a couple groups of friends we hadn’t seen in a while.  In our area, the attendance requirement is for a certain number of hours per school year.  This varies with grade level, but the district doesn’t care when you get the hours (summer, weekends, evenings, or regular school days) as long as you complete the required number of hours.

The kids felt this was pretty rough when we were having school while the local public schools went on spring break this year, but they enjoy days like we had this week when they are off and the public schools are in session.  It all balances out.  I love the flexibility it gives us when we have a week like this week.  Some days we do regular, full school days, some days we do a catch up day, and some days we take off just because we want to spend a beautiful, spring day with friends.

Looking forward…

The coming weeks look like they will be fairly routine.  We may be taking a couple more days of spring break coming up as I am going to be going on a trip and dad will be here supervising the schooling.  As he will be working part of the time, I am not sure how much will get done.  I plan to evaluate what they were able to accomplish and count the hours for the things they do get done, but I am aware that a couple of days off is probably going to be the reality of that time.  Again, the beauty of flexibility.  I like being able to take our spring break a day here and a day there as needed, rather than as an entire week at a time.

Hope that you had a great week and that you thoroughly enjoy your weekend!