Learning Lessons Along the Way

The simple act of living life brings many a lesson along the way.  No institutional education can even come close to doling out the important lessons we experience in actively, or even inactively for that matter, living our lives.  Lord knows I've learned some real lessons the really hard way.  For many years it seemed, at least it felt that way, that I learned EVERYTHING the hard way, and often the really hard way.  Profound and life altering lessons like the value of purity, the sanctity of marriage, the importance of honesty and integrity, the value of friendship, and the tremendous value of family.

Thankfully, those lessons are behind me, and praise God I learned from them; some quicker than others in all truthfulness.  From there I graduated to the next level of lessons including the fact that things rarely ever go as we plan them.  Life will throw us quick and fast curve balls that will test our faith and challenge our endurance.  A time, or two or ten, will come where we will NEED to sink or swim.  We will tire, rest, recharge, and kick back into high gear.  As long as we have faith we truly CAN see anything, anything, through to the other side.

Lately, I have been reflecting a lot.  I rather enjoy it.  Yes, my life has been pummeled by round after round of challenges.  Sometimes it feels like I've barely caught my breath from the last circumstance, and there's already another huge challenge coming through my front door.  More than once I've felt there was no way I could withstand another hurdle.  "It's just TOO MUCH!", I would cry out.  "I cannot take ANYMORE!"  Then the peace would come.  Just when I reached the brink a glimmer of light would appear on the horizon, and there would be hope (no matter how small) that indeed I could see things through to the other side.

When I look back at the whopper challenges I have faced and seen through, the things I am facing today pale in comparison.  On my worst days I am reminded that I have faced far worse in the past and made it through, and no matter how bad things are they could ALWAYS, always, be worse.  And, Heaven forbid, there are likely worse days to come.  With the reality of circumstance in mind I have become much better at living in the here and now, and handing what lies ahead over to the Lord;  plain and simple, and sometimes as complicated, as it may be.

When I live consciously in the present I focus on what is most important now, and my energy sustains what is necessary.  There is no wasted energy and emotion spent on what has been or what could  be.  All of my valuable, more now than ever, energy is spent on what's most important, the present.  This has been becoming more and more clear to me as each day passes.

These past few weeks have seen me aggressively putting a concerted effort into planning our 2014-15 school year.  It has been a monumental task that was nearly all consuming.  At first I lamented its necessity.  Then I beat myself up for waiting so long to begin planning.  After a little reflection and some encouragement from fellow homeschooling moms I was reminded that this is my first year using this approach to educating my children in many years.  I didn't wait, I just figured out what we are doing and started preparations accordingly.  It has been a tremendous learning curve for ME, and that is perfectly fine and acceptable.  It's all good!  No worries.  Learn the lesson, and move on.  My lessons learned about planning the upcoming school year, so far and for me, are:

1.  Know ahead of time at least the "skeleton" of what you will be studying for the following year. Have a long term plan.

2.  Know your mission statement, and refer to it often.

3.  Cut yourself A LOT of slack.

4.  Purchase any curriculum and needed materials in the spring.  (April and May host my favorite homeschool conventions, and they are perfect resources.)

5.  Spend the summer planning the following year instead of cramming it all in just a few weeks before your scheduled start date.

6.  Purchase two workbooks.  It's cheaper financially and in regard to time spent making copies.  Seriously, just buy two workbooks!

7.  Just because September seems like a good time to start the new school year doesn't mean that it is.  Follow the crop schedule, put up food, and start school in October.

8.  Purchase extra erasers for use during planning.  You WILL do A LOT of erasing!

9.  Keep a running list of needed materials or resources that you discover as you actively plan your year.

10.  Trade childcare with a friend when you need large chunks of time to concentrate.  It's impressive, really impressive, what you can accomplish with five hours of uninterrupted time to work.  Really, it is VERY impressive.

11.  Notebooks are a beautiful thing.  Buy extra.

12.  Crayons disappear like magic.  Buy extra.

13.  It's worth it to buy a full case of copy paper.

14.  Be cautious when purchasing re-manufactured ink cartridges.

15.  It will never be a fully perfect plan.  Life will interrupt living.  Start on your planned start date, anyway.  There is no perfect time.

While my focus has been on planning the 2014-15 school year for my family and learning to live with a less than tidy home I have been afforded the opportunity to see life, my life, a little more clearly in the process.  Even when living seems overshadowed by tragedy and turmoil, blessings persist.  Where I choose to put my focus is up to me; another facet of free choice granted to me by my Creator.  

