New school year, new... everything.

"The only constant in life is change" is how the old quote goes.
 

I tend to agree.

Just when you think you have a handle on something, it's very likely to change.

Or be changed for you.

So it goes with homeschooling.

I faced this year with another first: three kids in school.

I needed a new plan.

So I got one.

First I need to say that Sonlight served us well for these four years I used it. I actually mourned the passing of Sonlight through our lives, and it made me feel better that Laney was sad too. The upside is that I was able to keep so much of what we had used to use again, and I will continue to use their books for years to come. I still recommend that curriculum highly. I doubt that I would have had the success with homeschooling thus far if not for them.

Great. Now I'm sad again.

Here's where we push forward.

The curriculum I've chosen for us now is "Tapestry of Grace."

You can learn more here:

Tapesty of Grace

This curriculum follows the Classical mode of educating. This method of teaching is outlined and explained fully in The Well Trained Mind by Jesse Wise and Susan Bauer Wise.

I always wondered why people called it their "homeschool bible," and now I know. I very nearly carry it around with me now.

To make a long story short, this year we are studying "Year 4" which is the Modern Period of history. And with this curriculum, I'll teach the Modern Age to all the kids with appropriate books and information for each.

This is almost the opposite of what I was doing, which was teaching two separate curriculums with Sonlight to two different kids. I knew that I couldn't do that with three kids. It is possible to teach one Sonlight year to mulitple kids, and they provide plenty of help for people who choose to go this route had I chosen to do that. Or been able to choose that.

God just had other plans for us.

I've decided that Him keeping me in over my head is His way of keeping me desperately depending on Him.

So that's one reason why after four years, we had to change everything.

I'm not bitter.

okay maybe a little

It will all be fine. Better in fact that anything I could do on my own. One day I'll realize that God's Plan B is so much better than my Plan A was.

So for kindergarten Zane, we are working through the "Bob Books." It's my fault that the kid can't read yet. Both of the other ones were reading at least "One Fish Two Fish" by the time they were in kindergarten. I'll make myself feel better by reminding my self that not only was he the third kid, and I was busy teaching the other two kids, most of the time I was trying to keep Zane from doing me in. 

That and he's almost a year younger than Laney was when she started K, almost six months younger than Jude was. 

Eh, I'll get over it, and he'll learn to read, and we'll all be just fine.

He's also using "Explode the Code," which worked so well for my other two. In fact, Jude still does the harder books and loves them.

Last year, in third grade, we added Latin for Laney. This is also a recommendation of the Classical method.

We didn't completely get through with the first book last year since we didn't start until the second semester. I found Levels 1 and 2 at a garage sale, and that was pretty much why I chose this particular curriculum, but it has been wonderful and amazing. There is a DVD of a nice lady who teaches the lessons, an audio cd for review, a student workbook and a teacher book also. Laney is learning it so quickly, and that's in large part due to how well laid out this curriculum is.

Yeah, I haven't used the teacher book, but she hasn't needed me too. I really wanted to learn Latin with her, but that was not feasible. Or possible, probably. I have an old brain.

Spelling for the big kids this year is Spelling Workout. There is a level for each grade, and the kids are really enjoying this so far. I'm pleased with it.

Language Arts is coming from First Language Lessons. I am using Level 1/2 for Jude, who is in second grade, and Level 3 for Laney, who is in fourth grade. They were weak in Language Arts, and so I bumped them back a year. I am really pleased with this curriculum. They both like it, and I find it easy to use and easy to understand, but challenging enough for them also.

For vocabulary, we are using "Wordly Wise." This is certainly not necessary, but my kids love workbook type exercises, and this curriculum is challenging yet they like doing it. I also like to have them doing constructive things while I work with Zane.

Bible was one of the areas that I really missed Sonlight. I did decide to get the book that Laney would have used for fourth grade in Sonlight and let her use it in her morning devotional time. I am trying to get the big kids used to having a private morning devotional time by establishing this as part of our morning routine. 

For Bible,  I am using our church's Family Worship guide, for several reasons. It reiterates and expounds on the sermon from the Sunday before. It's also amazing how much work our church has put into making what ends up being a perfect part of our Bible part of school. There is a song, Scripture reading and discussion, and a prayer guide for praying for our church, local needs and global needs.

You can check it out here:

Family Worship

{{{I am so incredibly thankful for our church. I can't say that enough.}}}

Along with Family Worship, we are continuing to use the Harrow Family's scripture memory song cd's. Laney is about to finish year 3, which means that she has now memorized approximately eighty scriptures, which include passages like Psalm 1, 42, and 8 among others.

I would like to add that my old brain has also memorized these along with her. It's amazing how the verses we memorize come to mind when they are needed. Or how I can pull them up when I need to.

The one downside to memorizing with music is that I do have to think in order to say the verses instead of singing them, and at times have resorted to singing them. Yep.

