Sometimes I have to remind myself that the “extra” in extracurricular is there for a reason. The reason is these types of activities are enhancements to your lesson plan but not the plan. Now, like many, I enjoy going off road on the homeschool trail. However, the more time I spend off road the further I feel lost. During the first part of the school year, each of my kids had an activity. We had something going on every week night except Friday but we had homeschool co-op on Friday mornings. No rest on the weekends since we had soccer games on Saturdays. Sundays are always busy with church services in the morning and evening. It was enough to make my head spin. With so much going on it was hard to fit in school. So this term we only have outside activities on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It is such a relief.
Beware of over-scheduling yourself and your kids. It only leads to burn out. Spread your activities out and make sure to allow unscheduled play time. Children need time to process their lessons and apply it to the world around them. Too many activities causes too much stress for a child, not to mention the mom. Being busy can cause you to miss time as a family which is highly important to the development of your kids and your family. We must also take caution that busyness does not become an idol in our lives. It is easy to feel like we need to do more and sign up for more. We want to make sure our children have social and educational experiences so they can have a rounded education. In the end, we need to learn how to discern what is profitable to our lives and what is not.