As soon as September hits I am the person who begins singing “It’s the most wonderful time of the year”. I genuinely believe it. My parents did a beautiful job at establishing traditions and bringing them back faithfully, year after year. That is a legacy that I plan on passing down to my children; we have a whole season to look forward to and not only the beautiful anticipation that is sparked when we know tradition but the reflection that comes with the winter season.
I love that fall and winter kick off the times of year where it’s chilly and we can wear sweaters and sit with our hot cups of whatever we prefer and it invites us to have quiet reflective moments. Whether or not we choose quiet reflection in this season is a whole other issue(an issue that I will only tackle for myself and not for everyone else). We have an opportunity to choose to revel in this season as well as take comfort in it.
How does this pertain to homeschool? Fair question!
The answer: It effects the attitude we approach it with.
The newness and excitement of the year has worn off. We’re in the thick of it now. Now optimists, bear with me, I don’t like to look at it this way either but my seven year olds eye rolling and grumbling has made this evident. I must face the truth, the school year is no longer shiny and new and we still have a lot of work to do(I didn’t mean for that to rhyme but I’m kind of proud of it).
So what do we do when the grumbling has started, the student is not jumping up and down with joy and our smiles are turned upside down as we experience their broodiness? Unfortunately, we cannot control our little cherubs emotion(weird, right?). However, we can be resolved to have fun. This can be tough as the monotony of the day and other peoples unhinged emotions do not always make this easy. I would even say, they make it completely painful at times! So this means that our resolve, thankfulness and general enjoyment must come from within.
This is not to say, take an approach of fakery. Kids can sense insincerity from a mile away. It is to say, you must see to it that you are continually on your own journey of learning and taking consistent steps to health in your own heart. This is a marathon, not a sprint. If you start now, this journey will look so much better this time next year than it does this year. This piece of the homeschool journey will not feed our instant gratification(not unlike most other parts of homeschool) nevertheless it is still worth the time and effort.
It is no secret that my trek to health and stability has been rooted in Christ, so naturally, that is the approach you’re going to hear from me.
I daily seek to nurture my heart and soul by turning it over to Christ. I go to His word in the mornings as this is the time that works best for me. I get to feed my soul with the word that is readily and easily accessible to me(unlike our brothers and sisters in the earliest centuries of the church). I do this with the intention to read in silent contemplation. The reality of that is my kids wake up whenever I wake up, so my daily time in the word looks like kids digging into the toy bin first thing in the morning, waking their sibling, whining that I didn’t cut up the right fruit for them that morning and 101 seemingly useless questions all before 7A.M. I’m imagining you cringing at the thought(possibly relating) and saying “what’s the point” and there was a time that I would whole heartedly agree with the doubt and dread of trying to focus intently on something other than the children. However, here’s why I persevere in waking up early, reading in the middle of chaos and having to take 101 deeps breaths before 7A.M:
I’m creating an environment for my own mind and heart and for my children where I come to the feet of Jesus no matter what’s happening around me. That means I get to have time daily meditating on God’s word. God’s not surprised that it’s not always peaceful. He wasn’t under the impression that my ADHD self would be able to flawlessly focus through prayer and reading. He’s not disappointed. He saw fit to make me this way, after all, and to make my children the way they are. He also tells the children to come. The fruit of this? I am growing in knowledge and understanding of God and my faith is growing with that understanding. I cannot stress this enough; to know Him is to love Him.
The other fruit from this is that my 7 year old is seeking to read her bible on her own. I’ve never told her that she NEEDS to do this, she’s just doing it. Our example matters.
To bring this point back around: This is in no way to toot my own horn, rather, I am pointing to the one who makes peace, patience and joy possible despite the circumstance. He is why I can show up with an attitude of victory rather than defeat. And on the days when I do show up already defeated, He is the one who reminds me that there’s grace for me when I inevitably fail my kids.
Our Daily Lives
Now that I’ve got my ramblings out of the way, I’ll share a little about what our days have been looking like.
Recitation:
We have been working on recitation more actively over the last couple months. This varies from day to day. The only thing we recite daily is the alphabet and their sounds. Through this recitation we took Lucy from the beginning of this year not having letter or sound recognition to reading. She is now reading out of her first start reading books! We are so excited for her.
Sometimes we recite an old verse or passage that we have learned, sometimes it’s the Lord’s Prayer. Recently Cecelia memorized a poem called Frogs At School by George Cooper. She chose to memorize it because the poem amuses her and she was able to use Memoria Press Curriculum’s copy book to aid in this effort. My kids love the feeling of successfully memorizing anything and I find it to help with overall retention.
Manner Of The Week:
Memoria Press provides manner of the week discussion topics. We like these because we can spend 1-3 days discussing the specific manner of the week. It’s such a fun activity and I like to make it interactive and funny if I can. We all get some laughs out of it while making it memorable. Something else that we incorporate sometimes is Manners by Aliki. It’s a fun book on the what and what not to do’s of manners and my kids and I often find the lessons heartfelt and amusing.
Art Recitation:
This portion has varied greatly from week to week. We always have a famous piece of art that goes with the extra-curricular reading for the week. This means sometimes we only look at the art cards, learn who painted it and in what era and that’s that. Other weeks we seek to learn who the artist was and what inspired his most famous works. Sometimes our art project for the week is trying artistic methods that this artist loved to use. Again, this is subject to how much we have going on throughout our weeks/days and my own capacity for taking on extra. Some of our most recent art pieces have been, Starry Night On The Rhyne by Vincent VanGoh, All Saints by Fra Angelico, and Jungle with Lion by Henry Rousseau
Read Aloud:
This is by far my favorite time in our school day! We read some picture books each week recommended by our curriculum package but if you need read around ideas look for living books or check the Charlotte Mason reading list. We also love to include a chapter read aloud and poetry when we can spare the time.
Bookwork:
This is the time where we go through whatever school books we have assigned for the day. One of the big reasons I chose Memoria Press curriculum is the ease of pulling out the teacher guide and having an agenda already written out for each day that is designed to grow them in math, phonics, handwriting and other necessary skills. It frees up so much of my time and head space to be able to follow an already laid out plan.
These school days last one and a half to three hours depending on what the agenda is for the day. Sometimes we choose to roll some of our work into the next day if I see that my kids have emotional needs that I must attend to. It’s not perfect, we sometimes have to improvise but that is one of the benefits of homeschool. We’re adjusting to our kids pace and giving them the freedom to learn without the pressure to keep up with someone else.
I hope this Homeschool Journal encourages you. It’s for a laugh, a sigh of relief or opening a door to someone that you may relate to. I hope you know that our days are never streamline, but His mercies are new every morning, apologies go a long way and perseverance is the name of the game.
With all my love, until December,
Lyndsey
The Crunchy Vagabond 