Shared in Homeschooling
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After spending so many years homeschooling my children "by the textbook", I thought nothing could be "new" to me. Homeschool was just another job I had to do.
It wasn't "fresh" -- it was dry.
I found myself procrastinating with schooling. I didn't want to do it, each day. I probably enjoyed it less than my grumbling children! -- I would rather focus on the house, and keep on top of moment-by-moment needs. Our homeschool schedule was sporadic, at best, and the children "fell behind". The further they fell behind... the less I wanted to homeschool. It felt utterly hopeless!
I saw what the other children my youngsters' ages were doing, and knew what the school system counted for being "on target" for each grade-level. I just couldn't do it. It was too much. There simply weren't enough hours in my day... not with my houseful! I became depressed over it all, and felt like an utter failure!
The problem? -- My focus.
Ladies, I cannot urge you enough! Homeschooling can be fabulous! STOP worrying about where your child(ren) are at in their curriculums, and focus first on what they're learning about God! That is our first priority as parents. The rest will follow easily.
For your olders, make it a priority to implement a regular, daily "Quiet Time" in the Bible. Sit them down, beforehand, and tell them you will be assigning 15 minutes (or whatever you deem appropriate) per day Scripture reading, before regular schooling begins. Then, discuss ways they might use that time. Make sure they have a plan. You do not want them to face each day in the Word, not knowing what to read! There are many ways to study the Bible. Help your child pick one of them!
At our house, we use the kitchen timer. When the time is up, the oldest three are to write in a notebook the date and where they read that day. I've been pleased to note that the two oldest also include things that especially blessed them while reading. Points they want to remember.
We have also begun Scripture memorization again. It isn't as "deep" as what my husband had them doing, before (full chapters used to get memorized, one verse per day). But it's a daily thing.
I began a project for the four littlest children. But the three older children played a part, too. We had the 3 year old lie down on a large sheet of paper and then traced around her whole body. When she got up, the older children helped me to draw details, such as eyes, nose, clothing, etc... It didn't end up looking like our Nadia! But it did help us to create a more realistic form. The little ones helped color.
At the top of our "person", I wrote in large letters, Romans 12:1 "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."
Now, it was time for the older children to do some work. Using the concordance, they looked up every reference they could find that spoke about how we were to use our bodies in serving the Lord. We found references for the feet, the hands, the heart, our eyes, the stomach, the hair, clothing, etc... Each verse was written near the appropriate body part on our "person".
Now that this is finished, we have it hung and can use it daily for Scripture memorization, reading and example. The little ones love it! They will pick out, each morning, a body part, and we read the Scripture it goes with. They repeat the verse, and we talk about it.
I've also begun having the smaller children do daily Bible memorization. Even the three year old does a fair job with this! (The one year old pretends he does!). In addition, we use Proverbs flashcards, and our coloring books are Scripture-based.
The little ones and I talk about the stories in those Books. I ask them, "Have you heard the story about Jesus calming the storm, yet?", or "What did you think when you got to the part where Jesus fed all those hungry people with just a tiny bit of food? Wasn't that amazing?!" -- It makes them listen harder for that story the next time it's played!
I firmly believe that God will help our little ones to understand what is in His Word with our careful, diligent help!
We, as Christians, desire to have our children grow up with different morals, standards and priorities than their unbelieving peers. But, we also know they need to know certain things in order to function wholly as an adult. That's where basic education fits in.
I sat down one day with my homeschool notebook and created a detailed list of "goals" for each of my (school and pre-school aged) children. What did I think they needed to learn this year? I made this list as complete and practical as possible.
Once I was through, I decided there was no time better than the present to implement it. In the section of my homeschool notebook labeled "homeschool log", I wrote out a set of goals for that particular week, based on the "main goals" master sheet.
Now, I could refer to this "weekly goals" page when planning each day's lessons, in order to keep "on track".
Our lessons are very practical, and very simple. I do not know why I struggled so many years, when things could have been so much easier! We use our textbooks about 1/3 as much as we used to. And what I choose to assign out of them is very precise... and according to what I've listed on our master "goals" sheet.
For example, I noticed that much of the material in the upper-grade English text (Rod and Staff) we didn't need. Some of it the girls already knew, but most of it was stuff I knew they'd never actually need in the future. Diagramming sentences, for example, we skipped today... in favor of focusing, instead, on punctuation marks they were having trouble with (semi-colon, colon and hyphen marks).
Science and History used to be so boring for all of us. It was hard to get interested in the readings. I've been trying hard to creatively make the learning more pleasant, even fun!
For example, this week's "Science" involved having each older child choose a specific topic to learn about, take detailed notes on and then present to the others. It was their responsibility to teach the class. Before they presented their lesson, they were to have tests drawn up (along with an answer key!), for a closing activity. It was great! We all learned a lot and got a few giggles too!
As for our little ones -- they don't need seatwork as much as they do regular "doses" of time seeing, hearing and saying the alphabet, numbers, shapes and colors. Fifteen minutes can go a long way toward our smaller children learning to read and count easily!
We're learning more... and spending less time doing it! It's amazing to me!
I only wanted to share with you our testimony, as it's made such a difference to us all! There is a direct purpose to what we're doing each day, and the children (particularly the olders) are feeling themselves moving forward more quickly than they used to. They see the reasoning behind what they're learning now, whereas before they did not.
There's been a shift in all of our attitudes and there's a fresh, new enjoyment in learning... and living!
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