The Best of Intentions

One thing I've learned during our short time of homeschooling is that flexibility is important. As is determination, the ability to set goals and a certain amount of organizational skill. Flexibility, however, is key to homeschooling if one wants to make it through a whole school year with sanity intact and hair still attached to head. Of course, writing these words does not make me proficient in any of the above mentioned traits. Our life is a constant work in progress; some days flow along like a lazy river, while others tumble and splash like rapids in a canyon. Today was one of those Mississippi river mud days; I had big dreams, but my feet were moving slowly, and it seemed like fate was not hip to the idea of me accomplishing much with my little one. We flowed for brief moments, and I'm happy that we did some work, but it was tough going. My little one hemmed and hawed about sitting at the table. My husband didn't have any work to do today and was home on the couch with the television-a distraction to my daughter and I both- beaming forth program after program into our living room, the volume too loud to be ignored. There was an interesting show on the History Channel about early humans, and I did learn something from it, so I suppose there was some value to watching it. My daughter, though, wasn't really interested and so the educational value of the program was lost on her five year old mind. At some point, after we'd managed to work through a few pages in the Kindergarten Basics book (I'd opted to teach from a low frustration workbook today, thankfully), the Hub suggested that we let Little One watch a movie. Glancing outside and noticing that that thunder which had been threatening for the past few minutes had finally given way to a garden quenching downpour, I relented. I'm happy with what we accomplished, even if it occurred with a bit of struggle and in a haphazard sort of way.

Now, I'm pondering the value of homeschool organizers, flipping through web page after web page, searching for that perfect planner which will organize our lives and turn me into the Martha Stewart of the homeschooling community. I know that this won't happen. I know that part of homeschooling is accepting that life is usually more like organized chaos than perfectly ordered bliss. But I can dream.