One yearly event has remained consistent in our eighteen years as a homeschooling family: March burnout. It would be bad enough if it were only the kids, but it’s me, too. A combination of factors—primarily exhaustion and spring fever—contribute to this phenomena. Although it’s difficult to conquer, here are a few ideas for making the most of the March meh mindset.
Spring Fever
After winter weather, March’s warmer temperatures are a glorious temptation. I can take a bathroom break or walk into the kitchen to make lunch and return and find the rest of the house empty. Everyone will be playing basketball in the driveway or swinging in the backyard.
School can’t compete with the great outdoors when the seasons start to change.
You can yell at everyone to get back inside—which I’ve done plenty of times—or you can make the most of it: have school in your treehouse; read a book outside under a tree; take an extended lunch hour picnic in your yard and let the kids run around and get it out of their systems.
Everyone gets spring fever.
Take your school on the road to the library or McDonald’s. Go to Pizza Hut and use your Book It coupons. A change of scenery can work wonders.
Look for homeschool days at fun field trip spots like the zoo or a museum. If you homeschool in Atlanta you may be able to check out a family pass for Zoo Atlanta at the library!
Exhaustion
Let’s face it: schooling can be hard work. There are times when I’ve sat on the couch and worked with a child until I could barely keep my eyes open. That’s when I declare that a school nap is next on the day’s agenda.
If you and your kids are getting burned out, try mixing things up in a way that’s fun for them and less work for you. Audio books and educational videos are great tools that can be either purchased for your home or checked out for free from the library. Some libraries even have audio books available for online download/checkout.
Jim Weiss is a national storytelling treasure. Greathall Productions offers a wide variety of Jim Weiss audio CDs, and now you can even download mp3s of many of these collections from digital suppliers. I have played his audio CD’s of “The Story of the World” for the kids while I make lunch, and then we do the quizzing and coloring pages afterward (with Skittles rewarded for right answers).
Netflix has a wide selection of IMAX films, documentaries, and other educational videos; many are available for instant viewing either from a computer or on your television if you have a Roku or Wii to stream them.
Remember Schoolhouse Rock? Your kids will love it as much as you did.
Life in General
Sometimes life in general causes March burnout. Maybe you have a new baby or your kids have been sick for what seems like forever. Cut yourself some slack. Life happens.
The ability to create flexible schedules is one of the great beauties of homeschooling.
Are you or your kids feeling burned out? What ideas can you incorporate next week to shake the March blahs?
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
WOW…..I thought it was just me. Seriously! I have been so burnt out this week I think my shoulders are permanently knotted! And I live in Hawaii so I don’t even have an excuse for being tired of the cold! Funny though I posted on this just a few days ago….trying to come up with ideas myself about how to beat the burn out! Thanks for the encouragement knowing it’s not just me!
http://homeschoolhoop-la.blogspot.com/2011/03/fending-off-burnout.html
is there a place where several folks have listed a typical day…I’m new to homeschooling and I know there are plenty of ways to teach your children, different styles, methods, times of day, indoors, out of doors, etc…I would love to read (without a lot of online searching) several different typical days from various families. Would it be possible to get several families to post something like that on this blog if it doesn’t exsist somewhere else?
Thanks
Hi, this is what my day looks like. I get up around 7:00 or 7:30 and nurse the 3 month old in the bed with me. Then I go and get the children up or at least give them the first call. I go back to my bathroom where I dress and primp and have my morning time with the baby and dress her. I then go to the kitchen and fix some breakfast. We eat and I always feel like doing chores more in the morning than any other time, so I so a few. Around 10:00 or 10:30 we all sit down at a large table and I read outloud to the children from the Bible. In Jan. we started in Genesis in the Living Bible and we are reading at our own pace. We just began Joshua. I have eight children and seven are at home. I allow them to draw or play with play dough while I read to them as long as they are quiet. After Bible today I dismissed the younger ones to another room to play while I read to two middleschoolers Russian history from the world book on computer and a read aloud–What Ever Happened to Penny Candy? Then I had everyone get out their math and I floated around to whomever needed me. Lunch was heated up leftovers from last night and some of the children put on rain boots and jackets and took a walk around the yard in the rain with an umbrella for the fun of it. After lunch a few children went to read independently for 20 minutes while I fed the baby and read on the internet. I helped an older student with his math while I was at the computer and the others finished their various subjects of handwriting, math, and reading. Now that we too have spring fever we try to accomplish Bible, read aloud, independent reading, math and handwriting each day and that is it for the younger ones. I have to sit down and help the new reader each day learn his sounds and letters. The seventh and eighth graders have General science a few days a week and writing a few days a week. That is our flexable schedule. I teach piano two days a week so some days are longer and some are shorter than others. Every Friday we have a co-op with a band class and lap book class and ,y older ones have worship band practice during the week also. That is about it.
Blessings,
Christy
I just have to chime in to say I’m SO jealous that March brings warmer weather for you! Up here in southern Canada we still have at least a month, if not two, before we can say outside has a big pull due to spring-like conditions! Try burn-out with no spring! I live on a ranch and I’ve always sort of thought I’d take March off and we’d all dive into calving season instead (talk about learning right?) but the weather’s been so cold, and I’ve got preschoolers and a toddler too, so it just hasn’t worked out like I thought it would. We may just participate as “sunny day calvers” and do a big, informal study on dinosaurs – the latest passion around here. Thanks for the timely post!
What a fresh word. Thank you. Last week we threw out our original plan of books, books, and books. We studied the planets (video and God’s Word), made paper mache planets, did a lot of painting (art), played basketball galore (PE), had some family time on the couch (discipleship), and had a friend come over to teach us French. We really needed a break from the norm. Thank you for your sweet, sweet post. So true.
Oh, how I agree! Although I have to say it’s usually February here when we feel the mid-year slump. It’s tough! And right now we are in-between homes, staying with family, and our routine is so far from normal it’s driving us all crazy. Patience, patience…right?:) We’re starting to see some nice early Spring days here, too, and we have enjoyed getting out of the house and doing some different things. Thanks for the encouragement!!
We have changed rooms (now we have more sun during HE) and we plan more afternoons out to the botanic garden. I’ve downscaled the afternoon sessions but increased the load in the morning to that we have enough time to spend outdoors, like visiting the children’s farm. I bring spring inside too with lots of flowers and taking care of our birdhouses. We spend a lot of time drawing together and our theme’s are now about spring: little birds, spring flowers and outdoor scene’s. I handle this time by change indoors and spending more outdoors.
Paula
Last year I took a week off for spring break at the beginning of March. That helped a lot. We also just did a few more things outside like walks, letting the kids have a longer lunch break to play outside and doing some school outside that we could. This year, I haven’t really noticed it yet, but we took a week off in February when we had company. So I hoping to make it through the rest of the school year without having any more major breaks.
It begins in February for us, as well, and I’m not sure we ever recover from it. This is a post that I wrote last year. This year, I didn’t even bother to mention it. As soon as the weather breaks, we’ll be taking unschooling to the next level with lots of home activities, field trips and a plot in the community garden. In the meantime we are surrendering to movies, books and blankets
http://beyondwitsend.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/cabin-fever/
Great advice on avoiding this all-to-common situation. I second Schoolhouse Rock!
We have been dealing with some serious burnout here. Always nice to read new ideas on how to fight it!
I’m so glad you posted on this. I’m a first year homeschooler and this month or two has seemed particularly hard. Thanks for the suggestions. I took a week off and spent time praying for the Lord to restore my vision.
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