Balancing Schoolwork and Socialization

We often have activities planned with a few local homeschool groups and it's not always easy to balance our schoolwork with all the other fun activities being offered.

We have whole weeks where I feel like we're on the road going from one place to another.  It's easy to say yes to fun meet ups and trips yet I don't like always putting our work off for another day.  We try so hard to balance schoolwork with social opportunities but I do think it's important to keep trying to find that balance.  That way my kids can have more experiences, meet more people, and make new friends.



   In trying to balance everything out we've come up with a few strategies that seem to work well:

  1. Cut back on the day's schoolwork and only cover those subjects that MUST be done each day (for us that is math and reading)
  2. If it's a bit of ride to get where we are going we'll bring schoolwork along with us in the car
  3. Double up on the work the day before or the day after a meet- up
  4. Try to cover multiple subjects at once-- reading a history book (reading and history), completing a Draw Write Now page about animals (writing/ language arts and science), etc.
  5. Count the meet- up itself as school.  Depending on where we are meeting and what we are doing we often count the meet up itself as school.  If we're hiking that is physical activity, science and nature study, socialization, life skills, and possibly even map reading combined.  

Today we had a game day planned with our homeschool group so we decided to just cover math and reading; knowing we'd probably work on a few other subjects through the games we'd be playing.  

The boys each picked a game to bring-- Qwirkle, Scrambled State of America, and Dinosaur Train All Aboard  then we headed off to meet our local homeschool group for a fun day of board game playing.


Dinosaur Train All Aboard Game
As soon as we got there the boys all took off with their friends-- not to play but to chat, catch up and just enjoy being together.  It was quite some time before I saw any one of my boys play any kind of game.  They were happy and busy though and really that's all I hope for at these types of activities.


 I did see Ian play the Scrambled States of America game (geography) as well as Mastermind (math/logic).

 Alec played Jenga (math/ logic), Sorry! (math/ strategy) and Simon Says (listening skills).

I finally got Evan to play a little bit of the Dinosaur Train All Aboard (math) with  me but that was about it.  Learning to cooperate, negotiate, take turns and play by the rules are all important skills learned through game play too.

Playing Simon Says 




 
  

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Share Our Lives: 5 Items I Can't Live Without

Prime Purchases in February 2023

Let's Look At... Our Grocery haul