Saturday, January 27, 2007

It's Saturday!

It's Saturday the 27th, to be precise. Where has the time gone????? It's almost February!!

I started my musings last night on paper. I'll keep going with that today, in addition to some household work. I haven't really figured anything out yet. Just thought about different areas that I would like somehow available for activity. Because I can't have things set up with an art room/area, a woodworking room/area, a sewing room (actually, that I might be able to do!) and things like that, I may need to explore the idea of a rotational schedule. Present one type of thing some day and let it keep going until interest starts waning? Like, get a bunch of books about painting and painters from the library, bring out the paints (how? have bins maybe?) and let the fun begin? If this is an idea I follow through on, unfortunately, it'll have to be only afternoon work. Why? Part of it is because it's so engrained in the kids that afternoon is not bookwork time. Also, with the 15yo working on stuff at the table at the same time, and often with a laptop (or two, if mine's there), PLUS the snacks that go on and then lunch, it's just not going to work to have art or other messy stuff going on at the same time. And why do I say "unfortunately"? Because I would love to have the flow of activity over the course of the day rather than things compartmentalized, but I just don't see how that can happen.

The ideas in my head are starting to form together, but they're still not really connected. I have short visions of having time (days) with things like knitting/crocheting/sewing being a focus, and other times science experiments each day, other times maybe something like chess... The tough part will actually be to have myself commit to it. But I think I can. Since reading Bright Minds, Poor Grades, I've become more aware of my own underachieving tendencies: great plans, little follow through. The book has helped me examine a bit of my own attitudes and I've seen improvement in some little things in terms of following through, sticking to things I want even if it means having to do things I don't want to in order to have what I want (for example, I'd like a clean kitchen after lunch, but I don't exactly want to spend the time cleaning ;) ). If I can make sure I'm not trying to do too much at once, too many changes at once, it'll work.

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