Well, as much as I planned and planned for this school year, I could never plan for our life events. I knew the start day of school and curriculum and students, though. Yes, we did start on time, but family events have taken all of my extra time. I'm just popping in to try to get back to normal again. As time goes by and the intensity of the situation is much less, I may elaborate some day. For now, I can say there's been a shift and our family unit of 4 is still in tact and growing stronger daily. We have seen God at work all around us and He is mighty and amazing!!!
We are in the middle of week 5 of school. There is so much to say about this school year already and little time to do so. I am loving our curriculum choices that I mentioned in our last post. I am going to order the newer versions of Learning Language Arts through Literature for next year, though. I am ending up making my own workbook type pages almost every night and that is getting tiring. That is kind of the price I paid for "free" books. The cost will be less than $50 per kid and I will reuse the teacher book for my youngest in a few years.
We forgot to take first day of school pictures. We forgot to mark our height on our measuring stick. We haven't gotten a chance to go on a field trip yet or family vacation, but we are learning and loving! The beauty of home school is that we can be flexible and missed opportunities can turn in to lessons. I like to have things a particular way and not getting my way all the time is valuable for me as well to know Who is really in control. Can chaos be an answer to prayer? YES! The best part about it is, that we get to see God at work as He brings chaos into order. That's been His gig from the beginning of the world.
Today's family lesson was unplanned, but very valuable for us. In health we've been talking about feelings and being a friend. We had a fun class to learn how to actively listen. We mirrored each other and I role-played a bad listener and a good listener. We were all enjoying that part, but when we sat down to discuss why we did the role plays, my kids laid on the floor, started kicking each other and it was as if I hadn't been teaching them how to listen. I tried to gather their attention and then dropped the books on the floor to get a bang sound. It was intense for a few minutes. I left the room for a few minutes and prayed. I came back with the solution which escalated the tension too. I made the kids take out their journals and write a page with complete sentences on what it means to listen and how we can become better listeners. My kids both hate writing in their journals and doing creative writing. Well, after another 30 minute or so meltdown and calls to Daddy, they successfully wrote in their journals in their own style and we could move on with the day. This has turned into a great day for our other lessons and now I have a new and creative way of discipline for during the school day.
Now if my kids start to enjoy writing in their journals I won't be able to use it as punishment, but I will be happy because it will be another obstacle that is overcome. By the end of the page, both of my kids were proud of how much they wrote and said that it was pretty easy so maybe this detest for writing will soon be over. Obviously I am not lacking for words.
Hello 2012-2013 school year! We are going to get through this with great results!
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