It’s been a busy couple weeks around here at the O’shea homeschool. We got our baby girl along with a couple other surprises like hypertension and medicinal side effects such as constant fatigue and low milk supply. Oh. And jaundice.
So how does one keep a homeschool going when you sleep for three hours at a time twice a day (not including the night hours) and you nurse a baby then pump every two hours? Simple. Remember when I told you that our inability to afford the curriculum I wanted was actually a blessing the Lord knew we would need? Well turns out, that’s all true. : ) The kids have carried on very well with their lessons thanks to their Lifepacs. Any questions the workbooks do not answer and mom is too asleep to answer, Nanny can easily find. Those instances are few and far between though.
Another big help in cruising through school when life is at warp speed is Netflix. I am loving Netflix. With streaming through the Wii, our choice of educational programming such as documentaries and classics are right at our fingertips 24/7. If you haven’t taken the time to get a free trial for the service, I highly recommend it. As a family without television service, we like having the option of watching what we want, when we want, and nothing else. Too often when we had television service the tv would just be on. No one watching and no one needing to watch really. It’d just be on. With Netflix, we have lots of choices but aren’t tempted to waste our tv time on junk. In the past two weeks we’ve watched lots of Liberty’s Kids as we studied the birth our nation and several Christmas classics as the holiday approaches. We saw Monster Quest: Jellyfish when we returned from our trip to Florida. All these resources we wouldn’t have had access to without Netflix.
And last but certainly never least, we rely on good old-fashioned read alouds. When mama’s tired, everyone’s running a fever and no writing work is anywhere in sight, the perfect homeschool remedy is a wonderful adventurous story. Historic read alouds tend to be a favorite around here. Currently we’re working our way through Johnny Tremain and everyday the kids beg me to read ‘just a little more’. When all else fails, just grab a good book and read.
Tomorrow, I’ll be sharing with you another great boredom buster when school time is on the verge of collapse. Courtesy of Crayola, we got a chance to play around with some fun art tools and you could win your own set. Be sure to stop by tomorrow and enter the giveaway.
-Sara O’