It seems like our lives can get so hectic so quickly without us realizing it is even happening. I know that I seem to get one thing running smoothly but then ten other things seem to just fall off the track and then everything turns to CHAOS.
For me, the very first thing I need to do before starting this process is to find a little time for me & God… I often find that life feels overwhelming when I haven’t been able to have any quiet time for myself. I have tried getting up earlier but that just isn’t working out right now, I often would take a few minutes after lunch when the baby was down for a nap but our school routines have been out of whack since adding a new kiddo, when the time bedtime rolls around I am worn out. I do find little bits of time here and there to have little chats with God but I just haven’t been able to have my devotional time and I think that may be part of the reason that I am feeling so overwhelmed.
When something is frustrating me I often go to Him in prayer and ask Him to help me and show me ways that I can change or that we can change as a family. I ask Him to give me wisdom and guidance about the changes and things we need to work on so that they will benefit everyone.
Where do we start when it seems like everything is the problem?
We use this process in our home for a lot of different problems, part of it we even use for teaching the kids to make good choices. I’ll give a couple of examples of how we have used this system in the past.
1. STOP and identify the problem.
This might be the most difficult part of the whole process because sometimes it can be difficult to actually narrow down what the problem actually is when you are feeling overwhelmed. Many times there are multiple problems and sometimes the problems are not actually what we think they are. If you do find yourself with a multitude of problems then just try to focus on the biggest one first and work on ONE AT A TIME or you may find yourself even more overwhelmed and frustrated.
Maybe your mornings are very hectic and it just feels like you can’t get anywhere on time. What’s the problem?
Do you ever feel like you are running a day late and a dollar short? I know this past year or two have been like that for me. Our lives were completely turned upside down for a bit and it has taken me quite a while to figure out which way was up. I have found a lot of comfort in going back to some of our old routines and they are helping us to get better organized.
It’s almost a new year so I am trying my best to get our home running even smoother which will help alleviate a lot of the stress that we have around here.
One of my best organizational tools over the past several years has been our Cozi Calendar. I also like to keep a large calendar handy for everyone to access so there is less confusion about what is happening and who needs to be where and when they need to be there. I haven’t tried out some of the newer scheduling systems because the one I currently use seems to work pretty well for us and I don’t really want to try to implement a lot of new changes while we are still trying to find our way back to ‘NORMAL‘.
We do pretty well about keeping our doctor appointments and such straight but sometimes it’s the other things that get overlooked… I actually almost forgot one of the kid’s birthdays last month!Thankfully I had already bought the supplies I needed so I was able to pull it all together fairly quickly.
I know most families are just now finishing up their 2021-2022 school year and looking forward to a few months off but we aren’t like most families. We’ve decided to adopt more of a year-round school schedule which allows us more flexibility to take time off whenever we need a break or have something important or unexpected come up… which has happened a lot lately!
We have it planned so that we can take a one-week break every three weeks or so with a two-week break around Christmas and at the end of our school year. We can adjust this as needed, for example, we could complete six weeks of school and take a two-week break if needed. Or we could have two weeks of school with a break and then have four weeks… we have a little bit of flexibility for whatever we need to do without feeling ‘rushed’ to get finished.
We finished our 2021-2022 school year back in March and I was tempted to take a few months off and not start back until August/September but I know from past experiences that this doesn’t go well and that it takes FOREVER to get a couple of the kids back into the school routine. You can read more about last year’s curriculum and routines HERE. Last year was pretty crazy but we adapted and we survived!
Last year I switched to some Living Education Books from Master Books for our Language Arts and Math and we absolutely loved them so we went with them again for this year. We used some materials that we already had on hand and I ordered a few new things to go along with our studies. So far, everything has been working out well and many of the studies have been overlapping/going right along with each other which has been really nice as it helps to reinforce what we are learning and gives a little bit of review as well.
Well, to say that 2020 was a challenging year would be an understatement. It was a year full of surprises (both good and bad), unbelievable stresses, and so much more than I could have ever imagined.
On top of everything we had just gotten married (we celebrated our 1 year anniversary on December 25th!!) and found out that we were expecting. That in itself can be quite stressful but we were also dealing with our new house issues (which seem to be never-ending) and it felt like things kept hitting us one right after another.
In January of 2020, we learned that our pregnancy was extremely high risk and the odds of making it to term and having our baby survive birth were very grim. I also began experiencing some pregnancy-related issues with my thyroid and blood pressure which I’d never had issues with before.
I seriously felt like I was losing my mind and felt completely helpless about everything. I was doing my best to ‘hold it together’ and kept myself busy working on our new house so we could get moved in.
Then the COVID pandemic took over and so many restrictions were put into place. We moved into our home during the beginning of it and all the hopes we had of celebrating our accomplishments with friends and family were dashed.
We start every morning off with our prayers and the Pledge of Allegiance. Below is a picture of the prayers that we say and a video of the Pledge of Allegiance.
Not the prettiest example but that’s what we’ve been using for the past few years.
Don’t have a flag? Grab one HEREand print it out to put up somewhere… you could even let the kids make a flag to proudly display. Amazon also has some little ones like this one HERE and HERE.
After this we have our calendar time also where we go over such things as the Days of the Week, the months, and some basic math.
This one came from Lakeshore Learning.
The younger kids will also be watching some of these videos while I work with the older ones:
And we will be trying out some relaxing background music with Google.
We also like to use this song during our ‘Morning Time’ to help the kids learn the 50 States.
Tip: If you want to go to a certain week/chapter or topic simply push the ‘ctrl’ and the ‘F’ button down together and a small bar will pop up. Type in the week number or chapter number you want and it will take you to it.
On weeks where there are several activities listed just choose a couple that interest you the most to work on.
**BE SURE TO SAVE A FEW SAMPLES OF YOUR WORK FOR YOUR PORTFOLIO! TAKE PICTURES OF BIG PROJECTS!
**This post does contain affiliate links to products and/or services that we use. We may earn a teensy weensy small commission (at NO EXTRA cost to you) if a purchase is made through these links. These links help to support our family, our blog, and our homeschooling mission.
