So y’all know that we are homeschooling this year… in anticipation of the transition/adjustment to becoming a family of five, we thought it optimal to pull back and instruct our kids at home; essentially pre-Cocooning. We knew that going at our own pace would afford us the flexibility to take the girls along for three weeks in China and settle into our new life at home afterwards on our own schedule. Our hope is that having the girls home full-time will also aid in their attachment & bonding to New Brother once we’re all back in Montana.
Homeschooling was never a long-term plan for us. I don’t have a teaching degree and most days I feel woefully inadequate for such lofty a task. Yet God made me the mother of these precious children, entrusting them into my care– so why wouldn’t I be capable, and dare I say best-suited, to oversee their education? To us, it was the logical choice for so momentous a year.
That being said- I love it. I really do. There are days when, truthfully, I want to yank my hair out (which I have deduced is why homeschooling mothers traditionally secure their hair in rigid top-knots on their craniums), but overwhelmingly I am loving being with them and learning alongside them. We have wonderful curriculum that we have pieced together (Apologia Science, Mystery of History, Singapore math, and our own reading/writing/penmanship/spelling plans, piano, choir, music theory, basketball, ballet & Awanas.) that has proven challenging yet enjoyable. And seriously, it’s embarrassing how much I have learned. I was forever being corrected for talking incessantly and not paying attention in class growing up, and apparently I missed quite a bit. For instance, did you all know that a day on Mercury is longer than a year?! Yes? Oh, okay. Yeah… me too…
At this point, I can’t bear the thought of sending them back to formal school outside of our home next fall, but we are waiting to make a firm decision until after New Brother is home and we have a solid picture of what would work best for the whole family. We are taking things a year at a time, and our mantra has become “Go with the flow!”. It’s been stretching for us to remain in the moment and refrain from jumping ahead to next year, the year after, and so on.
In our Homeschool we stress the 3 R’s: Reading, wRiting, & aRithmatic, (Why do they call them the Three R’s, really?) but our favorite studies have been the astronomy curriculum we are doing for Science, as well as History. We spend a lot of time writing letters to friends and family, creating art that we tailor to current lessons, playing Legos, completing puzzles, and consistently losing (me) at Uno. Here are some recent photos of school…
Edible models of the earth, core, mantel & crust. Ignore the pj’s.
This is what our resident Class-Clown noted from my oration of their Moon unit. We headed to the planetarium shortly thereafter.
What may look like a mere pile of toys is actually the smoldering ruins of the ancient city of Troy. Please note the Gift-Horse, under whose belly three Polly Pockets snuck in, secured to a hair-tie, to lay siege to the Trojans and reclaim the beautiful Helen [Rapunzel]. The reenacted battle was pretty epic. *smile*
After our lesson on God’s miraculous provision for the Israelites during their 40 year wanderings through the desserts of the Sinai Peninsula, the girls ran upstairs to make their beds. When they returned there was REAL MANNA on the ground for them to collect. (Which also happened to be gluten-free and organic.)
This was a mom-win, if ever there was one. To motivate the girls to read we held an impromptu book-a-thon (read-a-thon?) one day this week. They got a tally for each book or chapter they completed and fell for it hook, line & sinker. Their prizes? A new book each from the bookstore.
***No adoption update this week, still waiting on our Article 5, which we expect any day now. I love waiting. Seriously, it’s my favorite.
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