Homeschooling is a continual learning process. And by that, I mean a learning process not just for the kids, but for the parents. I feel as though I'm continually checking--mentally--to see if things are working for us. There is always one thing that needs tweaking. Usually, more than one thing needs adjustment. Maybe we're not reading enough, maybe there's not enough math. Perhaps we're having trouble with time management. The list goes on. Of course, we are usually doing "enough", but we could do what we're doing better.
This week, in the interest of improvement, I'm tweaking our reading sources. We've used quite a few online texts of living books this year to save money. I've discovered that this is convenient, but I don't like reading from the computer. Plus it tempts me to do things on the computer that I need or want to do when the kids aren't needing me for the moment. This never works. Distracted Mom equals distracted kids. So, what to do? Library? Well, that won't really work for some books. We use them over such a large amount of time, it's not practical. Instead, I looked into LibriVox a little more deeply. I discovered many of our Ambleside Online books read aloud there! Today I worked on downloading these books to the iPod, and printing out chapter lists so that we can find what we need quickly. My next step with this is to create CD's of the kids' favorites, so they can have them in their rooms or in the car for trips. They're listening to a selection from The Blue Fairy Book right now upstairs. And with the folder of chapter selections living right next to the stereo, they can choose a story to hear whenever they feel like it.
I've been feeling like we've drifted away from our Charlotte Mason-style learning a little more than I want, lately. I'm hoping this adjustment will help us get back on track. So far I feel good about it!
Of course, in the next few weeks, there will be something else that needs tweaking. But that's the way it is with homeschooling!
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