Working and Home Schooling - Accountability

Just this past week I have realized that I have not been following through with the most important aspect of being a working home school mom. I have not been checking my kids work on a daily basis. We had a wedding this past week and because mom (me) was busy with preparations before the wedding and out-of-town company after the wedding, kids took unapproved time off of school. No wonder we end up working all summer long every year.

This year, I am going to focus most of my attention on accountability. I have the perfect home school curriculum planner and record keeping system to do all of my planning and record keeping but even having the perfect planner does not make up for daily accountability.

I hate the feeling of being behind. The Full-Year Notebook System takes away a lot of that stress but the kids still have to do their work. The only way to ensure that daily work is getting done is to have a time set aside each day for me to check their work. I also like to restrict activities until their work is checked but this usually makes me feel guilty if I am unable to get to it early enough in the day so this is a flexible rule of mine. If it is my fault, they can participate in the activity as long as all of their work is finished before I check it. If it is their fault that they have not finished their work, they cannot participate in the activity.

I don't like to resort to the flexible rule because they have to do work based on what I checked. If they have already taken off for the day, it is very difficult to get them back to correct their mistakes or do additional work in areas they don't understand. I also like them with me as I am checking their work. That way they can see that they are the ones who made the mistakes and I am not the bad guy who just marks everything wrong because I am out to get them. I guess I consider this as "Tutor Time" rather than just checking their work.

My sister has a saying - Inspect what you expect. She told me this saying years ago when we were discussing daily household chores. I find it to be an appropriate saying to apply to school work as well.

Because I am looking forward to having the summer off this year, I am hereby committing to being more diligent about daily Tutor Time! I hope some of you will make this same sort of committment.

Blessings,
Julie