Be Still, Have Faith, & Teach On!

You would think that for as many years as I have been Homeschooling I would have a good schedule figured out by now. Alas, I still have to work with our subjects each year to find a good fit for us.  I guess because we grow and change, so must our schedule.  So, we rearranged a little this week and the flow of our day went much better.  Here is our new schedule: Morning school: Bible Science Math Lunch break and Recess Afternoon school: Read Aloud/Literature Study History Language Arts Notice what still isn't in there...PE/Exercise. Thus you must realize this is still a mom fail.  I'm blaming it on my Hashimotos and some other health issues I've been having.  I had blood work done this past week, so hopefully next week I will have some answers. Until then, I will continue to make it a bigger priority to get it added to our day.  My children are by no means sedentary, but I would like for them to have some structured PE time. This week in Bib...

This week had some tough spots. We made it through both the highs and the lows though! Monday and Tuesday were hard school days. We have learned that we have to make better choices through the day to be able to enjoy our free time.  We have also realized that our time is precious.  There are not any activities we want to stop, therefore we have to choose to use our time wisely. This week we finished our Bible study called "Peaceful Home" and I have used the 3 keys to obedience as a gentle reminder through the week. Now I just have them tell me the three keys, immediately, completely, joyfully, when they are not obeying and it solves the problem. No more frustration, emotionalism, or raising of voices. God is good.  We also read the beginning part of "Walking through the Wardrobe." Guys it sounds amazing, we are looking forward to starting it next week. In math each child did a couple of lessons in their Saxon math and worked several pages in their Minecraft...

I'm so proud of my children. They are growing up so fast, they are turning into such lovely young people. I enjoy every minute I get to spend with them. Here are our first week of school pictures. Logan 8th grade Savannah 6th grade Lillian 3rd grade Here is a picture of our classroom for this year.  It is probably a pretty typical home school setting.  For us, it will be quite different.  We have always had a separate room just for our classroom with desks, posters on the wall, timelines, number charts, etc. Last year our classroom was in a separate building from our house, it didn't work so well. It took lots and lots of thinning down, but we finally got our essentials moved to our living room. We spent this first week discussing our plans for the year, getting everyone's calendars up to date, getting familiar with our new curriculum, and learning our new schedule. Everyone did some work this week.  Dad has been reading this book aloud before b...

Guys I just can't hardly believe summer is over.  This has been probably the busiest summer we have ever had. I don't really feel that we got any rest this summer! It was a great summer though, we accomplished a lot around the house, took several family trips, and the kids had lots of summer social events and learning activities. The last two weeks are kinda a blur, but here are the highlights! The summer reading program finished up with lots of prizes and singing and tooth fairies.  The girls really liked going and Logan enjoyed his first volunteer opportunity. Logan is still going to the teen reading club, his assignment this week was to design a guitar based on a book.  He chose to decorate his guitar with ideas from The Chronicles of Narnia. Logan also went fishing with his grandparents and he had another day of trap shooting at the range with dad. The girls had a 4H meeting.  They each gave a talk on pet care, Lillian talked about ...