Year In Review: Overview (2018 - 2019)

So, to pick up where I left off last year...

I started out my planning for the 2018-2019 school year intending to totally develop my own plans for the year.  However, about 2/3 of the way through my planning, I was able to get access to a private Mason curriculum and I ended up replacing a few things I had planned, as well as using some of their choices.  I was pleased with this curriculum, and I am looking forward to using it more fully this year.  In case you're wondering, this curriculum is supposed to be more widely available at some point, but I don't know when.  I think they are doing a great job with it though, and I hope that will be soon!

I feel like this past year has been a really solid year for us, even with the challenges.  I can see areas that need improvement, but they are largely little things.  Solid progress was made by all my kids, and I feel like our books, routines, and really everything overall went reasonably well.  I do want to discuss some of the challenges of the year, because I think that's what is most helpful to me.  I also review these posts as I plan future years, so I'm hoping this can also serve as a warning to my future self!

Challenges for the Year

Adding a New Student (or Two)

Justin, who turned 7 in mid-September, started Form 1B (aka Y1 or 1st Grade) in the fall.  Hannah, who turned 5 in November and is Justin's constant companion, was not interested in being left behind in anything.  I ended up feeling like I had 1.5 students in Form 1B, only one of which was actually required to do the work.  This for the most part went fairly smoothly, but carving out the time for two students to do reading practice was challenging.  Hannah really would have liked to have more time dedicated just to her, but it was very hard to do that consistently.

Shifting Naptime

Charlotte, who turned 1 at the beginning of the school year, started the year napping 4 to 4.5 hours a day.  It was amazing, and it made it bringing in the 1.5 Form 1B students much simpler.  But by November, the napping had declined to about 2 hours.  And then by the spring, it was sometimes only  1.5 hours.  And she was often cranky, because 1.5 hours is really not enough napping for that girl!  I ended up redoing our schedule four times this year, and by the end of the year had resorted to assigning the older kids 30 minute shifts with Charlotte and wearing her a lot in the Ergo during morning lessons.  I'm not as young as I used to be, and those hours in the Ergo were sometimes challenging.  But we got lessons done a lot more peacefully that way, and I'm thankful I could still do it.

Additional Church Commitments

This year I started teaching the second year Confirmation class at my church.  I enjoyed the kids and the teaching, but it added more to my schedule than I had anticipated.  Not only did I need to be ready to teach a class every week, I also had to plan an overnight retreat, speak at multiple Masses on some weekends, coordinate community service activities at the church, help with a parent session...  and then there was the preparation for the Confirmation Mass itself.  It was a lot, and it was largely all undocumented.  But I took lots of notes and I've made a calendar for next year, so I'm hoping this next year will be a lot smoother.

Also under this category is being a leader for a small faith group at my church.  We met during the morning for 1.5 hours for (only!) six weeks in the fall and another six weeks in the spring.  In the first session we met at my home, which at least meant I didn't lose transit time too, but in the spring we met in town so the commitment was more like 2 to 2.5 hrs each week.  It was tough to lose that much prime school time, especially when I realized that while 12 weeks total isn't that much out of 52 weeks in a year, it is a lot out of a 36 week school year.


In the end, what with co-planning and speaking at the CM West San Juan retreat in February, leading a Shakespeare group, two week long  trips our of state, and additional church commitments, I feel like I was overcommitted this past school year.  There were times, especially in January through April, where I felt really overwhelmed, and it took all I could muster to press forward and to try to keep things moving along.  I was able to keep the school and home going reasonably well, but corners were definitely cut, especially in my home management and my being able to be present and engaged with my high school student.