1st Month – Success?

Ok, so, let me start off with saying, week 3 of our Classical Conversations (CC) curriculum has ended, meaning week 4/month 1 of my homeschooling journey is ending. Our CC community is on break next week, giving me time to prepare myself for the upcoming months.

1 Peter 5:7

Casting all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you.

This sums up my first month so far.

There have been successes, there have been “fails”.

First of all, my tutoring of the group of boys in our CC Community is going well - I think. Not perfect, but I'm also a first year tutor dealing with 6 energetic boys that aren't mine.

    ~ Reminder for those of you who don't know, my every day life is spent with little girls. Boys are totally different, and these are older boys, average age of 8 years old. Wonderful children, and I have no complaints, but it's a big shift from what has been my daily dealings.

I love tutoring these boys though, even if I've not got it perfect and they aren't perfect little angels. No human is, and I don't expect them to be perfect. Good doesn't have to be perfect. I mess up too, like forgetting to do the Latin during Grammar instruction and having to revisit it after presentations...

The community has helped me in a different way than I originally thought. There's a lot more grace than when I taught public school. Also, at home, I've been caught up in the memory work with M'ija. She's good at it, and she enjoys it (especially the songs!). Then, I get in the community and am reminded about what it's all about. To know God and make Him known.

So I get home, and we read Bible stories, we memorize scripture (note: I explain what the scripture means so not only does she memorize a verse a week, but also knows what the verse is talking about).

I remind myself that if I make time for Bible study daily, I should make time to teach my daughter truth daily.

The classical set-up, it's great. It works sooooooo well for my family. I don't expect her to memorize everything. In fact, while I go over it all with her, really I spend a bit more time on a few subjects she seems interested in and we kinda just let the rest go. She's still young, so I have no worries that she won't know the information when she needs it.

The freedom of homeschooling – there is no outside pressure to master a certain subject or amount of information by a set date/time/age. According to public school standards, my oldest is preschool age but doing 1^st grade addition/subtraction. So what if she doesn't get the history facts memorized, or know the English grammar? She will in time, and I don't feel the pressure to make her. 

Well, there's no pressure from my community or family. The perfectionist inside me screams that she should be perfect and know everything I teach her, but then the realist inside me speaks up and reminds me that I have a human child who needs to play and have fun along with learning. Besides, I don't know everything that was taught to me, I should not expect that of my four-year-old.

Yes, I battle with myself.  I think most homeschool moms do.  Am I doing enough? Am I doing too much? What should I REALLY be doing? What priorities should I have? How is dinner going to get made and the house cleaned? So on and so on.....

Anyway.... so, what our days look like.

Morning routine of breakfast and such hasn't changed. Usually, after breakfast my girls play some before I sit M'ija down to do some “school”. We color our geography map for the week and talk about it. She loves math but has trouble with rhyme and some other grammar. So, she will do her math worksheets/flash cards and take a break to play.

~ One day this week I had a “win” by playing a memory game with rhyming cards. Score!

Throughout the day, I will introduce or review the memory work from CC. She is usually playing or helping me clean when I do this.

The only times we actually sit down for school is math, reading/writing, and Bible study. I space these things out so she isn't working all day. We probably sit for a total of 30-45 minutes each day for that type of school. All the other things are thrown in during play and chore times.

And it works for us.

I'll leave you with the Bible verse I have us memorizing for the letter D

Death and life are in the power of the tongue; they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

~ Proverbs 18:21

I have needed that reminder this week.