BACK TO SCHOOL 2007-08

WHAT WE'VE LEARNED SO FAR....

Well, I can officially say we've put in two good weeks of school this year. Our first week was cut short because of Kids' Camp at church, but we made up for it this week. It makes a difference when 2/3 of my kids are regualar participants in school instead of just 1/3. It seems to draw everyone in instead of having the opposite effect of pulling the one out.

All three of my kids sit down for school this year. Though my focus is not directly on Kiana (our two-year-old), she is absorbing more than I could have hoped. I'm beginning to realize how much I love routine in our household! Summer is great, but the lack of routine causes me to have difficulty accomplishing much of anything. When I know what is on my agenda for a day, and I wake up ready to hit it hard, I can accomplish so much more than if I'm not real sure what the day has in store. Those days I tend to spin my wheels!

Joel is doing very well. For the most part, his attention span is amazing. I can leave him with an activity and come back several minutes later to find him still working on the assigned task undistracted. He has already whipped through his first math book (which we started earlier this summer) and really the only thing slowing him down with any of it is his handwriting. He can trace anything, but he has difficulty going from the tracing to having to do it on his own. So, we are doing as much tactile work with him as possible. Salt trays and clay are his favorite and have helped him in this area already. He has learned about Ss = Sun and Mm = Moon. I love how his curriculum ties in phonics and learning the letters/sounds with science and Bible. We talked about how Jesus is like the sun and we are like the moon. The moon is dark without the light of the sun, just like we are dark without Jesus. But when we have Jesus, his light shines through us so that we can be a light to the dark world (just like the moon lights up the dark sky at night!) I thought that was a really neat analagy. This week we made raisins from grapes, a sundial and sun tea for just a couple of his activities.

Myah's school has been fun for all of us. After two weeks, I feel like we have already made some huge strides with her. I felt like her school was cut short for her a bit last year with my miscarriage throwing us off for a while right after Christmas, and then our move in April. The biggest change I see in her is that I feel like she's actually, for the most part, ENJOYING it! (Though she would probably never ADMIT that to anyone....!) :) Yes, we are trudging through some of the "must do's" of phonics, spelling and math, but with much less complaining than in past years. I think it boils down to the fact that my little girl is growing up! Together we are thoroughly enjoying learning about American History, doing science experiments and studying the names of God, along with their meanings. We started that study with talking about her name and the meaning behind it. She even sewed a pillow with her name on it to help her remember how special she is that it's our hope and desire for her to be a "Joyful servant whose heart is close to God". (Myah means "close to God" and her middle name is Joy). She is learning to look up Bible verses and is even beginning to read them herself. We studied about Leif Ericsson and Christopher Columbus from a Christian perspective, which was really neat. We made boats (Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria) and had boat races when they were sailing from "Spain" to "America" in our little pool. We also started reading a book called "American Patriots and Pioneers" from Christian Liberty Press that I would HIGHLY recommend for a read-aloud for any child. Myah has been sucked right into that book and never wants me to stop reading.

That is just a taste of what we have done these past two weeks, and though I know not every week will be as full or exciting, I am thoroughly looking forward to the rest of this year. The kids are at a place where they know what is expected of them and that helps a lot.

Before school began this year, I sat down and was just praying about our homeschool. I laid it in the Lord's hands, and he gave me a verse, which I have kind of adopted to help me keep my perspective this year through the ups and downs of school. Taken from the Psalms, "Unless the Lord builds the house, they who build it labor in vain." Unless the Lord builds our homeschooling, childrearing, etc., we will labor in vain. I have given our children to him, and I have given our homeschooling to him as well. I'm so thankful we have been called to do this task, even though the laboring will be difficult and sometimes discouraging, as I have learned in the past, the fruit is so rewarding, and I love seeing it firsthand!