Earlier this week Hansel and I finished up the core lessons of requirement for homeschooling with the Arkansas Virtual School. We finished up with a great year. In previous posts, I told you about the ups and downs of homeschooling the lad. Overall, I would say that we both benefited greatly. He wrote his cooperating teacher a letter yesterday and let her know that he "might be back next year." I think he is still praying about it! :) He misses seeing his friends on the playground, but with ball season starting he is getting lots of recreation and so am I. I think we met our quota for the year already with talking with friends!
I labeled this post, "Bringing the heart back to homeschooling," because I feel like I have gone through the motions this year, but my HEART has not been in it 100%. I see the benefits of homeschooling him. . .character development, one on one time with my son, great student teacher ratio, etc., but I have struggled with keeping my heart enthusiastic and not just completing the goals.
As you can see from the picture, we have a bar that tells us how much we have completed. I don't know about you, but I am a goal-driven gal. You put a bar and a percentage in front of me letting me know that I have to complete it and I am all over it.
When I taught school and was in college for teaching school, I loved it. I thought of all of these creative ways to teach Roman Numerals, using spaghetti noodles to write spelling words and getting live worms out to see if they gravitate toward wet or dry environments. This year, on some subjects I have torn out worksheet after worksheet and set the timer. I guess you have to do that to some degree, but that is what my son will remember about this year. . .not about the creativity that we both crave.
All of this to say, I want next year to strike a balance of me saying, "you just gotta learn these verbs dude" and "lets see how this works. Let's get out the cooked spaghetti noodles to spell these words!!" I want my heart to be fully in it and fully aware of the teachable moments and the fun that we can have in learning together.
I am looking at teaching Hansel and Gretel and working part-time. BALANCE is going to be so key in this process. CREATIVITY is going to be necessary and HEART is going to be essential to keeping CREATIVITY in the picture. I think I can, I think I can.
With the Lord's strength!
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5 comments:
We all go through the ups and downs. This year has been particularly hard for me. We started off with some emotional issues (miscarriage and moving in to a new house in our home state), flittered on and off with illnesses, distractions, and WAY too much extra curricular stuff. It has been a blessing, but sometimes you just have to pull back and review (those goals) and say NO. I'm praying that at the end of the year we will have many great memories and the unfinished Math books won't be that big of a burden going in to next Fall. ;)
If you need to chat or need some creative ideas, shoot me an email.
Very cool! I actually am looking into homeschooling Isabella too! Being so new at all this just don't know how to really sort through all the curriculum. If you have any ideas,thoughts, etc...I would certainly welcome it!
I am just learning to grasp teachable moments and not do school at home, but homeschool!
Imagine trying to homeschool without the Lord? I don't know how people do it without Him honestly.
PS - my husband isn't a pastor he is a businessman and runs his own business from home. Things can get pretty crazy around here with us all in the castle. And my nephew moved in a few months ago. He is doing university. I used to think that I would marry a Pastor and be a Pastor's wife but God had other plans....... ;)
Very cool! I actually am looking into homeschooling Isabella too!By the way,I like custom mugs
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