Aug. 15, 2005
God is good
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I
really am blessed to be homeschooling. I don't always think so,
and yet I know it. Today was a day when I was shown again how
great my God is. Simple things like teaching my children their
science lesson and having them be amazed at how cool God made them
(we're studying the brain this week).
Last Friday, I got to go back in time myself while going over division w/ds1. Divide, multiply, subtract, compare, bring down. WOW did that make me feel like a kid again. The strangest things can take you back sometimes :-). Watching my children write and illustrate their own books together is very inspiring and reminds me to not squelch certain things just because I am being thoughtless. Now, not to say that I can't say "time to stop drawing and get ready for dinner." or whatever, but if I'm asked "Mom, can I do Mountains of Green with Edge?" and I have no real reason to say no, then I shouldn't. BTW, if anyone ever sees a children's series or collection called "Mountains of Green," you'll know it was written by my oldest son and illustrated by my surprisingly artistically gifted daughter :-). I'm also seeing that where I've given good things to my older kids, I've neglected my youngest. More because I see him as a "baby" still when I didn't the others, but it's not really an excuse. While I know that each of them is different, it makes me sad to note that my youngest does not have the same concept of spiritual things that my oldest did at this age. Not at all. And he doesn't wish to know, either. Edge did wish to know and he would ask. I realize that has a lot to do w/the fact that we cultivated it. So even though we've done Bible verses w/Nikol and continue to do so, I'm trying to make it a point to talk to him more about things and I've been reading him a story from the Beginner's Bible every night. Just me and Nik. Edge used to and still does blow my mind w/his discernment and/or understanding of various concepts. Nikol sends my eyebrows shooting towards the ceiling w/his interpretations of spiritual things :-D. He has, for some time, been utterly convinced that God lives on the moon. It is almost a superstitious thing for him, because he'll get very distraught if he can't see the moon, thus, in his mind meaning he can't "see God." He has been completely not open to any other idea of where God is. Last night, however, he mentioned the moon thing to me again and I said that God doesn't live on the moon. I've been telling him more recently that God the Father lives in heaven and so does Jesus, who is God the Son (I know this is a huge concept, but the more I repeat it....), but God's Spirit, Who we call the Holy Spirit, lives in our hearts, so He is always with us. So he asks me "So is God sleeping?" and I told him that no, God never has to sleep. His reply was "Ohhhh, cuz He doesn't have any bed or any house? That's why He's not sleeping?" Sigh. Big Sigh. LOL. He did hear on a video dh and I were watching (because he got up and came into the living room, which is why we were having the whole discussion in the first place) that "God hates sin" and that everybody sins. So he was talking about that w/me and saying that God hates sin, but Jesus doesn't. Now my thoughts have skipped back to school stuff again and since I'm only writing for me, I guess it doesn't matter. About halfway through last school year, I researched and chose a spelling program for Edge that I was happy about. I tried to get into w/him last year and we didn't get very far. This year, I was going to do it better. Well, I've done it with him (not as much as I wanted, but more than before) and looked ahead in the teacher book and I just hate doing it. I totally agree w/their method and I actually chose it because it was based on the same rules we teach the kids phonics with, but it's not helping me teach my son how to spell. So I did what I felt was caving and ordered A Beka Spelling & Poetry 3. I am beating myself up mentally over it, because I feel like a cop-out in this area now. But I also don't really see huge improvement in my son's spelling because the other program is *not* teaching him how to spell. It's reinforcing and building on the phonics rules he already knows. Not a bad thing, but not what I was looking for right now. Oh well. So half of me feels relief that I will be just doing something that is traditionally "spelling," while the other half of me is frustrated w/myself that I didn't make this other program work. I'm keeping it for now, because I think I might like to use it w/Brynna when she's done learning the phonograms. It might be a better place to start for her than where Edge did. But it is almost 11pm now and my thoughts have meandered for long enough lol. I need to try to go to bed at a decent time for a change. And then maybe I can get up early enough to have a Bible reading/prayer time that's quiet and not when anyone else is up to distract me from it ;-). |
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