My plans

Ok so in all honesty homeschooling is not going as well as I used to imagine it would, my 8 yo dd is not reading yet (though I don't see this in itself as a problem as I do believe in better late than early), I seem to spend my days trying to force them to do some work while finding activities to keep toddlers entertained at the same time - I think I've come to realise that my main problem is planning - or lack of it. It's not that I don't want to plan it's just I tried it all when they were very young and it didn't work so I decided to leave it until they were older - suddenly they are older and I'm not in the kind of routine I was hoping for.
Having a self employed hubby doesn't help much as his days are never the same, sometimes he is out early in the morning other days he is in all day or out at about 10am, but it always throws me. I think we actually do best when he is out early and not back until teatime - we seem to be able to get on better then!
I also have friends and family who live nearby who sometimes call in to see us, which I love but again is another distraction that doesn't help keep our days into routine.

Also I quite like the idea of "unschooling" or at least following the childrens interests and letting learning be child led but the problem I have is that if I did let them choose they would spend all day either on ds, watching tele, playing in garden - not actually learning much and when I do see them interested in something and try to encourage learning from it - it seems to all go wrong with my involvement lol. So I decided after prayerful consideration what I need is to get them to see how much fun learning is! As well as make sure we get maths and reading done.

We have a great maths program but really they should have completed the book by now and be on the next level so I need to be firmer in making sure they do some every day, we also have explode the code for phonics and my new motivation technique is a trip to McDonalds once the book is completed (desperate times call for desperate measures lol) in fact I might make it a special trip for the child who has completed book to go on their own with Daddy, therefore encouraging that relationship and they do love to spend time with him.

I've also recently found my KONOS curriculum which I bought second hand a few years ago before the children were really ready, but looking at it now I think it could work so I am putting aside my history and science curriculums which I've recently bought (as it's a struggle to get them to do it anyway) and concentrating on Konos for the next few months to hopefully bring back that joy and love for learning. Plus it does bible and character too and now I understand how to use curriculum as a tool - e.g don't do all of it, supplement with what I feel more appropriate etc.

So, now I have plans and tools - and I've blogged about it which will help keep me accountable ;-) so I will let you know how it goes!