Oct. 28, 2008 How do you know God is real? Spend 8mins and find out!
As the the fall gets underway I have been trying to decide the focus or vision for our family. It is always changing and so it should, however finding the groove we will settle into for now can be a hard task. I have tried using a schedule and then no schedule. I have tried to school so many weeks on and so many off. In all this schedule making I soon realized I was setting myself up for stress and not allowing the freedom of our family to be unique. This fall, I gently started to get into the bookwork subjects and worked a rough schedule based on what each child wanted to study and how I can fit it into the week. That done, I feel like something is really lacking in the plan. It is a vision. Not my vision, but that of my families and of God's. When I took some time this past weekend and this morning, I knew that I was not being true to our families unique lives by having so much structure and expectation in a schedule. Nor is it fair to plan our weeks like those families who's husband is home most nights for dinner.
For those who don't know us, my husband works way a little over half a month. Not all at one time but in blocks of days that stretch from 3-5 days away and the same at home. Trying to "fit" a school week into this schedule is impossible. He works over most weekends and seems to be home the most beginning of the week. I spent my year last year planning as if he worked a more normal schedule. I planned activities for the week with no regard for when he would be home. I have lost the vision of why I started home schooling in the first place, that was family time and time with dad. Slowly I allowed what works best for other families to dictate what we did and when. Lesson learned, if it works for your family it probably won't work for mine! Not rocket science, but so easy to let it happen.So I am trying to work a plan that gives my husband more days without plans when he is home. Days to just "be" with his boys. He misses half their lives and so time with him is top priority.
What does this mean for my schedule? well it went out the window and I am glad.
I am using his days away as major bookwork days regardless of what the calender says. This means that we are not available for many of the functions, and visiting that take place in the week. This means that we are honoring God in how he has formed the family.
This is not going to be easy for me to accomplish, but I know the stress level of trying to keep up with someone else's plan just won't be there. I need the joy back in my days and in our lives.
I am going to ponder more what vision means to a homeschooling family and hope that when I return to this topic I can let you all in on how it goes!
Till then praying you find time to remind yourselves what your vision is and to recommit to staying true to the vision!
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Jul. 27, 2008 How archives saved my blog!
I have just sat and reread most of the archives on my blog. I had every intention of printing a few for keepsakes and just giving up on the whole blogging adventure. Then I noticed something unusual about a few of these entries, they had comments that I have never seen before. How encouraging this was. You see, I almost quit the blogging world tonight, thinking that my writings are so scattered or infrequent and sometimes just boring. I looked back and realized that so many of my writings where not about one particular thing, true, but they a wonderful collection of little inspirations, my growing and changing thoughts on God, practical home school ideas, some farming woes, pictures and sometimes just the day to day workings of our home. Nothing that seemed significant until they were reread. Those that read my blog and left the comments felt like my gifts today. My gifts from God that I must keep writing. I miss blogging when I don't. I seem to stop growing when I don't and I would miss sharing with you the journey I am on. To look back is to truly see the footprints God leaves in our lives and the amazing growth in our children. Without the blog I would have forgot so much about this home school journey.
In the beginning of my blogging days I was so excited to have a place to write my thoughts, a place to test the waters of writing out loud. You see I have been a writer since I was in the fourth grade! Now as an adult I just never knew if I would ever find the place to have others read my writing. When I got into blogging it was like a dream come true. Then the stresses set in. I found it much harder to keep it updated, I felt guilt when my friends were writing and I felt I had nothing to write about or that my writings were not "homeschoolish" enough!! Wow was I wrong. Homeschooling for many of us is not a separate category that we can write about the math problems and spelling words completed, but it is so much a part of our lives that it is hard to know when it starts and ends in our day.
If you have not read your archives for awhile-do it. I found some entries that I printed to encourage myself on areas of answered prayers and lesson's learned. It is so neat to see hindsight, how well our lives continue to flow even if we don't think they do. It is also a wonderful treat to see pictures of my children and our changing farm, these were all the moments I had already forgotten about. It is also a wonderful blessing to re read the comments and know that cyber-friends can be some of the best friends to encourage you in this journey. The blog and those who read it are my gifts. Thank you!
I am putting some thought into the themes and intentions of my blogging for the rest of the year and I will keep you posted, until then, happy archive reading.
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Mar. 28, 2008 Were back...
If I wait to get pictures loaded of our trip this blog will never get updated!
Well of course we had a wonderful time in Hawaii, lots of sun, sand, relaxing and swimming, not to mention "learning". We toured Pearl Harbor twice, a war museum, the aquarium, hiked Diamond Head Crater and toured the beaches ending that day with a famous shave ice on the North shore. I was so amazed at how much they absorbed while doing all this. Joah found a passion for sea life knowledge while at the aquarium, he went from exhibit to exhibit with his digital tour guide and then rattled of fascinating facts for me on all the sea life. They got to hold a hermit crab which they could not get enough of.
The highlight for Samuel and Joah was surf lessons that met with great success and created a passion. Nate learned how to swim all on his own and I had tears in my eyes when I realized this is how it is supposed to be with everything our kids do-learning what they need to learn in their own time. I am thrilled!
Well we have been back for awhile and have found a groove that seems to work for us for the spring. We have two new bottle feed calves, a litter of kittens to care for. Samuel is finishing up a unit study on fractions using the Key To Series and reading the Star Wars Series. Joah is plugging along in all areas and finished his math for the year and has asked to move on to the new books already. Both boys finished their units on the Pacific Islands and created elaborate covers by using all the great literature they broght back from the trip. Nate is our little sponge and seems to thrive on bookwork right now-that is when he "feels" like it! Our plan for the moment ( ) is to keep going year round. I hate the pressure to be finished what we are doing. In fact at this time of year we seem to be behind, so if we just keep going we won't have the pressure of being behind in anything. We also tend to take a lot a breaks and last minute trips or when Dad is home we tend to do other things besides bookwork or other studies. By schooling year round and by this I mean gently schooling, we can just allow homeschooling to become a true part of our lives and a joy not something we "have" to do or get done.
As always the journey is ever changing so we will see how it goes.
Hopefully I will get around to posting a few pictures to warm everyone up!
We have been using gym time as our major PE outlet. Joah and Nate are looking forward to Soccer starting up soon. This is their first time playing.
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