When failure breaks you - or threatens to.

I'm a homeschool mom. Failure isn't an option for my children - I'm there to guide them each and every step, and to adjust instruction as needed to insure success. 

This first year, failure broke me. 

I sat up for hours after the night her group met the last time this year and cried. I failed. 

No one would believe it, to see my daughter. She's smart, advanced, and has grown mentally and socially so much in the past year. She received an award for leadership in her class. 

Leadership.

My daughter. 

The one who hides behind me when meeting people and refuses to even tell her daddy what she learned in school that week. My awkwardly shy child, out there being a leader in her group. 

What a success! I should be proud - and I am. I am beyond proud and happy for her accomplishments.

Still failure broke me. 

No, my daughter didn't fail. 

Figure it out yet?

I failed. 

I spent every day of our weekly community days not witnessing my child grow. 

I homeschool my child, mainly so I have an active hand in everything and can witness how she does things. 

Fail. 

I finally confessed this feeling to my husband. Do you know what he said to me?

"You mean you didn't get it perfect the first year?"

.......

Wow. That hit me square in the face. 😤😑😩😔

I love my husband for many reasons, but God blessed him with he ability to say the right things to get me back in track. 

I didn't get it perfect the first year. 

How could I have expected to, really? I am not perfect. I may have a degree in education, but never trained for elementary education. I taught public school- very different situation. 

My self-expectations were way too high and my self-confidence was truly SELF-confidence, not God-led confidence. 

I thought I could be the perfect homeschool mom, first year in. 

I did a lot of things right - by the grace of God.

I failed some too.

Am I a failure? No. In spite of how I felt about it, I was still doing what God wanted. God led, He guided, and He took care of it all. 

Looking back, I can see how it did my daughter good too. 

Do I want to change things for next year?

Definitely.

God allowed me to see something I could do differently, something that would be better. 

He used the year to grow my child - and to grow me. 

So really, I'm not a failure. God loves me for who He has made me and who He is turning me into. 

His mercies renew each morning

His grace is sufficient when I am deficient (which is often, let's be honest).

"He's still working on me, to make me what I ought to be. It took Him just a week to make the moon and the stars, the sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars. How loving and patient He must be. He's still working on me."

Year end? Already?

The "year" wraps up

Ok, so I know it's been a while since I've updated this blog. What can I say - parenting and schooling took up a LOT of my time. 

First, went through a bit of the "Blahs" when getting back into the flow after the holidays was difficult. 

Really though, when you pick a curriculum like CC and you tutor a group in the community, you have to stay on the ball at home too. So, each week I wrote the info on our board at home. I wrote it on paper to take to our community day. I sang the songs with my girl. I did some math games and we read basic readers. 

*Note* We don't do math, reading, and memory work all in the same day, every day. At her age, that's way too much. We pick one thing we are set in doing, then if she chooses to do more that's fine and it not, we stop. 

One thing I found works well for us - Math worksheets are awesome for introducing new concepts and practicing for the first week or two. After that, she gets burned out on them. So, we find new ways to incorporate math. Real life examples, so she can see how it's practiced in daily life. 

Ex: we were baking cookies last week and I had her add up how many cups of ingredients were in the batter. Then, she guessed how many cookies that might make. She was pretty close too.

I'm proud of her, she's begun to see math in everything. Peeling an orange, she split it and said "Four plus four equals eight. Mommy, there are eight sections in an orange."

Reading began to get a bit daunting too. She didn't like to read an entire story on her own - it took too long. I had to remind myself, she is young.  Let's figure out another way to do this, a way where she still gets practice but it isn't "hard work".  The last thing I want is for her to get burned out on reading and other learning before she turns 6.

We take turns reading. I let her pick the story (we have a whole shelf of books at her level and just enough above to help her grow) and I start us off.  Every other paragraph we switch. It works well, and her comprehension is better because she's paying more attention. 

So, back to the start of this entry when I said that the year wraps up now. 

Our curriculum is a 24 week program. We are on week 24, had our last community day today, and have the final celebration on Friday.  

In a way, we are "done". It's crazy, both my girl and I are happy and sad. 

First, we made it through with shining colors - especially her. She has bloomed socially and her memory for the facts is amazing. 

We are going to miss meeting weekly with everyone, though to be perfectly honest we will not miss the early mornings. 😆

We love our sleep in this family. 😴 

My plans - probably take next week easy by wrapping up my Bible Verses (I've been introducing one per letter weekly with her other memory work, and we have one left) and doing math/reading. 

Then take a week "off". Maybe two, since my mom is planning a visit around Mothers Day and, let's be honest, "school" isn't likely to happen. My girl is great, but a bit shy when it comes to sharing her knowledge. 

We will school year round though.  I don't want to drop everything during the summer months. I feel like that is unrealistic- learning happens all the time! We are to always gain knowledge, grow in understanding, then develop wisdom.  If we stop learning, we aren't progressing as God intended. 

That being said, I'm not going to dig out CC stuff during the summer (except maybe the songs that get constantly stuck in my head - those will probably come out at random times.)

No, but I will still teach math and reading weekly, and review the Bible verses. I also want to use the summer to teach the other stuff I seem to never be able to fit in - like the calendar, seasons, etc. I've introduced this stuff, but haven't had a chance to go farther. 

This is all stuff that can be done either by normal daily experiences or in 20 minutes at the table. 

That's my plan. 

Check back in a few months to see how well I am able to follow through with it. 😄🙄

God bless!