A week off

We are loosley following the "Sabbath Schooling" this year, and I think that if I followed it more closely, I'd love it.

Basically, its school 6 weeks, rest a week, as modeled by God's Creation of work 6, rest 1.  Taking the time to chill out and not think for a while, resetting our brains, feels good.  However, we've been schooling for 10 weeks, and yep, we could've used this break a month ago!!  I will change this when I'm planning next year!

We had some fun together, but I know a planning space when I see one!  I used this week to prepare for the next 6.  My Type-A-self can't help it.  Its a flaw, I know, but I'm a planner.

I cleaned out spaces in our home, making donations around town between friends and organizations.  I deep cleaned those areas that haven't been super-scrubbed since June (you know, on top of the upper cabinets in the kitchen, YUCK!). 

I caught up on work that I was behind on.

I planned dinners for the next month and a half, including loose grocery lists, so those needed ingredients will all be here, and I can just add to them on a weekly basis.  This will be extremely helpful during this busy season of Tae-Kwon-Do belt-test prep and Baseball practices and games.

And I planned some school! 

Ten weeks in, and I had zero papers pulled for the boys' portfolios and zero pictures printed as I would have liked.  So first up, start putting those babies together.  I am cropping with an online digital scrapbook company, Heritage Makers, and I couldn't be happier with it!  I threw together some field trip pages first.  Then, I went through all of those pictures that I take of manipulative-based school stuff.  Spunk's spider tangram, or the like, can't exactly be inserted into a notebook.  Science experiments and any other hands-on object lessons are documented by pictures in our home school.

Then, I looked at what we'd like to cover during the next 6-week block, and I planned away!  Actually, I had already written this out during the summer, before we started school, but we are ahead or behind the original plan, (depending on subject and child), so this needed tweaking.  Lesson-learned, only plan the six weeks at a time.

When this block is up, it'll be the week of Thanksgiving.  We will take off from our traditional curricula from that point to News Years.  We'll still school, but it'll be fun-filled lapbooks and holiday-themed stuff.  We're also looking to try out Life of Fred during our "off" time, and of course, lots of reading!

What kind of schedule do you follow during the year?  What have you found the benefits vs. drawbacks to be?  I'm always looking to improve upon our own.