Colossians 2:6-7
This is truly my prayer for our home school adventure... that these children will be ROOTED in faith, BUILT UP with love, STRENGTHENED mentally, physically and spiritually, TAUGHT truths of all kinds (academically and Biblically), and in the end OVERFLOWING with Thanksgiving!
But let's be transparent... The excitement of the First Day Back began to wane after I requested a responsive writing from Dyl (his nemesis) and some words to be sounded out and read from Lulu (oh, the concentration that demands!) ... But hey - that's a "Day in the Life" of home education! They finally conceded when they were gently reminded about our new allowance system that requires them to TRY and DO MY BEST WORK. Money talks, people! And kids (and adults) GET rewards. And that's ok - it's good motivation!
They won't LOVE everything they need to learn or are required to do. But much of it is amazing and exciting and causes them to love learning and ask questions and WANT to do their "work". Especially when it doesn't feel like work.
For example, this was our unplanned "world geography" lesson of the day! Don't they look engaged? They were! While I was spreading peanut butter and jelly on bread and slicing celery in the kitchen, they were listening to Wee Sing Around the World and identifying all the countries on a globe. Dylan was reminding Lulu about the continents, and showing her which places belong to the USA. They found countries in South America, North America, they discovered the West Indies and began to move into Europe before we stopped to eat our lunch.
Today was a light day ~ I decided since Jocelyn has swimming lessons for the next two weeks in the mid-morning, we'll start slowly and do a little each day until we really get in rhythm.
We read our first history lesson from Story of the World, Volume 2: The Middle Ages, which was a review of the Roman Empire.
Our big fourth grader did a math page and reviewed some terms like addend and sum as well as learned some new terms like minuend and subtrahend.
Our big first grader learned about the big hand and little hand on the clock. We also talked about how to write dates and we reviewed the days of the week and months of the year.
How's Teacher-mom doing? Well, not only have I prepared the academic side of this year (chosen curriculum for the year and bought planners etc...) but I have done something a little more - I've been preparing my heart. God has been teaching me about myself - convicting me, really, about some things I haven't been doing well. Ways I've been lazy, rebellious, unloving, self-serving... some of it is because of some health problems I've been experiencing. But most of it is just distraction and not trusting His plan. He's shown me through a few different books including books of the New Testament, a wonderful book by Shannan Martin called Falling Free, as well as a book called For the Children's Sake. This is one I'm still reading and probably need to purchase and read every year. It's a book written in the early 80's about Charlotte Mason's philosophies and practical application on educating (and really valuing) children. I would recommend it to anyone, even those not choosing home education for their children, even those who don't HAVE children because children are everywhere and we need to understand how to interact with them... They are part of our society, they are the church, they are our neighbors, they are our children and grandchildren and nieces and nephews. Children aren't the future - they are the present!
So as we enter this new school year, we are moving forward in faith that God will provide what we need to do His will which is... to LOVE Him and LOVE others. That's it. And that's impossible without the Holy Spirit! So we abide.
His, Mama G
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