That is one disadvantage with this, and so I have tried to also start encouraging memorization without music. Not excelling there yet, but we are working on it.

 I also have found other books on my bookshelf and in the local library that tie in with what we are learning at church. This book on Paul is an example. I just now have to use my (old) brain to plan instead of just going by a checklist, which is what I used to do.

I have also found that if my kids are coloring on the coloring sheets that come with family worship, they listen much better when I am reading longer passages of Scripture or from books. I have started finding coloring sheets that correspond with what we are learning. Even the big kids like that. 

We are also reading the "Jesus Storybook Bible." I don't have words to describe how much I love love love this book. Love it. We may just read it over and over again.

Science was another place where I really missed Sonlight. On the recommendation from a friend, I ordered from the "Christian Kids Explore" series. In the Classical method, you rotate sciences every four years also. This year is Physics for us, which is laughable since I never took physics. But elementary physics is completely doable, and I'm really excited about this. I also got Janice VanCleave's Physics for Every Kid free from PaperBack Swap  and we will use it also.












So far handwriting has included copying the Bible memory verse for the week for the big kids. This is a great way to make your own copy work sheets. Zane is of course working on his name, letters and numbers.

Math is the one thing that stayed the same. I am using Saxon Math again this year. It has worked well for us, and although Jude is way ahead and Laney is behind, we still all enjoy the layout of this curriculum, and I was happy to stay with it. A sweet friend blessed us with the next year's anyway, so when something is free, we are probably going to stick with it!

I do have a Spanish curriculum for the computer that I need to start using. I also had a head-smack moment this morning that I needed to add yet another thing to our day, which I am working on a blog post about. That will be soon...

I think that's it for now. I do keep adding and rearranging things, but for this week, this is what we are using!

First Day of School

It was a very exciting day. 

It was Zane's first day of kindergarten. 

And Jude's first day of second grade. 

And Laney's first day of fourth grade.

And Mom's Mrs. Teacher's first day of a new curriculum and no teacher's guide to follow. (I make my own now.)

So...

Here we go!

I am completely unorganized, don't have all the books we need, and need about two more weeks to prepare. (The summer wasn't long enough. Apparently I was in denial about school actually starting.)

Despite all of that, it was a good day. Zane's memory verse, Romans 3:23 "All have since and fall short of the glory of God..." sparked a discussion about the concept of original sin and whether or not the "age of accountability" is actually found in Scripture, both of which I wasn't anticipating.

They keep me on my toes. 

And on the way home from errands, the five year old yells from the backseat, "MOM! What's redemption?"

He keeps quizzing me on Jesus returning and the new heaven and the new earth too. 

So. 

I'm a little tired. 

I'm struggling to get my footing with this new curriculum, but after doing this for a couple of years, there is a laidbackness that I have managed to lasso after a lot of past time spent stressing out. 

It's all good. We'll settle in.

After school and errands, we popped popcorn and put in a new movie. (Someone ate my popcorn, which was fine. I had chocolate instead. It was, after all, the first day of school. I deserved chocolate.)

The kids choose a special treat of Phineas and Ferb macaroni and cheese at the store yesterday, and swallowing my food-snobbiness, I am going to happily cook it for them for dinner. 

And I'm really, really glad tomorrow is Friday.

The Last Day of Summer

I was mourning the passing of summer. Officially we still had weeks still to go on the calendar, and even longer as far as the weather goes, but school was starting, and that meant no more longs days of fun and sun. 

I was sad. 

My baby kid was starting kindergarten. For the next 13 years, school would be in session.

If I think on that too long, I'll be really, really sad.

Instead of being sad, we decided to send summer off at one of our favorite places. This was the first summer that all the kids could swim well, and we spent a lot of time at the pool. It seemed the perfect place to kiss the summer good-bye. 

Consolation

She looked at me appraisingly with bright blue eyes - young, bright and carefree.

"Do you work?" she asked, studying me well.

I was caught off guard. It had been a while since I had heard that question.

"Oh, no. I stay home with them..." I nodded to my kids who were bouncing nearby. 

"Oh," she said. 

She paused a moment. 

"Well, that's a full time job..." 

Her words trailed off (I heard the unspoken "sort of" in there) and I turned my gaze full on her as I decided how to respond. 

How could she know? 

I chose kindness. 

"Yeah, it is. But it's good, and I'm thankful I get to stay home with them."

That's all she wanted to hear. Actually I'm not sure she made it through the entire sentence, but though no fault of her own. Her sweet youthfulness prevented her from even pondering for a moment what it might be like to "stay at home with kids."

And who can blame her?

Later in the day I reflected on the emotions that the conversation had stirred in me.

