Jun. 26, 2006 - Ramblings from my weekend!
Here is what I took away from my weekend of prayer and petition.
1- The absolute MOST important goal for me this year is for ME
to be in the Word, everyday. That I earnestly seek the Lord! That
I go to HIM with my worries, insecurities, inabilities.
When my child is struggling in math, when one is not reading and I
start to feel "nervous", when my teen is stumbling thru finding himself
and that fear pops in my brain that he might turn away from the Lord
or the teaching with which he was brought up in, to IMMEDIATELY
stop and give "him" to the Lord.
Philippians 4:6-8
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer
and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will
guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is
right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable
if anything is excellent or praiseworthythink about such things.
2- Have a "PLAN" but be "FLEXIBLE"!
I think one of my biggest stumbling blocks in my homeschool
journey has been striving for "PERFECTION" because of
coarse, I don't even come close and then I just STOP and don't
do anything.
This year I have made cards with each individual task written on
it's own card. On a PERFECT or GOOD day (maybe 3 a year?
 ) we will be able to complete ALL the cards but on busy days
I can choose what is MOST important, even if it's 3 things and make
that my goal for the day.
I made a stack for "chores", "school" & "fun". They only get the
FUNcards if they complete the Chore and School cards first.
Here is an example of some of our "school" cards. As you can
see they would not do every card everyday. For instance, in the
picture below you see "project", some weeks that's ONCE a week
other weeks a few times. You also see Creative Writing, CW is
not done daily. But each morning I can see what's scheduled
grab the card, make his stack and go.
My hope is that it will make LESS work for me. When I have to
write out a list each day it takes more time PLUS it's easy to forget
something. With the cards I just have to select them and off we go!
3- Teach my children to be more independant.
As I add children to our homeschool (they become
old enough to start school) I find less and less getting
done around my home and then our weekends are spent
overwhelmed trying to catch up. (laundry)
I sat down and made a list of all I do each day. This was
good because I realized how IMPOSSIBLE I had made
it to get much of anything done besides school.
I then took that list and I gave the task to the youngest
child"CAPABLE" of completing the task.
For instance, Brandon now has "mowing the yard" as
his weekly task. This means I will now have Colton take
over one of Brandon's old tasks (cleaning the floors)
and Seth will step and takeover one of Colton's old
tasks. (feeding and watering animals)
Scott and I talked long and hard about this and we realize this
particular goal is going to take a lot of time from us. Training
sometimes takes more effort than just doing ourselves BUT we
have seen the fruit when we HAVE trained a child to take a task
in the past.
Also this benefits THEM to one day take good care of THEIR
families.
4- Teaching our children to be "THINKERS". Sandy, one of
the women at our getaway had a book called, "A Thomas Jefferson
Education". I am going to buy this book and read it cover to cover.
As she would share excerpts from it my heart was overwhelmed with
a sense of rightness.
In a nutshell, back in Thomas Jeffersons day when a child was
homeschooled they were done so with STRONG moralities and
convictions. They had a heart conviction of what they believed and
WHY they believed it so that they could go fight for what they
believedin.
Teaching "thinking" comes simply from DISCUSSIONS! So as we
begin our new school year we will make it our goal this year to
work on discussing everything we do. I find we talk a lot anyway but
now I want to add depth to our discussions. This will take time and
so this is a goal I have set for the school year!
Deuteronomy 6: 4-9
4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love
the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give
you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your
children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you
walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8
Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.
9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
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