Notes From My Mom's Night Out Talk

Back in April, I spoke at our local homeschool group's Mom's Night Out.  If you remember, I asked you, my dear blog readers, if you had any questions that you would like answered if you could attend.

Here are the questions that you asked, and here are my answers.

1- When planning the day, do you have your children complete a lesson or do you set a time limit. If you set a time and they don't finish, what do you do?

We do a lesson a day. I do not set a time limit.

2- How do you handle interruptions from the other children when you are working with another child?

I train the children not to interrupt. I alternate working with each child, and I have a plan for the child I am not working with. I will give consequences to a child who interrupts for no good reason or after being warned.

3- How do you schedule time with your children individually or with your husband?

I don't have deliberate time planned with each child or with my husband. It just happens naturally.

4- What to do with little ones while homeschooling the older ones?

• Towel time (I gave them a handout with a list of preschool activities.)
• Pass the baby time (Older children take turns playing with the baby or toddler--they are given specific places to play and things to do during this 30 minutes.)
• Occupying older kids while schooling younger ones (I also discussed this.)

5- Do you stick with the public-school schedule?

No. I choose our days off based on husband's schedule.

For the first time ever I chose our fall break and spring break based on my college-aged daughter's breaks.

6- How do you fit in field trips, co-ops, doctor appointments, etc?

I just do field trips once in a while if they appeal to me.

I try to schedule dr. appts. on my husband's day off.

7- Do you set goals for each child, for the school year, or for curriculum?

Not really. My goal is to just complete each grade/level of the curriculum and then move to the next level. No pressure.

8- How do you decide what curriculum to use and how do you schedule it over the year?

I have been doing the same thing basically for 13 years. KONOS for 7-8 years and then Sonlight the rest of the time, but I have used the same math, grammar, Bible, writing, and science the entire time. 

I schedule the curriculum how it is suggested to do so, paying attention to our family's vacations, my husband's days off, and various holidays. 

9- What do you do if you don't finish a curriculum on time? 

Either 2 things:

• Just quit and call it a year. Start on next level the next August.
• Just stop at the end of May and pick up where we left off in August.

I do make sure my high school-aged children finish each course in the alloted time frame.

I plan to share the rest of my notes from that night in a series of blog posts this summer.  If you have any more homeschool or homemaking related questions, please leave a comment.  I will try to answer them if I can, even if the answer is "I don't know".