What I really wanted to say was, "No, actually this is like having four full time jobs (you know, since most jobs are 40 hours and there are 168 hours in a week.)  And there is no clock out time, no sick days, no personal days, no lunch breaks and no monetary benefit. Oh, and no vacation days, and no weekends."

I am so glad I didn't say that. 

(Thankfully I can't do math that quickly, so even if I had wanted to say all that I couldn't have. There you go. My lack of quick math skills actually worked to my benefit. I'm waiting for the benefit of the lack of spelling skills to kick in any day now.)

So why did I feel the need to go there? 

Even to myself?

Was it because it had been a hard week? Was it because I was staring down another school year fully aware of all of my inadequacies as a teacher, much less as a mother? Was it because I was tired? Worried? Stressed? Wondering how my kids were going to turn out in the grand scheme of life?

Probably.

And maybe I was tired of staying at home with my kids being viewed as a second hand occupation. Sort of a consolation prize. 

My second favorite question is, "What will you do after they are gone? Will you work then?"

You know, stop sucking up resources and actually start contributing to society again? Pulling your weight? Do something worthwhile?

That's my other favorite. 

Oh, I already said that.

Usually I tell people (on a good day) that when my youngest has graduated from high school I will be 52 years old. (You don't want to know how long it took me to figure that number out or what that number did to my... everything.)

So at 52 I will have been out of the workplace for a grand total of 23 years. My degree will be obsolete, as will any job, resume or experience I may have had before I had kids.

I'm sure employers will be knocking down my door.

And I thought of all the 50 somethings that were in college with me. They messed up all the grading curves since they were actually motivated to be there and weren't messing around. (I was too, for that matter, but dang, those ladies knew how to study. They blew us away every single time.)

I guess that's why they were there. Their children had sauntered off into the sunset, leaving behind a mother who had cleaned, nursed, chauffeured, cooked, and cared for them for more than 18 years and left behind an exhausted and used up woman who then had to figure out what they were good for now.

Or at least that's what it looks like from this vantage point. 

You know, looking ahead. 

All this doesn't change anything, really. I know with out a shred of doubt that I can where I am supposed to be. I know that no matter how bad at this job I am, no matter how many horrific days we have, no matter how much I ask God, "Are you SURE about this?" and no matter how many times the Accuser tells me that I'm messing my kids up irreparably, I will keep on. 

And no matter how many times people look at me sympathetically when I say I am a stay at home mom, (and boy the sympathetic looks my kids get when I tell them we homeschool) I will stand strong in this calling.

And you know why? Mostly because I know the work God is doing in me because I stay home.

That's the secret that they don't know or probably even care about. 

And He's training up an army in this house. He's going to use it for His glory, and we are simply getting ready for that, working hard while we're waiting, being used all the while, but knowing that our efforts are not in vain. We are creating a foundation in Him that will never be shaken. We are forming bonds as a family that will never be broken. We are seeking him as a family. We are learning about Him and all His ways. We are devoted to Him in thought, word, action and deed. And though it's hard and there are days I want to give up, run and hide, I keep on. I persevere because I know that I am not operating in the temporal. I'm building eternal things in this house. Things that will live on for an eternity. All for His glory. 

So that makes it a little easier to smile when asked this disheartening question. 

To say, 

"Yeah, I get to stay at home with my kids. And I'm glad..."

And really mean it.

Ouch

First let me preface my "ouch" with this paragraph:

"...We don't like people who seem to be enamored with their own intelligence or strength or skill or good looks or wealth. We don't like scholars who try to show off their specialized knowledge or recite for all all of us their recent publications. We don't like businessmen who talk about how shrewdly they have invested their money and how they stayed right on top of the market to get in low and out high. We don't like children to play one-upmanship (Mine's bigger! Mine's faster! Mine's prettier!). And unless we are one of them, we disapprove of men and women who dress not functionally and simply, but to attract attention with the latest styles..."

I already had my toes, which were encased in my most recent favorite pair of new cute shoes, stepped on. 

Maybe I'd better think on this for a minute.

But there was no time. 

It went right on, this book.

"Why don't we all like that? I think at root it's because such people are inauthentic. They are what Ayn Rand calls "second-handers." They don't live from the joy that comes through achieving what they value for its own sake. Instead, they live secondhand from the compliments of others. They have one eye on their action and one on their audience. We simply do not admire second-handers. We admire people who are secure and composed enough that they don't need to shore up their weaknesses and compensate for their deficiencies by trying to get compliments."

So I cocked an eyebrow at myself and asked myself the question, 

"Is this you, Amy?"

And what does my love of social media say to this?

I'm still thinking...

Say what?

100 Most Mispronounced Words

Just bookmarking this here for future reference.

(I hope I pronounced all of those words correctly. Now I'm second guessing everything!)

Gossip

Just putting this here for me to find again later. But it's a good read. Or a necessary read. So read it. And now you know where to find it again!

Gossip (link)