When Chaos Breeds Wisdom...

Our homeschool year is done, thank goodness. Imagine walking through mud...that is how much of the year felt. Just couldn't seem to get a groove, and unlike any other homeschool mother out there with their well planned year and zero scheduling hiccups to contend with  I was just trying to finish the year the best I could.

So our last big PUSH to just finish it all, ended up being the breeding ground for some awesome homeschool wisdom. History was one subject my oldest just couldn't get whittled down,  which led to her doing two and three chapters in one setting, and the craziest thing happened...she started to learn! She began to see how each event was an effect of some previous occurrence. Having concentrated learning on one subject at a time created a perfect environment for her to not just learn facts but for it to soak in.  So next year we are going to try and break up her curriculum in order to allow for some bulk learning of each subject.
Now this wouldn't work for my son, as he like to have the variety of different subjects. I love how we have the freedom to tweak different aspects in order to accommodate each individual child, but even more I love that if it doesn't work then we can simply change it again!
What started as  a mad dash chaos to the finish line, ended with some great insight that will enrich our homeschool experience!

2015, and were off and running....

RECAP of 2014,
This school year has been a bit of on and off again love affair! We started school really strong...they had company ( that we LOVED having here) so of course we took a SCHEDULED break, which sound wonderful in the time management arena, however it is MUCH harder to get back in the saddle once you have a fun break, but we managed it and took off again....and was doing phenomenal, every test was taken, homework was getting graded, books where getting read,...(you get the point) and then Thanksgiving hit, and although we didn't do anything special or that took great planning, it was a bit of a hiccup in our awesome rhythm, but we hit it again for 2 weeks..which I'm sure it would have been as painful to watch as watching some one stumbling during a marathon...you think they'll pull out of it and make it but...they don't.
Christmas break was great, we did get just enough done prior to break to have a 2 week break so as to have a "guilt" free break. We got to visit some Christmas Markets, and you haven't seen Christmas till you have seen German Christmas, it is awesome there is the Christmas spirit everywhere! We set a steep to do list in order to be able to meet our goal and got it done ( however I wont mention it was because we worked all day the last three days of school till dinner). It was important for all of us ( the gears all voted) to have a clear and concise stopping point!
2015: ( Where we are)
We are back in school and we are still trying to forever "catch up" but it has given us a bit of breathing room to know we are schooling year round. Therefor we don't feel the intense pressure of cutting into summer. My plan is to try and combat the intense subjects ( MATH, Grammar) and get them out of the way so that even it we are schooling during the wonderful summer months, it is the stuff that we can make fun!
I think that one of our biggest obstacles is the lack of sunshine here in Germany, as well as the Darkness. Coming from South Carolina where even if it was winter and cold it was sunny, it is a big change. Waking up at what you think is 6:00am, and rolling over to be 8:00..we do alarms and have morning routines, but I think for now we are just accepting of how it works here, so that we can release some of the angst that comes with getting a "late" start on the day!
The bottom line is we are doing well, and this year has just been a big learning curve;)