What do you do when you find yourself trudging through the school day...

[Michelle in AL]

I'm at that point in the year when it feels like you've been working hard for a long time and it feels like your brain could explode at any moment. It's only actually been 2 months. Yikes! I think it's due to the very vigorous load of high school and reading the ancients, unabridged for the first time. I don't think my kids feel as tired as I do, but they might. When I look ahead at what's planned, I go "eek."

 

What do you do when you or your kids feel this way? Keep plugging on? Or some fun alternative? I'm pretty type A, so I'm very resistant to changing my plans.

[FloridaLisa]

What do you do when you or your kids feel this way? Keep plugging on? Or some fun alternative?

 

If you review the schedule and workload and determine that it's fine, just hard then:

 

Go out for breakfast.

Go out for lunch.

Go out for coffee mid-morning. (do you siee a pattern?)

Declare a mid-morning break and go for a walk.

Play some really great background music (classical or christian non-vocal)

Add fresh flowers in the study area.

Study at the library.

Study at the bookstore.

Study at Chick-Fil-A (my littles like this one).

Open the doors/windows for fresh breeze.

Light a candle.

 

As you can see from the above, sometimes a change of scenery helps. Sometimes a change in the workspace helps. Adding in fun food always helps.

 

I ususally hit this around February when I'm really tired of cold days and grading papers.

 

HTH,

Lisa

[Carol in Cal.]

(Didn't Jesse Wise always say that October and February were 'hit the wall' months?)

 

And then I keep on going.

[Lisa L. in MI]

This is interesting timing...I had made myself a strong cup of coffee just before reading this because I was trudging through the day! :) A little caffeine break usually is enough to pick me up a bit when I feel this way.

 

Lisa

[Beth in SW WA]

I'm pretty type A, so I'm very resistant to changing my plans.

 

Type A's unite! :)

 

No advice, really, because I'm in the same boat. I pray A LOT! I'm selfish about "my" time (exercise, reading in a corner, etc). I'm enforcing our benchmarks as to avoid Saturday catch-up. (What a way to ruin a relaxing weekend!)

 

Off to light my Island Mango candle and brew a fresh pot a' joe (nod to Lisa) :)

 

Onward & Upward...

[Michelle in AL]

I think my problem is I try to plow through it all. I had my WTM book out today, reading over the book list. I reread again, how we're supposed to do this. One thing we haven't done is taken time out to study the context of the book and the period it comes from. This gives you a couple days off of heavy reading, and switches to more research type activities.

 

We've been studying history everyday as we go in Spielvogel's Human Odyssey. I think it might help stop and do it as recommended.

 

I'm an expert at taking time for myself, but I'm sort of in a creative rut, which is my outlet, so that frustrates things.

[Nan in Mass]

We read a Shakespeare play in parts as a break. That way, our break is productive. Or we do science experiments for science. In math and Latin, we just keep plodding, but if I can lighten the other things for a bit, it seems to help. Sometimes, if it is just me, I'll assign a longer writing project (which I don't have to do). Or if my sons are feeling tired, too, we'll do an art project instead of a writing project at the end of a work. The times I've really been dragging, my husband noticed and used frequent flier miles to take me on a business trip with him. I made a list of what the children needed to get done and gave them to my mother for a few days. Obviously this isn't always an option, but sometimes I feel like I sound pretty pollyannaish on this board and wanted to explain that even happily as we homeschool most of the time, a break is nice every once in a while.

-Nan