God's World

 God's World
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

O World, I cannot hold thee close enough!
   Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
   Thy mists, that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour!  That gaunt crag
To crush!  To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,
          But never knew I this:
          Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart,--Lord I do fear 
Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year;
My soul is all but out of me,--let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

Week 7 in Review

My kindergarten teacher used to say every day at the lunch table "meats before sweets!" I think that phrase impacted my life far more than it should have...you'll understand why by the end of this post.

I must go through this cycle every year.  We have the week like I wrote about last time where everything kind of caves in, then make a course correction and find our groove again.  Except this week I made a couple simple changes that I have been wanting to make all along but for some reason, never have.  The first is that I got up two hours before the kids almost every day and spent a good hour in my own quiet time.  It made such a difference! The other change was that I decided to start every day by reading a book on a topic that we're studying, taking the Charlotte Mason approach.  I always try to read on topic as we go, but have never made it the priority, first thing in the morning after devotions.  Every morning this week, we all stayed parked on the sofa reading books after devotions,  and lo and behold...it was the best week we've had so far!  There was something about starting the morning with the calm, cozy blankets and warm snuggles, focusing on the beautiful illustrations in the books and talking about what we were learning, that made for a better start to the day.

I would like to think that I'm an effective educator--the math and writing and memory work goals are nearly always met each week, but I've always operated from a "save the best for last," or a "meats before sweets" mentality.  The stuff that we consider "fun" (i.e. history and science) gets done, but it always seems to be last on the list.  It is as if I am so concerned that the math and writing (meat) won't get done that everything else gets sacrificed (sorry, no time for dessert).  Looking back, this is such an upside-down, type-A personality way of thinking.  What is not "meat" about science and history?  And anyone who has seen the movie Chocolat can tell you that meats and sweets can certainly be served together!  The truth be known, as much math and spelling and writing got done this week as any other week, and all the fun stuff worked in as well!  The simple shift of having that time together served to bring everyone to a wonderful, calm and focused place where they were much more effective at getting the essentials done.  This week, the best got done first, and the other stuff got done as well! 

I am so thankful for the insight that I gained this week.  It is an answer to the cry of my heart that God would give us wisdom as to how we should best teach our children.  

Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
            Psalm 90:12

ETA:  I just watched this trailer and realized that perhaps I need watch Chocolat again...this preview may remind you to let go and taste the sweetness of life and forget about all the "shoulds."  

The Click!

So today, I heard a very satisfying "click" as my daughter sat beside me on the sofa and read page after page of her Pathway Reader.  She was crumbling under the weight of her other (unnamed) curriculum, so I borrowed some PRs from a friend and she seemed to take to it.  It was still a bit of a challenge, though, so I said, "how about just one page a day...that's all!" and she agreed.  So after a couple of weeks of just doing a page or two a day, today she read the new story from title to end all by herself, not sounding out words, and not stopping and asking if she could please be done.  At the end of each page I would ask her if she wanted to stop and she would say, "No way!  I want to keep going!"  Ahhh...the satisfaction of a child who finally gets it. 

At the end of every page she would stop and look up at me in amazement, as if she were congratulating ME, and then she would hug me and laugh, then quickly turn back to the next page and keep reading.  She is so excited.  I am thrilled.  Teaching a child the wonders of words on a page (as tedious as it can be) is so worth it when everything finally falls into place.  Congratulations, sweet Molly...you're a reader now!

Wordless Wednesday: How it Feels Sometimes to Homeschool

Week 6 in Review: Reaping the Results of Poor Planning!

Picture this...I'm sitting here at the computer with black stubble for hair (due to it having caught fire at various points in the week), circles under my eyes, and a black bubble over my head that says "HEADACHE."  I don't even need to tell you what has befallen me.  If you are a woman you already know.  If you're a guy, you're thinking, "Wow, busy week."  Part of it is part of the natural cycle of life, and part of this stems from the fact that last weekend was a busy four-day weekend which did not permit me time to properly plan for the school week that was to come.  The result was that the week went exactly the way I planned.

It's week 6.  I haven't one of those weeks yet that cause me to think "I'll really be glad when this week is over," until now.  I need to follow the advice that I've been giving myself for a couple of years now.

Stress is like pain.  When there is pain it is the body telling the brain, "Something is wrong, please send help."  Stress is like that, as well.  "Something is wrong...please send help!"

So let me look at this critically--what is wrong?  Can it be helped?  Well, I have some commitments that fall on this weekend, so that can't really be helped.  In what time is not committed I will plan the following week strategically so that I can try to make up for some of the time lost this past week.  A little extra sleep this weekend could help the problem, which mostly feels like extreme disorganization and a fair amount of exhaustion.

You may remember from a previous post that I tend to like to "play school" and have things go my way.  I've been working on letting go of the picture-perfect week but this was beyond that.  There is no blame to be placed for the circumstances really--we were tired, we were a bit busier than normal, and Dad was home (and we certainly aren't going to give up time with Dad when we have the chance to have him around!)  In fact, he was the best part of the week--he worked on math with Matty and got more accomplished with him in an hour than I felt like we did all week!  BUT...This is my lesson for the week:  Everything worked out according to plan.  That is, I didn't have one, so that's exactly what the week looked like.

So I spent some time with myself this evening re-working my plan sheets for myself and the kids.  In particular, I am trying to get Matty to be responsible for meeting the goals we set each week.  I've been a bit slack in having him do this the last couple of weeks, so I refreshed the goal sheet that goes in his "to do" folder, and here it is.  It's a landscape format page that can only be displayed this way on the screen.  Hope you don't strain your neck to read it!  The bottom three subjects are not divided into days because they are goal-based.  I allow him to finish when he has completed a certain number of pages, and he rarely does one subject in one sitting.  He will usually divide them up a little each day, but even so he has the option, and will just check them off when he is done.

I have learned from "winging it" that this does not work for me or my family.  Even so, I am not one of these people who can plan an entire school year and then just merrily work through the curriculum...I am a "tweaker," always changing things up a tad here and there, so such a plan wouldn't work for me.  I like to have a week-by-week plan. I have found that having something to fill out at the beginning of the week and refer to as we go helps me keep on track, even if I don't follow it to a tee.  It's more of an accountability for myself than anything.  Matty does extremely well if he can see a plan on paper and know when the work is done.  He experiences much less stress that way.

This basic plan has been working for me for a while, and this week I learned not to abandon it!

Worldless Wednesday: Renaissance Festival