Learning in Small Chunks

I feel like I'm learning a lot this year -  from being more organised, decluttering, learning to stay on top of the housework to home educating the children, and being a better wife! Not to say I have it all sussed now - it is very much a journey and the more I read about others the more I realise that actually no one has it completely sussed, they just find what works for them but there are times that we all get overwhelmed and struggle no matter how many children we have, or what our lifestyle is like.

I have always been very relaxed in our schooling, believing very much in the better late than early theory and that children learn more through play, we also made some mistakes early on which I believe has led to my older children being more reluctant to learn though my eldest (nearly 9) has started showing a real interest and desire to learn, we are slowly getting there with the reading and I'm managing to fit in the "extra" subjects these days - since I started planning. We haven't stuck to it rigidly, for example instead of carrying on learning about Australia in Geography we learnt a bit about Japan and earthquakes, as it was all over the news, and one day last week my son was ill so we didn't do school that day we did it the next (I have 2 days which I don't plan extra subjects allowing for library and free time)

The biggest thing I am learning with regards to home educating is that small is better than big - it's fine to only read a small bit of the book we are learning from but doing a small bit every week we will get through and it's better than doing none at all!

We've also progressed onto the next hooked on phonics with my son, I am going to teach my eldest the phonics rules as in Ruth Beechick's book The three R's and was going to do the same with my son but he wanted to do hooked on phonics so we started that yesterday.

I'm also reading Managers of their chores by the Maxwells and can't wait to start planning my master chore list and make chore packs for the children, I think it will help with the housework and character building - for them and me!