Be prepared!

If anyone else's brain works like mine (scary thought) you might possibly be singing along with Scar right now... Be prepaaaaaared... 

I have been meaning to write for a while, but just haven't.  My house is a disaster, school has been long days of hard work, outside commitments are daunting, and I just don't like to sit at my trashed desk and be creative.  Except for today.  Apparently.

Anyway, there is a big victory that I wanted to share with the world (the WORLD!!!)  You see, I'm going to let you in on a little secret....  Ready?  Last year when I started homeschooling.... I had no idea what I was doing!  There.  I said it.  I bought the curriculum that I wanted (win!) but didn't really look through it.  Not until right before our first day of school. 

I can tell you what I expected to see.  I expected to see the happy workbooks that I had ordered for each child to come already broken down into daily assignments.  I can tell you what I did see, the week before school started.... not that.  Just workbooks of information and questions and tests with absolutely ZERO suggested endpoints.  Zero.  When do I end for the first day?  Your guess is as good as mine.

Now you may be thinking, "Yeah, remember back in our education classes where we learned about creating lesson plans?"  Oh that's right.. I didn't have those.  I can tutor calculus... or explain limiting reagents... pipes and valves, anyone?  <sigh>  So I winged it. 

I had a general idea of what to do.  I mean, I had been a student for 17 years of my life and have watched a large sample size of teachers do their thing.  I knew I wanted to get through a year of curriculum in a year.  We had goals... no worries...

Needless to say, last year was really really really really stressful.  I had no idea what I was doing, or when, or for how long... I got to a point where I would go through and create a weekly lesson plan.  It took a while to get to that point, though.  This is where I can sense real teachers gasp.  And I'm like, I know, right? Ha.... Sunday nights were awful - planning, grading... ugh.  And I don't even get paid for this!  By the end of last year, I was a good couple weeks ahead in lesson plans.  We managed.  It wasn't pretty... but we managed.  Kids learned.  I learned.  We passed.

Back to the point that I had a victory.  Victory!!!!  This year, I am proud to announce, that I went through BEFORE THE SCHOOL YEAR BEGAN, and made my lesson plans for the WHOLE YEAR.  The.  Whole.  Year.    I know exactly how many lessons I have to teach in every subject for every grade.  I can't even express in words how freeing it is.  It's kinda like this:

My heart wants to beat like the wings of a bird that flies!!!

Now if only I could figure out how to make spending every waking moment with my children to feel like singing in the mountains... Baby steps.  I should give that one some time.  Like 10-15 years....Then we'll sing in the mountains... all of us together...  in harmony!