The Beginning of Knowledge

Proverbs 1:1-7

The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel: 

To know wisdom and instruction, 

to understand words of insight, 

to receive instruction in wise dealing, 

in righteousness, justice, and equity; 

to give prudence to the simple, 

knowledge and discretion to the youth— 

Let the wise hear and increase in learning, 

and the one who understands obtain guidance, 

to understand a proverb and a saying,

the words of the wise and their riddles.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;

fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Imaginative Play - A Real Blessing

My children have been playing A LOT, it is a beautiful thing!  They wake up nearly every morning and launch right into some make believe play that they have orchestrated.  Sometimes they even wait an hour or more before expressing interest in breakfast.  This has been a welcome reprieve for me.

My schedule is such that I have found it challenging to find quiet time in order to plan our our new school year which I have slated to begin in less than three weeks.  I know the benefits of imaginative play for my children, but what I didn't anticipate was benefits for me.  Slowly, I am letting go and allowing this play to progress on its own.  I feel burdened with many tasks fighting for the top slot on my list, so I am really trying to set my priorities.  Since we are set to start our more rigorous school routine in such a short time I am forcing myself to block out all the other tasks calling for my attention, and I am gearing my mind to focus solely on the task of preparing our lessons for the 2014-15 school year.  It is a bit of a daunting task, and it is challenging to focus when I have huge projects just begging for my attention.  However, I am committed to the task at hand.

We do school year round.  Learning just takes different forms depending on the season.  In the summer months we pare back the academics and take a more laid back approach.  However, in the fall and winter months we intensify our efforts taking on a heftier academic load.  This year we will be exploring human biology and History from the Industrial Revolution through present times, among all of our other subjects.  These two require the most effort on my part in regard to planning.  So, they are my first priority.  Getting the most difficult out of the way seems the best approach for me.

I am SO fortunate to have such a supportive group of homeschool friends.  A few of us have found a way to help each other out in the planning process.  We are making a deal with each other to keep each other's children so that we have QUIET time, in a large enough block to actually accomplish something, to prepare our lessons or whatever else may be required for us to be prepared to effectively educate our children.  I am SO excited about this plan!  What a blessing to have such a wonderful network of friends.  Community is something I have been longing to have for many, many years, and God has richly blessed me in this area since our move.

For me, at the moment, the double blessing is that my children are so eagerly educating themselves through imaginative play and occupying themselves without ANY prompting from me.  I am thankful that I am able to SEE the blessing and allow their explorations to continue with very little interruption from me.  It is well established that imaginative play is a wonderful learning medium for children, and their most important business is playing.  Given our unique circumstances, less and less so as years go by, I am fully aware of just how far these precious wee ones have come in their healing to actually be off playing on their own.  This is huge, and I am SO thankful that it is happening.

I am choosing to accept the gift given me.  We will enjoy the next couple of weeks at an even more relaxed rate so that my children can learn, explore, and grow all on their own, and I will take moments of time for myself to commune with my Creator, to listen to the chatter of my children and the birds outside, and I will grab the moments as they present themselves to prepare for the coming year.  Right now we are enjoying the serious business of play.

A Child's Garden of Verses: Selected Poems

by Robert Louis Stevenson

THE LITTLE LAND

  

When at home alone I sit
And am very tired of it,
I have just to shut my eyes
To go sailing through the skies—
To go sailing far away
To the pleasant Land of Play;
To the fairy land afar
Where the Little People are;
Where the clover-tops are trees,
And the rain-pools are the seas,
And the leaves, like little ships,
Sail about on tiny trips;
And above the Daisy tree
      Through the grasses,
High o’erhead the Bumble Bee
      Hums and passes.

In that forest to and fro
I can wander, I can go;
See the spider and the fly,
And the ants go marching by,
Carrying parcels with their feet
Down the green and grassy street.
I can in the sorrel sit
Where the ladybird alit.
I can climb the jointed grass
      And on high
See the greater swallows pass
      In the sky,
And the round sun rolling by
Heeding no such things as I.
Through that forest I can pass
Till, as in a looking-glass,
Humming fly and daisy tree
And my tiny self I see,
Painted very clear and neat
On the rain-pool at my feet.
Should a leaflet come to land
Drifting near to where I stand,
Straight I’ll board that tiny boat
Round the rain-pool sea to float.

Little thoughtful creatures sit
On the grassy coasts of it;
Little things with lovely eyes
See me sailing with surprise.
Some are clad in armour green—
(These have sure to battle been!)—
Some are pied with ev’ry hue,
Black and crimson, gold and blue;
Some have wings and swift are gone;—
But they all look kindly on.

When my eyes I once again
Open, and see all things plain:
High bare walls, great bare floor;
Great big knobs on drawer and door;
Great big people perched on chairs,
Stitching tucks and mending tears,
Each a hill that I could climb,
And talking nonsense all the time—
      O dear me,
      That I could be
A sailor on a the rain-pool sea,
A climber in the clover tree,
And just come back a sleepy-head,
Late at night to go to bed.

