School update

One week down, another begins!

I can now declare myself an official homeschooler, no longer "we're planning to homeschool" but we are a homeschooling family! I am very at peace with this. I am totally confident it's God's will for our family right now, and the stress I thought would come with this new phase is really not there at all. Yeah, it was a hard week with discipline issues in particular. But not much different than any other week I've spent as a stay-home mom. We just have an hour of school each morning along with it. Easy peasy. (I'm sure when February rolls around, or another time this year I'll be eating my words. Week one with a kindergartener isn't too hard.)

My expectations are not too high or too low, I hope. I think I'm going to try to work on one new routine or activity each week. For example, the past few days we've been working on keeping the playroom and schoolroom clean. Now I have the room set up to finally have lessons in there tomorrow morning! And the calendar even says August! Yay me :)



Some other things I want to work on: chores for the girls, my sleep schedule, my prayer schedule, adding art into our day, nature notebooks, consistent library visits (no more fines!), organizing closets, deep cleaning...I could go on and on. Baby steps...

I'm also still finishing up Elizabeth Foss' "Real Learning" and loving it. I'm reading about chores right now and just finished the chapters on the Arts and Sports and how they fit into the life of a homeschooling family. I'm hoping to read Alice Gunther's "A Haystack Full of Needles" next. A great way to start the year with great books!

And my thoughts and prayers go out to all those friends with little ones starting school this week. Such an exciting time of year and I remember well the days of preparing for the first day as a student and as a teacher...so much fun! I can't wait to see those pictures of the jumpers and backpacks :)

Have a great week!