Dear Carrie
Circle Time: Is it worth the stress of adding it to HOD or not?
First of all, I want to say how incredibly grateful I am for Heart of Dakota (HOD). This is my first year homeschooling, and HOD makes things easy for me! The issue we’re having is not with Heart of Dakota; it is with circle time. I heard about circle time and thought it’d be fun to start my day with it, but some mornings it just isn’t! Since I have a 6 year-old, a 4 year-old, and a 2 year-old, I try to keep it short. We look at the calendar, do our memory verse, stretch, and sing songs. Some mornings my 6 year-old complains about different aspects of circle time, and my 4 year-old just chooses to challenge me on things. I’m wondering if it’s THAT important to keep doing circle time? Or, should I just start their HOD school right away instead? Circle time is stressing me out.
Sincerely,
“Ms. Please Help Me Stop Stressing About Circle Time”
Dear “Ms. Please Help Me Stop Stressing About Circle Time,”
As homeschool mommas, it is important to choose our battles. With that in mind, I can see how getting a group of little ones together for activities that engage them across their varying levels could result in a battle of wills to get them to stay focused. We haven’t done circle time in our own homeschool for that very reason. Instead, I grouped a few activities from the HOD guide around lunch time for us to do together. You could do the same! These things could be Bible memory work, rhymes, poetry, music, or storytime. That worked better for us and kept us moving forward in our HOD guides with things that were already needing to be completed in the day. (I stopped doing this when my boys were older and when the ages of my boys began to vary more.)
The guides are complete, so there is no need to add more unless your heart truly desires it!
I want my kiddos to be fresh and excited for their school day when we begin. I want to keep my “battles” for their attention for the things that are really needed in each individual child’s school day. This will be different for different ages. Christian music at breakfast and prayer is a great way to start the day. Then, just jump in to the guides. The guides really are complete as written, so there is no need to add more (like circle time) unless your heart truly desires to do so!
Blessings,
Carrie
Follow-Up reply from “Ms. Please Help Me Stop Stressing About Circle Time”:
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I don’t have much support for homeschooling, so to hear your take on things is priceless. For now, I think we’ll stop doing circle time. I like the idea that was mentioned of how your day should start “happy” and without the stress. The way our circle time is going, this isn’t always the case. I second guess myself a lot about homeschooling (I know I’m believing lies from the enemy), so this is really helping me to persevere. That’s what motherhood is about, right? Persevering and believing God for the reaping of fruit in His time!