More Learning Lies Ahead

My office where all of our planning takes place.  It is also
sacrificed space.  This used to be my living room.  I have
hopes of reclaiming it within the next year.  We'll see!

It's that time of year when most of us are preparing for the up and coming school year.  We all do it, but we have our own style about it.  It doesn't matter the form of your approach to education, everything requires some forethought and effort.  Over the years what our family's approach to education looks like has changed several times.  I think we've finally arrived.  (Maybe.  Ask me again in five years.)  We are Eclectic Homeschoolers.  Isn't that a fun label?  I'm cool with it.  It's actually quite freeing to actually know WHO we are and WHAT we stand for as a family.

Aside from knowing God and gaining a more thorough understanding of the Bible our greatest goal as parents of the three youngsters we are currently raising, remember seven have gone before them, it is our greatest charge to instill them with the ability to do for themselves.  I've always believed it my job to raise my children up to live their own lives.  Never before have I viewed that calling in the exact light of which I do now.  We are not young parents.  When our young children are our age they will find themselves with very aged, quite possibly deceased, parents and not a grandparent to be seen.  They will be the elders much younger than we.  Sure they'll have their older siblings and cousins around, but they will definitely NEED to be independent, self-driven individuals.  In addition, it is my prayer that they will be community minded with a heart for their fellow man and that they will carry the wisdom to know when helping IS helping and when the best way to help someone is to step back.

The above goals are always in the forefront of my mind when I am planning their education.  This year is exciting for me in that I have found my way back to my roots.  I am back in communication with my eclectic self, and it feels nice.  With our sudden plunge back into homeschooling I enlisted the help of a "canned" curriculum.  It was great, and I planned to use it for years to come.  It felt good to not have to think so much.  It was fun to just open the book and follow the preset plan for the day.  I could prepare way in advance if I desired, or I could wing it for a day, or week or two, as needed.  The curriculum we used was simple to follow, in line with our morals, and easily alterable to suit our needs.  This I loved!

Now that all of us are getting used to living together and settling in as a cohesive family (It's been nearly TWO years!  Can you believe it?) I am feeling a bit more capable of doing my own thing.  What does this mean for me?  A lot more work is required on my part, but the outcome is so much more fun and totally worth it.  It means late nights and a lot of planning.  It means we get a customized curriculum, and I am SO into that!

I don't know about you, but I love learning about how other people do things, what resources they use, and how they put everything together to meet the individual needs of their families.  So, I thought you might enjoy a little peek into what I've been working on for my family.  I have some favorite resources to share with you and some organizational pointers.  It is my hope that you are inspired to stay the course, or take your first step, with your mission in mind.  Homeschooling is not for the faint of heart, but when we are supportive of each other the load can be lightened, and we can even have fun (a lot of fun) on the journey!

My favorite planner is by far The Well Planned Day by Home Educating Family Publishing.  Rebecca Scarlata Keliher has thought of nearly everything we need as home educating parents to plan and manage our year, and she bound it all neatly up into a convenient planner.  I've tried others in an attempt to save a dollar, but this is one area I have decided not to cut corners.  This planner functions VERY WELL as my external brain, and with perimenopause rearing it's ugly head this is a very beautiful thing!  If you're not there yet, trust me on this one.

A glimpse inside my planner clockwise from left: front cover,
month at a glance, week at a glance, and student planning page.

*There are TONS of useful bits inside this planner.  I just shared my most used pages. 

In reclaiming my status as an eclectic homeschooler I have pulled back out and put back into service my trusty three-ring binder.  Here is where I keep the materials that I am putting together for lessons and prepare the individual subjects for my individual children.  It is such a handy system and really works well for me.  I love the resources found inside the FREE Printable Planner by Britni at The Life in Bloom.  I used her planner before, and this year I pulled out some helpful pages to use in my planning binder.  I love her style, and her experience as a homeschool mom is evident with the content of her FREE planner.  It is fun to poke around her site.  There are lots of useful and fun, FREE printables to be found.

A glimpse inside my Homeschool Notebook clockwise from left:
inside front cover holds information requiring immediate attention,
I use the calendar page for a typical month-at-a-glance for each of us,
and   I use it for a typical week-at-a-glance, I use the yearly sheet to
 plan out the material covered for the year, and I use it for planning
out food preservation for the year, dividers allow me to store free
printables to be used with our subjects studied throughout the year,
and for organizing literary resources (also free) to complement books
 we read throughout the year, and the back pocket holds additional
useful resources for future planning.

