Homeschooling as a working
single mom definitely has its challenges – obviously. So, I’ve tried to establish a basic rhythm to
help keep things moving along. On the
most basic level, it looks like this: Wake up around 6 – 6:30 am and cook lunch
and dinner for the day. While the food is cooking, I sit down to my coffee
and an easy breakfast. After
lunch/dinner is done, I pack up my lunch box for work. Then, I drop off Seneca and leave for work
at 8:00 am. I return from work between 5:30 and 6:00. Then it’s dinner at around 6:30/7:00 followed
by homeschool lessons, cleaning, showers, and bedtime.
On some days, Seneca brings laundry to my mom’s house while I’m at work.
Seneca is responsible for doing the laundry herself and loading the basket in
and out of the car. I leave work at 5:00
and when I first get home, I take some time to sit down and decompress. After
my relaxation, I usually heat up the lunch leftovers and my daughter and I have
dinner together. My best laid plans of
making a hot lunch and dinner first thing in the morning don’t always work out and then it’s make
yourself a sandwich day. On some days,
we are headed out the door and grabbing pizza from Little Caesar’s.
After dinner, it’s time for
formal lessons. Right now, we are
working on math, literature, writing, composer study (The Beatles) and we’re
looking at contemporary artists for artist study. Seneca reviewed some works by Jordan Sokol. I
think I’ll present Ai Wei Wei to her next week.
We’re going to rotate out literature and rotate in history and
science. I do need to start adding in
some more art and hopefully some handicrafts. It’s still early in the year
though. One of the great things about
homeschooling, is that if things are slow to get off the ground, you can always
add them in later or maybe decide to work on some things like drawing once a
week instead of daily.
Formal lessons can be such a
controversial topic in the homeschool community. It is true that homeschooling
does not have to look like school at home.
However, almost all of the homeschool activities and social gatherings happen
when I’m at work. Unless something is
open late for an event, most museums and learning centers close in the
evenings. The nature preserves close at
sunset. Granted, sunset is later right
now, but we have also been having late afternoon storms. And, let me be honest here, after a long day
at work dealing all day long with deadlines and marketing, I am too exhausted
to go on a hike or tour a museum. I will
try to make a consistent effort to get us to Kirtan on Tuesday nights. My point is, my opportunity to work with my
daughter to do learning activities is limited, so I have to make the best of that
time and the most efficient method is to sit with her at a desk and go through
lessons and check workbook work. She is
fine with this. If I sense that she is struggling on working, we do stop and
let things go for an evening.
After
school work, it’s time for house cleaning and showers. As you can see, so much
is missing. And, as a single mother, I
am still obligated to provide everything that a two parent home can provide. People
say that homeschooling doesn’t have to take up that much time and that’s true,
but it takes up almost all of the time we have together. I can’t say, “Let’s homeschool for a couple of
hours and then go do X,Y,Z,” because when the couple of hours are over, we need
to clean up and prepare for the next day.
And there are so many evenings that
I am so exhausted, that dishes and other stuff gets put off until the next
morning. Obviously, I am not Supermom. I
wish I were, but I’m not. If my family did not live close by, then continuing to homeschool would probably not be an option.
