I haven't been very faithful on this blog, but now that we've "officially" started our school I will try to update about once a week. We started school the day after Labor Day. I went by the way we did it when I was young, not starting mid-summer like public schools do now. Anyway...
I thought I had to have our schedule, our lesson plan, and everything else in place before we could start. What a lot of pressure! I asked several people to pray for us as we prepared to begin. And now that it is Friday of our first week (WOO HOO!) I see things a little bit differently. Yes, it helped to have the plans mapped out, it gave me a reference point. But as we were playing a math "game" that I made up on the spur of the moment to teach a concept my children were not grasping, I realized something. I don't want to be so focused on keeping to our preplanned lesson schedule that I forget to make sure they are actually LEARNING.
The whole reason I am homeschooling is so that my children learn and grow and become fulfilled adults who can be generous with their gifts. They are lovingly placed into my hands by God who created them to be individuals. To set up a year-long school plan without room for deviation is useless. Our school plan is our compass, not our ship.
I also see that I have truly been "schooling" them since the day they were born. I didn't have a lesson plan that told me what to do each day, they didn't take tests. They didn't progress from one milestone to the next because someone said, "this is required today."
I'm exhausted, and I love this, and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