The last thing in my planning arsenal is a planner for Harmony, the resident nine-year-old.  As members of the TOS Homeschool Review Crew we are being given the opportunity to review a homeschool planner for kids.  What a perfect fit!  This will be her first year using a planner and taking a little more charge of her responsibilities, both on the domestic and the educational front.  Check back in late September to see how it goes.  We will start using this planner on Monday even though we don't start our new schedule until September 8th.  I figure it will be good for her to have some practice down before we pick things up a bit.

A new method has been shared with me in regard to the approach of educating my children that seems a perfect fit.  Up until a couple of years ago The Heart of Wisdom has not registered on my radar.  In this time I have been exposed to it repeatedly.  Finally, I took a look, and I love the concept.  It seems a great fit for us as we were already naturally functioning in a similar way.  However, with The Heart of Wisdom in hand we have a blueprint of sorts.  Just like my Well Planned Day planner it serves to lighten my load.  Robin Sampson has done all the leg work for me, and I get to benefit from the fruits of her labor as do my children.  We've joined in the rotation at year four in order to align with my good friend and her place in the rotation in a hope that we may join together on occasion and share in the learning with our families.  We've not decided as to what we will do at this point, but we could do an experiment, cook a meal, do a craft or art project; the possibilities are endless.  Joining together as like minded families just serves to enhance the learning experience of our children, and creates a sense of community unlike that which I have found in any other circumstance.  We love learning together with other families!

Since it has been so many years since we were active homeschoolers before this new journey began, I find my arsenal a tad lacking at the elementary level.  No, we are not one of those homeschool families learning high school level chemistry in third grade.  This has meant that I need to evaluate my current resources purging what we can't use, pulling together what we can use, and supplementing with new items to enhance our learning library.  I am making a conscious effort to add good quality, living books to our library.  We read seemingly constantly, and I want what is available to be enriching and educational and thought provoking, and fun.  We are making good progress in this area, but it is a lot of work.  Thanks to some good friends I have some new resources and the process is very enjoyable.  Books, books, books, and more books!

The three main bookshelves on our first floor have been "sacrificed" to our homeschool.
The first one is in my office.  It holds all the materials we are currently using; well, most of them.
The second shelf is in our family room.  It holds all the books that complement what we are learning.
They are available for reference, family reading time, or just diving into whenever we feel like it.
The third shelf is in our dining room.  It holds all of our creative play items; games, puzzles,
kitchen toys, musical instruments, building blocks, and things of the like.

*In the beginning NONE of these things resided in these places.  My cookbooks have been moved to the book closet, my fiction books are in a box somewhere up there as well, and all of my health and nutrition books are looking for a new corner as well.  It's what we do, right?  BTW - Sharing these pictures is a stretch for me.  They are not perfectly displayed.  Rather they are in their current state of use.  So, you can see that we actually do live and learn here, and it does get messy!  It only stays perfectly organized IF I get around to doing so while my children sleep.

As you can see I have been hard at work, and it's only just begun.  We all have a lot to learn this year.  Harmony will be studying the Bible, piano, character and virtues, homemaking, math, spelling, cursive, history, photography, science, Spanish, and art.  Avery has asked to learn to read, and he is well on his way.  In addition he will be learning about the Bible, piano, character and virtues, math, Spanish, and art.  Bella's path is similar to Avery's.  It's just a little pared back.  She's SO competitive that I wouldn't be a bit surprised if she learns to read right by his side.  The kids aren't the only ones with educational goals this year.  I will be taking a photography and a natural medicine course I purchased through Great Courses.  (Love them!)  I also plan to learn more about using social media with my blog and to promote our business, and I will be trying my hand at gluten free baking.  Not to mention my grand ambitions in homesteading; canning, freezing, gardening, raising chickens and sheep, and on and on.  Plus we have 4-H, and all that entails.  When you write it all out like that it sure sounds like a lot.  No wonder I need to write it all down and get it all organized!

I'm excited about this coming school year, and I'm glad to be figuring out our path.  I've learned to be flexible and go with the flow a lot more.  That being said, I also know myself well enough to know that I need to at least have goals and plans if I want to accomplish anything.  Planning is important in general, and it can be a tall order to put together an entire curriculum for your family, but it is SO worth it!

Here are some more of my favorite resources:

ABC Teach

Scripture Adventures

Simple Homeschool

Exploring Nature

Little Learning Lovies

123 Homeschool 4 Me

CurrClick

Homeschool Share

Our Little Friend

Teacher's Notebook

Khan Academy

Math 4 Children +

Christian Homeschool Hub

Free Homeschool Deals

Teachers Pay Teachers

Happy Planning!