Finishing up February break

Whe Fiona was in school, I made sure that Connor’s homeschool schedule followed the regular school schedule. It was easier for him to focus and get one on one support when she was at school for the day, so following that schedule just made sense. Now that I am homeschooling both of them, we don’t have that set time that it is just the two of us working at home (although that had mostly ended with the baby anyway). It is an adjustment to our daily routine, but it also means we no longer need to follow the regular school schedule in any way.

Previously, I had carefully mapped out our plans to make sure that everything aligned perfectly with the school schedule. Even the schedule of our days was based on making sure that he had finished school during the hours of Fiona’s school days. Now, we no longer need to fit within that framework. It feels freeing and will allow us to be much more flexible. We have already been able to take advantage of our newfound scheduling freedom with a February break.

In New Hampshire, February vacation is a staple of public school schedules. Between cold temperatures, winter burnout, and plenty of germs circulating, February break feels necessary. The New Hampshire February break always comes on the last week of February, and so that is when I had planned a break for Connor as well. However, now that Fiona is home, we all needed a break to collect ourselves. So this past week was the perfect time for that break.

I have been hoping to ease Fiona into homeschooling because I feel like she still needs time to deschool and decompress. However she is eager to jump into homeschooling full steam. I am hoping to manage a buffet feast of learning for her, where she can pick and choose what to focus in on without feeling too much pressure. I have some ideas of what that might look like, but I am eager for this coming week to see how it plays out in practice.