More homeschool planning thoughts...

As time goes on, I'm feeling less worried about plunging into homeschooling in the fall. (I keep reminding myself that it will really only be a minor splash at most, since Basbusa will only be four, but in my head it still feels like it will be a plunge of epic proportions!) The two elements I was most concerned about were my own ability to establish some kind of routine, and finding opportunities for regular social interactions for Basbusa, and those two things seem to be sorting themselves out a bit.

I've managed to find three other moms with daughters near Basbusa's age, who are all interested in setting up a weekly playgroup. (One of them even has a daughter just one day younger than Kunafa!) We'll be meeting next week to let the girls play and to chat about what kind of structure each of us has in mind, but I'm crossing my fingers that it will work out well. Plus, there's now a bi-weekly playgroup at the masjid that seems like it will have staying power insha'Allah, and we've gotten to know two other homeschooling families nearby with young children.

I was worried about routines because I've never, in my entire life, managed to stick with them, no matter how loosely-structured they might be. I know that it's not essential to have a routine or schedule, but  I think it might be helpful for the girls to know where we are in the day and in the week. For myself, too, I can see myself becoming easily stressed about whether I'm doing "enough" of a myriad different things with the girls, if our lives were so unscheduled that it was very hard to keep track of what we had been doing.  

So, I've made a tentative schedule for what our lives might look like in the fall (which I'll post in the future), and I'm trying even now to do little bits of it. My girls have never had afternoon naps or quiet times or anything, but I've now started memorizing Quran myself after we're home from any morning activities and the girls have had lunch. They have to find some way to entertain themselves while I sit nearby, working on Surat Al Noor. It's actually working out very well, al7amdulillah!! It turns out that they're perfectly capable of finding things to do when they see that I'm really engaged in doing my own thing, and since the activity I'm engaged in is a truly worthwhile one, I don't feel like I'm a bad mom while I'm doing it :) Plus, I've noticed that the kids who are most enthusiastic about learning Quran are the ones who see their parents doing the same, so I'm hoping the example will have been useful to Basbusa by the time I start more formal Quran lessons with her in the fall insha'Allah.