Observations of our New Homeschooling Start -- this is working!

We switched curriculum, we made it through the first year of new baby and new house, some physical struggles, and things were still not really well set. I must admit, I was very nervous about how all this might work! Going through the guided "Plan To Succeed" e-course from Waldorf Essentials made a world of difference! Help in how and what to plan, what to take into consideration, and a support group to answer any & all questions, as well as give examples of how others were doing theirs, made it possible for me to do mine. It took me about thirty two hours of planning, writing it down, coordinating & cross-referencing to make my binder of plans through February for fourth grade, second grade, and a combined kindergarten-preschool. It was hard; it was worth it.


Here are my observations from our first weeks of doing this:

-- having plans written out thru February is SO RELIEVING; I never thought I would feel so stress-free
-- the whole getting-up-before-your-kids thing makes a world of difference in my day; I'm not doing anything dramatically productive, but just settling into myself a bit before it's "go time"
-- my local library takes a long time to get books in; I need to request them sooner
-- my kids get the hang of things quickly; I know it won't be that way for everything, but so far this takes less hours than I thought it would
-- with several little kids, I need to split my attentions; when the bigster is putting her work into her main lesson book, I can use that time to check in & strengthen the direction/guidance of what they are up to
-- everything here isn't Waldorf charming & fabulous, and I'm okay with that; my main drive with Waldorf education is what-is-taught-when-and-why, and I realize that if I have to cut corners on the 'how' part to ensure sanity & that family needs get met I'm okay with letting that go a little (ie: so we didn't get to skip counting this morning -- no prob, it'll somehow get worked into playing this afternoon in a less 'formally' school-guided way)
-- our environment isn't calm and beautifully organized and focused -- there are seven of us living in 1000sqft; I thought it might be a problem that our table where we do lessons is in the busy kitchen or that the siblings are only 15ft away making noise, but they've done just fine (duh: since they've grown up in this kind of 'chaos' their whole lives -- they're used to it)

little brother didn't want to be left out of form drawing

-- I think I can do this! I think I can do this without making the household suffer in conforming to school, and this school rhythm is going to help set-up the rhythm of the household better
-- my kids LOVE being responsible for things that are linked to something else (ie: the table needs to be cleaned before we can start school; laundry before snack, and so on); I can give them more chores and responsibility thru they day and spread the work load around without it being a fight
-- the short while that my kids have some direct mommy-attention feeds them through the whole rest of the day, and they seem to be less clingy and needy while I get on with my work in the second half of the day
-- I am enjoying them more without the ever present stress of "What to do next?!" and "what fires need to be put out now?!" and "what am I behind on?!" I can just chill a little more and observe what neat people they are; the constant film of stress and sludging through the muck of uncertainty really took up an inordinate amount of my emotional and psychological energy