My summer organizing fever has arrived!  The homeschool room is torn apart:  out with the old to make room for the new.  Along with clearing my book shelves, craft closet, and curriculum baskets, I’m in the mood for making this little family blog more streamlined and clean.  I love the premium theme I use for my other website: www.catholicap.com, but it’s a little clunky to use.  I am hoping to make navigation easier for readers and more flexible for posting high quality content.

Homeschooling parents everywhere are in Consideration and Organization Mode this month.  Not only am I shuffling stuff and junk, but I’m pondering what I’ll do differently this upcoming year.  As I’ve considered the direction of our homeschooling and what is working/not working for each of the children, I know that simplifying is the way to go this year.  I loved our family learning the past few years: in specific subjects like history, religion, and literature, I was able to choose books to read aloud to all my children, then I would assign age-appropriate work to each child to supplement their learning and interests.  This year Aidan begins high school, so I’m not sure how realistic it will be to include him in a lot of my family learning plans.  On the other hand, Lydia at age three is becoming increasingly eager to join us in discussions and table learning.  She’s always been “along for the ride” but in the last six months she’s been very keen to have her own “work.”

As I look ahead to my plans for this year I’m considering how to fold Lydia into our family learning.  More to come!  I will say up front that I think the gold standard for preschoolers is just working alongside Mom & Dad, participating to the extent they can (and we can handle!).   However, I found this summer that having some organized learning activities just for Lydia keeps me tuned into where she’s at and likes to do.  I’ve started a summer preschool “play and learn” group for her, and I’m having such a blast planning the meetings.  I’ve had tons of wonderful, fun resources on my bookshelves for years and I can’t believe I never used some of the ideas!  I started the group, quite frankly, mostly for me because I so want to engage Lydia’s love of singing and creating, but I tend to let it slip without a firm plan.  We are on our fourth week of her preschool group:  We learn fingerplays, songs, listen to stories and do projects.  My theme for the six-week group is “All About Me.”  I will post my learning plans and resource list in the future when I work out the kinks.