After two years of waiting and planning and praying about homeschooling the kids, finally it has started. Monday morning we jumped in to the homeschool waters with both feet. In fact I'd say got more than my feet wet. If I were truthful I'd say at one point in the week I was over my head. I believe that I am not going entering into this educational adventure with blinders on. I've talked to other homeschool families, I've read books, I've prayed. I knew there would come times that were great and times that were not at all good. I knew there would be days when I would want to sign them up for school as soon as possible. However, I did not know that I would run the gambit of emotions in one week! Monday and Tuesday that schooling was great! We had fun, we finished early, and it was fun. But by the early afternoon John Thomas' behavior was awful. I figure it was adjustment to the newness of what had happened in the morning, the new structure, and seeing me spend what he may have perceived as more time with Ellie and her school work. But by Wednesday that had settled out, but now Ellie was beginning to complain about some of the work, namely writing. Still we got through it, and accomplished some good things. Then by Thursday I was pooped, and a little grumpy. I did not like some of the impatience I saw in myself over simple things. Ah, sanctification. But Friday, which is our project, library field trip day, things were good. I looked around and saw the projects on my wall, the encouragement stickers they had earned for good work, listened to Ellie recite her first memorized poem with such pride and joy, and I knew that we would push through to next week, that this road was the one I wanted to travel with my children. I am so grateful to have this chance to learn with my children and to hang out with them and watch their minds grow and soak up the knowledge. Plus, I get to take these wonderful things they are learning and point it all back to Christ. Each book we read, I can point the literature back to Christ. With each animal we study, we talk about Christ's creativity in His workmanship. Even before math, we pray. I am one lucky mama.
I've posted some pictures below of some of the things we did together this week. I hope what you see is a family enjoying each other.
In History we studied what history is and how we discover the stories of the past. After reading some books about archaeology we had our own dirty dig.
Fish have scales, and they all go in the same direction so they can glide through the water. In science we talked about how all animals are placed in classes, fish being just one of many classifications.
Art and history meet as we make a collage of our family tree. For the next few weeks we will study collage as art. I loved Ellie's definition of a collage, "It's where you take lots of different pictures and make them collide together to make one piece of art." Perfect!
I love these kids!!!!
