I intended to map my homeschooling journey every month, but here it is the day before June begins and it has been three months since my last post. This is a testament to just how crazy life is when homeschooling, running kids to this practice and that event, Church activities, and basically living the life of a single mom, since the best husband in the world is working all the time to provide for all of our “want thats.”
So, we just finished up our last week of the first year of our homeschooling journey! Yippee! Of course the boys are thrilled that I am not coming up the stairs at 8am singing “Rise and shine and give God the glory, glory...”, but I am super excited that, by the grace of God-even though we didn’t finish every workbook page, or read to the very end of “Old World History” -both boys are ready to move on to the next level! I actually think that our decision to home-school has made them enjoy reading and learning more. I am happy to have an extra hour of quiet in the morning to sip tea and read my increasing list of favorite blog posts!
(Isn’t she cute? I just had to add this in!)
I love me a home-school convention!Over the last several months I found the time to go to the Great Home-school Convention in Cincinnati-without children. (Yes, my sweet Charles took off two days of work to stay home with “mama spoiled” Lily!) While there, I attended some amazing workshops lead by speakers like Sean McDowell, John Stonestreet, and Scott Klusendorf, and was able to get face to face with curriculum writers and publishers to discuss learning styles and techniques, the pros and cons of unit studies vs classical curriculum and even the psychology of boys! I spent a great deal of time watching the families with eight and ten children, and becoming more and more thankful at just how peaceful my life really is. (This hallucination lasted until I walked in my front door the next day!) The culmination of my two days of reverie is that we are trying something new next year. In fact, I already received it in the mail and seeing it all laid out even has my most sullen student smiling and looking forward to next semester! We have decided to use the Sonlight curriculum. And, even though many former Sonlight moms have told me that they became absolutely tongue-tied and sick of reading another word, the actor/storyteller in me is excited to show off a bit each day for my boys-and girl! (We purchased the preschool level too.) You see, my theory is that we adore movie stars because they entertain us and make us “feel.” So, here we go! Through a system of using stories to learn history, geography, literature, vocabulary and become a better listener, reader and thinker, Mama will be the adored star! SICK, right? -But you will try anything to hold on just one more day to a couple of preteen boys with everything but Mama on their minds! Anyway, I have great hopes that this new style will increase all of our enjoyment for school time!
Summer Lovin’ & Learnin’
Our journey of learning doesn’t stop in the summer, even though we put away the curriculum and workbooks. Until the new semester starts, we are reading aloud “Peter Pan,” and “The Magician’s Nephew.” I will be reading “A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet” by Sophie Hudson and trying to finish “Les Miserables.” The boys are both on a “Hardy Boys” kick and will be working through the most enticing titles in that series! Lily just picks board books at random from the lowest library shelves-she LOVES to read. We read whatever she picks out several times over until we pick new ones next week! We will visit a few museums on really hot days, go to the zoo at least once and attend a few sporting events. I do believe in a little R&R and we will all be sufficiently rested to start a new semester in the fall.
Promises. Oh, Sweet Promises.
Last week, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed [moved, affected, maybe a bit beaten] with it all and noticed beautiful rainbow. No! As we looked closer it was a double rainbow! We even pulled off the road to record the memory, because in that moment I could see clearly God’s divine hand weaving together the promises that HE made to me years ago when he gifted us with our first baby boy! Jeremiah 29:11 came to mind, “I know the promises I have for you, says the LORD. They are plans for good and not disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”
