Good, Bad and the Ugly! Or is it vice versa?

So working 20 odd hours a week can really change how you manage your life.  D'oh!  Of course it does!

The Ugly bit has been that our days do not start early.  My boys often don't get themselves breakfast and by the time I get up after a late night at work they are often entrenched in TV and PCs.  That certainly loads on the guilt.

The Bad is that I am not getting all the school done each day that I would like to get done.  We are not getting to the flesh of an education, only making bare bones a lot of the time, so school feels more like all work and no fun.

The Good is that I have learned to focus more quickly in the morning and even if I haven't had time to make a lovely written/typed out plan for the week I can still pick up each book we use daily and do something from it.  We have been doing rote memorising of times tables on the lounge, and spelling, grammar and writing are happening about 3-4 days a week.  The boys also work independently on their maths.  That is a lot more consistent than I have been in the past where I could miss weeks without realising it.  It also certainly helps when I like what we are using so there is no angst in getting out the books to do something, no matter how small.

It is school holidays and I hadn't intended to take a break but we are slowing down a little.  The boys have finally decided to talk to the kids down the street that are about their age.  I want them to go out and play.  I need to get my head wrapped around more realistic expectations of working and homeschooling and trim those huge plans I had at the beginning of the year back so they are workable.  I also need to finish off my Cert 3 course.

So, it is time to take a breather, fine tune what can be realistically done over the next 3 months and get on with some studies of my own.  Actually I am feeling pretty good about a time out.  Let's hope I use it effectively.

Best wishes
Jen

Poetry Workshops Part 1

So... do you hate poetry like I do?  lol  I am really more a lay it out in logical order type of person and my drawing skills are horrible.

Anyway, I got chatting to a friend a few weeks ago and she encouraged me to do a poetry workshop for our kids together.

Over 3 or 4 days we looked at different ways words are used in poetry.  It was quite fun, especially the Dada method.  My friend had a bag of magnetic words which were piled onto a tray and we chose one at random each in turn.  Amazing how interesting the poems turned out.  Even though these poems are supposed to be devoid of meaning we would still look for it. 

It has been some time since we did this so I can't quite remember which was whose (I will correct this later when my friend reminds me. :-) ) but here are some pictures of our poetry.

I quite liked the last one and the second one. 

More to come, need to take photos of the boys' work.

Best wishes
Jen