As the new “school” year begins, I thought I would write a little about what we will be doing this year. Some things will stay the same and some things might be slightly different. I feel that we have been learning at home long enough that we have discovered things that we like and things we dislike. Sometimes we have a particular curriculum that seems to have become stagnate, and while we still like that curriculum, it feels as though we are just treading water and really getting no where. So what’s a home school mom to do?
We have to pray. I know that educating our children is a calling, and I accomplish nothing without God’ guidance. I always pray a lot during the Spring and Summer months about our decision regarding our curriculum for the coming year. As I have said, sometimes I feel as though we are not progressing as we should with a particular curriculum, but there are times that the Good Lord means for us to just carry on with that curriculum. Other times we have been allowed to just lay a particular curriculum aside and begin anew.
As our children have grown older, it seems that the decisions concerning curriculum have become more difficult. Trusting in God we have been pleased with the curriculum He has lead us to use. I feel these choices have helped us grow as a family, because Mom and Dad are learning right along with the children. We weren’t raised with the education that our children are receiving so it has been quiet an eye opener the many things we weren’t taught or what we had been taught from a very different worldview.
This year we will be adding God and Government Volume 1 by Gary DeMar to our older child’s curriculum. I have looked through the book and am impressed by what I have read. There are two other books that go along with this one, and he’ll continue on with those in the following years. He will also be adding In the Shadow of Plenty from Christian Liberty Press as his Economics class. The most difficult decision we had concerning the books he would learn for this year was Biology. I have had the opportunity to look at many Biology books during the spring and summer months. There were many that I knew immediately weren’t for us, but there are two that we have struggled with making a decision; Abeka and Christian Liberty Press. We finally decided to go with the Christian Liberty Press Biology book.
There was only one thing we changed with our younger child’s curriculum for this year, and that was her Science. For years she has used living books and unit studies for this subject, but this year we are moving her into an actual textbook; Abeka’s Matter and Motion.
We will be continuing on with Tapestry of Grace and Math-U-See. We have been extremely pleased with Math-U-See over the years, and I have watched my children learn math in a way that I never did while attending public school. Tapestry of Grace has been a wonderful curriculum for us over the years, but it seems as though we are just treading water with this curriculum. I am convinced, however, that this is the curriculum that we should still be using. I have tried to set it aside, but we always come back to it. We love all the books it has introduced us to over the years. For some reason though, I have been seeing a greater need for more biographies on key people so we will be adding some biographies to what is already there to read. We’ll continue trusting in God with this and follow Him.
On the home front or should I say on the farming front, we have had an interesting couple of months. We have know for some time that something had been getting our chickens’ eggs and ducks’ eggs. Something has even killed a few of our ducks and their little ducklings. We bought several cages at Tractor Supply. First, we caught a huge yet beautiful female raccoon. I wish I had taken pictures of her before we relocated her to one of my cousin’s property. Next, we caught a huge possum, and it just wasn’t that pretty. It wound up dying before we could relocate it. Then we began catching skunks. Our cat was sprayed and smelled awful, but luckily, none of us wound up stinky. The first skunk we caught was a momma and her baby came to try to get her out. My husband had fed her and could get close to the cage so he released the momma skunk. It was funny to see she and her baby running down the side of the road. We wound up catching about five baby skunks and another momma skunk so much to my horror my husband loaded them up in the trunk of the car and relocated them to a graveyard which is in the woods with no church or anything else nearby. The last critter we caught was a little raccoon which was also relocated to the my cousin‘s property again. Luckily, we haven’t caught anymore animals, and our hens are sitting on their eggs happily.
Well, I have rambled on long enough. I hope you all have a wonderful "school" year.
