Inspiration- A Homeschooling Mom's Sanity Saver

Nothing feels worse than being uninspired when teaching your kids.  Well...stepping on that tack strip on the floor with bare feet last night came close...but it's a terrible feeling to know that my kids need me to be the responsible adult and provide a quality education and all I want to do is just sit on the couch and sigh because the thought of doing one more workbook page is enough to make me want to scream.

Thankfully I am friends with a passel of the most creative and innovative homeschooling moms around.

My friend Sherrie over at http://childresshousehold.blogspot.com/  (check out her blog!)  has inspired me with her ideas of Fun School.  She has assigned a 'focus topic' for each day of the week to allow for self-directed learning.

So, based on her ideas, I have come up with our self-directed schedule:

Mondays will be Math Fun Mondays.  We will study a famous mathematician, or play math board games.  We will do hands on math projects from my Family Math book. 

Tuesdays will be Tell Me About....Tuesdays.  They can pick any topic they want and prepare a short presentation.  They can make a poster or craft project, write a paper or poem....but they have to present their findings to the family Tuesday evening.  Great public speaking practice!

Wednesdays will be Where in the World Wednesdays.  Grab an atlas, find a country or state, read up on it (National Geographic Kids is an awesome safe website for this!) and make a craft or project related to what you learned.

Thursdays will be Techie Thursdays.  I will prepare  a folder in my 'Favorites' column on the computer of approved websites and game sites.  They can spend an allotted amount of time on the computer learning.

Fridays will be Fine Arts Fridays.  This will be the day we learn about an artist or composer and study music and art.

What about you?  Where do you find your inspiration?