Finding a rhythm

These past few weeks we have working on getting some sort of morning routine. It seems like it takes us forever to get going in the morning. The kids wake up and start playing right away, I get ready myself ready for the day, make breakfast, get Rowan dressed, brush the girls hair, clean up from breakfast, then try to have a little quiet time. At this point it is usually 9:00 or 9:30 and the kids are engaged in whatever game they have going on and it's tempting just to let them play and go work on whatever else needs attention around the house. But my desire is to start school about 9:30, so I am trying to figure out how to get the kids to a point where they know what's expected of them in the morning and have some school work they can start on their own. I have read a lot and have some good ideas, now it's time to start implementing them. It seems that starting any new routine initially takes some planning and some work, but eventually it will save time and save battles.

The first thing for me to change, is to start getting up before the kids so that I am ready for the day and have some quiet time before they all get up, this includes going to bed a little earlier. My hope is to avoid that instant frustrated feeling in the morning because I can't seem to get it all done.

The way our schedule has worked out this year, we will be doing school over the summer, just to get it all done and to keep up on the consistency.

This year so far has been an incredible learning journey for me. I didn't realize quite how much refining and learning I was getting into, it has been hard at times and great at times. It has been encouraging for me to recently see some of the fruit in my life that is a result of this home school journey we are on.

The highlight of my week was teaching CJ about 'carrying the ten, in math. It made me smile at how much fun I had with teaching this and watching him grasp it. Those are the teaching times I love, they seem few and far between, but they are there and it makes me happy:)