Posted in Teachers Corner

I am getting a recurring message from multiple sources lately that I can't ignore anymore. I've come across it in the Word, in talks from homeschool and church leaders, and even in conversations I've just "happened" to have lately.

It all points to one thing -- my job is to teach my daughter about Jesus, first and foremost. To teach her about His ways, His principles, His commands of us, His mercy. To teach her how to apply that and remember that in her everyday life.

I've been spending too much time trying to cram in all the traditional school subjects. She balks, makes excuses, gets distracted by everything from the weather to music to the trains that rumble by multiple times a day. She eventually gives up all hope of completing the task, because Mom's already too frustrated to have patience with her. Not every day, but too many.

So, we've changed our tactic. I know, seems like I can't stick to anything for more than two weeks, but we're liking this. Everyday we start out with her spelling and grammar starter -- one of those little flip calendars that has a mini-activity for each day. We do this over breakfast, using her little whiteboard at the table for writing suggestions.

Next, we read the Bible. She decided she wanted to read through the Bible in a year (I think I mentioned that in my last post), so her reading schedule is posted on the wall of the classroom and she marks it off every day when we're done. It takes us about an hour to read the chapters and discuss them, talking about how to apply the lessons in them to her (and my) life.

Then she does her spelling. This child has an excellent vocabulary, but her spelling doesn't exactly match up with her big words. She completes a unit of twenty words every two days (her schedule, not mine!), and gets practice writing and alphabetizing in the process.

After that, each day has its own topic. Mondays are langurage arts (vocab, italics handwriting, grammar, word roots), Tuesdays are math (she's in a wonderful phase where she's covering everything from addition to division to graphing to algebra), Wednesdays are science (today we covered weather -- for the hundredth time but at her request -- and made rain inside the house -- read the current issue of TOS for the instructions), Thursdays are history (I've talked about the books we're using in a recent post), and Fridays are arts and crafts (oh my, all the directions we can go with that).

I guess I'll add in the character development, manners and home ec stuff here and there, but maybe she'll agree to do those the weeks Daddy works on Saturday. And, of course, she's gearing up for planting her flower and vegetable gardens, so we'll have to work that in somewhere too. Oh, and we're reading from Kids of Courage on Sundays after church.

She's already happier with this schedule. We went for a family walk this afternoon (unheard of, but mostly because I am cold-blooded and need greater heat in order to get me to venture outside), and she was able to play with a neighbor friend for a while too. She's built targets out of big markers and rulers, and then shot them down with Nerf dart guns. She's happy!

So, we'll see if this works. Above all else, I guess I just need to focus on God's command to teach her His way instead of worrying about the state's screwed up priorities.