Weekly Wrap-Up: The One with all the Texting

Home Science Tools Banner
* This post may contain affiliate links or sponsored content. *

Did you like this article? If so, please help by sharing it!

Happy Friday!  You know, we must be doing something right this year because even with an extra afternoon out of the house, which is mentally and emotionally challenging for this homebody, I am not feeling stressed out and burned out like I was near the end of last year.  I think it’s possibly because I’m trying to take a much more relaxed approach this year.

We’ve already dropped a few curriculum extras that were good, but not best for our homeschool — “good” in terms of good things to learn and be doing, but “not best” in terms of burn out and overload.  I’m tossing around the idea of tackling them as mini-unit studies here and there throughout the year, which would work them in and provide a fun, but educational break from our regular studies.  In what ways do you mix things up to avoid overload and burnout?

So, the big highlight from this week was that my family and I have finally, ten years into it, moved into the new millennium — we finally have texting!  Now, I could have lived without it (but I will admit that it’s fun!), but we wanted to get Brianna a cell phone and the package we were looking at included unlimited texting.  I’ve avoided the whole cell phone thing for her up until now, but she’s now getting to the age where I’m dropping her off for outside classes or she’s going places with her friends and I’d like her to be able to call us whenever she might need us and vice versa.

How’s that going, you may ask?  Well, let’s just say that I’m thankful for unlimited texting.  I checked her usage last night around 11:00.  From the time she got her phone on Wednesday night until I checked last night, she’d already sent and received 487 texts!  I’m sincerely hoping that she’s just making up for lost time and that it will level off soon.  If not, I’ve already warned her that, for $4.99 per month, I can put limits on when and how often she can use her phone.  *insert evil mom laugh here*

School-wise, Josh, Megan and I have been learning about the Industrial Revolution and the nervous system.  To that end, we had a failed history project about how steam engines work (note to self:  always test the project yourself before presenting it to the kids) and a really fun science experiment on reaction times.  In the science experiment, I would drop a ruler and the kids had to catch it between their thumb and forefinger.  We’d see what number they caught it on to determine their reaction times.  It was pretty cool.

Those are probably the big, exciting highlights from our week, but really?  That’s okay.  A fairly uneventful week with few outside commitments is nice every once in awhile.

How was your week? Be sure to post about it and sign up with MckLinky. If this is your first time to join us, be sure to read the Weekly Wrap-Up guidelines. You can also follow the guidelines link to grab the banner code.

**Remember, be sure to link directly to your Weekly Wrap-Up post so that others can find it easily when they visit your blog and be sure to post a link back here so that your readers can find the Wrap-Up and join us..**

+ posts

Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.

Did you like this article? If so, please help by sharing it!

13 Comments

  1. Sounds like a nice, peaceful week to me! For us, burnout happens when we have too many outside activities, not too much schoolwork (thus far). I've blogged about that more than once, but so far have only managed a few alterations: our Girl Scout troop now meets only once a month and NOT at my house! Also, I'm only teaching Bible on Wednesday nights instead of both Wednesdays and Sunday school. That's about it, but you'd be surprised at how much lighter my load *feels*.

    Happy weekend!

  2. Wow! I saw that it was much larger than it'd been in the spring when I was doing it, but hadn't realized that it was SO MUCH larger! Way to go!

    We're in the process of switching to plans that will, for the first time, include texting. Part of me is excited: my little brothers text LOTS. Part of me worries that it's going to be another distraction…

  3. Kris,

    We did that reaction time experiment last year when we studied the human body. My children like bringing it up to me because I had slower reaction times than ANYBODY!

    Samantha

  4. Thanks for Weekly Wrap-Up posts…it keeps me accountable. 🙂

    487 texts…I don't even know what to think and I have three kids that text but that seems like A LOT.

    Barb

  5. I never understood texting, until I got it on my phone last year. Holy moly!!! It's the best thing. I think it even helped my relationship with my dad. We never had a bad one, but we'd go many days without talking. Now, we text almost everyday. It's wonderful. And, thanks to my blog, he can check up on us also. Technology isn't all bad, is it? 🙂

  6. We had to set limits for texting for Lindsey; it was insane! And with the limits set, we're not constantly nagging but she's not texting 24/7.

    And I've been weeding out a few things, too. Just can't do EVERYthing, even if it's all good.

  7. Failed experiments are not a bad thing! Remember Thomas Edison- "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." 🙂

  8. I am laughing at your 487 texts! I have texting on my phone and only get 400 per month, but I'm sure once we hit the phase for the kids to have cells/text we'll be right there with you:-).

    Glad someone had a relaxing week–ours was not relaxing, and I am def. hoping for better this upcoming week!

  9. I loved reading about your relaxing week! After four years of homeschooling I am finally getting to the point where I can put curriculum aside when I realize it is not working for us.

    Have a great weekend!

  10. Part of my Weekly Wrap Up is about putting aside our current unit study to immerse ourselves in a great science curriculum we got for review, so I guess that would be my answer to preventing burnout. Flexibility and the willingness to not try and do everything at once!

  11. We have unlimited texting for all of our accounts. I hardly text, but my daughter uses it to contact us and to talk to friends. However, she uses Instant Messenger more often than the phone.

  12. I am laughing about the whole cell phone, texting thing right now 🙂 I am SO NOT a cell phone person…my dh actually keeps my phone charged and keeps the minutes updated {he purchases minutes instead of paying for a plan because I very rarely use it :)}

Leave a Reply to Our Homeschool Fun Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.