We Survived the First Week of Homeschooling!
We survived! I survived. As you can tell since I am writing to you today on this beautiful Monday.
I didn’t know if we would or if I would. I was a bit nervous and afraid, even my kids were too, as you can tell if you read my previous post on The Fear & The Faith of a Call to Homeschool. But here we are, taking it one day at a time and enjoying this beautiful wintry season with slow homeschooling.
I didn’t add a lot of pressure because that is one thing I know the Lord told me not to do. God never gave us a spirit of stress or fear, 2 Timothy 1:7, instead He gave us power, love, and a sound of mind.
Here is what we covered to start this wintry season of homeschool last week:
Together we all began the day with our Bible Class by reading on Gods Character, which we read last week of Him being Holy, True, and Good. We also read the story of Mary and Jospeh, the significance of why it’s important for Jesus to come dwell, and so much more! Together, for science, reading, spelling and vocabulary, we began learning about wintry animals and their anatomy. Learning who eats what, if and why they hibernate, where they live. They enjoyed every bit of this!
Then we individually began certain work as each person is needing help with their own subjects in their grade level.
For our ninth grader, she began to pick up her Spanish as she was taking Spanish 2 in High School. Geography, learning the Middle East and their cultures and settings. She also wanted to learn more of Algebra so she began to pick up on that. She began the Bible Reading of Lies Young Women Believe and she started to learn more of the world map. Her other curriculums are on the way, they took a while to ship but that is okay! We are excited for them to come in, the Good and Beautiful curriculum on writing and grammar along with history.
Our fifth grader began to learn more on fractions and multiplication. We worked together helping her to understand them before moving onto another part of math. She began to learn more of pronouns and adjectives. She also has been working on cursive! She is so excited for it!
Our first grader began to learn about pronouns, how to sound out words when reading, finding number patterns, subtraction and writing full sentences.
Our Kindergartner began to learn more of her numbers, learning to add and group numbers, along with learning to follow directions on what each paper says to do. She has learned shapes and how many sides each one has along with learning sight words.
Each day lasted about 3-4 hours no more than that. While Friday, we enjoyed being at the library! They checked out books of what they wanted to learn more about such as weather patters, animals, cultural backgrounds, etc.
But during last week, I probably drank too much coffee, but I survived and we made it the first week of homeschool. I have realized that our homeschool will not be the same schedule as public school or even look like the other homeschooling parents. And that is okay! There is nothing wrong with that. We needed to, and still will, find our rhythm on what works best for us and my children.
I did not wake them up at 6:20 like they would when they attended public school. But I did ensure they had an alarm to wake up so we can begin. I did not let them get stressed, I would let them take a breather and play with play dough or some sort of hands on activity or even go outside until they felt better. We did play soft melodies of worship songs in the background as it seemed to help them concentrate. We did what we could on the first week of homeschool without feeling burnt out that week or exhausted.
Why have them feel stressed when God never places anything on our shoulders giving us stress? He tells us different, “come to me all who are weary and heavy burden and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28-30. When we face trails and sufferings, what do we do? Do we add more pressure? Do we ignore it and keep going? We are to take it all to the Lord. Come to Him. Allow Him to give the peace that surpasses all understanding and be at rest in Him.
Homeschool. I can’t do it without Him. And I saw that today. We all did.
Today, on this Monday, I do feel tired. But not from homeschool. Tired from the sleepless nights over the weekend from two babies who feel icky. Our poor babies had this runny nose, ugly cough and to top it off… teething! Oh those back teeth. BUT hey! They hit their milestones, one baby getting on all fours ready to crawl and not army crawl and the other rolling around! Praising the Lord for these huge milestones for our baby boys!
So friend… I survived the first week of homeschool all by the grace of God. And I am thankful. So thankful!
Today… want to know what happened real quick?
The morning started off like this:
Mom waking up late, 7 o’ clock, made her a cup of coffee, read her bible and did her study on the I AM Statements, read more of the Bible, kids woke up and came to watch Bluey for a bit while mom setup the table for homeschool.
We got hungry so we made omelettes. We saw the time and needed to get ready. We all got ready, headed out the door at 9:30 to be at the boys dentist for their appointment. Waited, were seen, then we needed to head to Walmart for dog food, milk, you know, the things. But first, mama needed coffee so Starbucks it was. And a bad choice it was. It hurt my head after. Arrived at Walmart, got what was needed then headed home. Unpacked, unloaded, then we began to get started on our bible study. Then out of no where… Elizabeth cries as I lay the boys down for a nap.
Unsure of why she was crying, heck she didn’t even know why either, I felt a sudden urge to put on worship music, pause our homeschool, head to the living room to sit and worship together as a union. And so we did. And immediately everyone was feeling better. So we got back to our bible class and began our homeschool.
But this was the beauty of me seeing that each day WILL indeed look and be different. And that it IS okay to pause to get ourselves together. Because when our minds and our hearts are spinning and we just can’t seem to figure out what is going on, it’s our inner self crying out in need of Jesus. To just be in Him.
And this right here, this beautiful morning of us holding hands on our knees in worship, its all my heart wanted for my family. To have them come to Jesus in times they feel emotional and are unsure why. To have them rely on Jesus in anything they face. And to know that Jesus sits with us when we sit with Him, embracing who He is.
I don’t need to feel rushed when there is PLENTY of time throughout the day. I don’t need to hurry and get things shoved in their brains. There is plenty of life to live than to shove it all in their brain. Each morning must be started with Him, Jesus. And allow Him to lead the day with the subjects and/or activities that is needed for the day. It is something He is showing me in this homeschooling, the need to uproot the Americanized mind I once had to have a mind filled with Christ, leading my family and children to Christ in all that we do.
Although I survived last week and it was tremendous, I also learned that today, today was one that marked my heart for life. Reminding me that this week may not look like last week, and it’s okay! That tomorrow prolly won’t even look like today. And that is okay too! But to begin each homeschooling day according to His will. And that we can survive homeschooling with Christ at the center of each day and subject.
We survived. I survived. And we will continue to survive with Christ in our homeschooling.