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| A & Z at the pool |
After a FUN summer with friends and family, we're beginning our 5th week of being "back to school." While I love having time to relax and hang out with my sweet children, starting school back is always a welcome back to a more organized schedule.
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| C at a Global MMA Kickboxing Exhibition |
Fall is my
favorite season (unless we are at the beach, of course!) The weather is
perfect and the colors sing in
delight with God's glory here in Virginia. I can't wait for the leaves to begin changing their colors so we can take our annual family vacation to the mountains.
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| A,B, & C downtown on the 4th of July |
It's been exciting starting this year with the kids but as with most years, there are "bugs" to be worked out. C is in 5th grade so it will be his first year (and mine) in the
Logic Stage of the Trivium.
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| A and her doll downtown |
After looking at and
praying over the past year using the Classical Christian style of education, I find myself yearning again for a more Charlotte Mason style approach. I miss the poetry, the nature study, the art and composer studies. Although all of these CAN be a part of (and some say SHOULD be a part of) the Classical style, it's not the CORE and much more difficult to implement than it was when we were a more strictly CM homeschool.
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| C at Tae Kwon Do Practice |
My goal this year will be to balance those two styles and combine them to make a fit that is right for OUR family. One of the blessings of home education is the flexibility of a mother to make that perfect fit.
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| A & B at Tea house birthday party. |
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| C at Sheriff's Dept. football camp |
I believe it begins with prayer and then meditation on the direction the Lord has for our family. I'm learning (slowly but surely as I can be hard-headed) to be more patient. Things don't have to be decided here and now and not every decision is life or death. :) It's our fourth year home schooling and YES, I just figured this out! Did I mention I was hard headed? I only want what's best for my children's future- as we all do or we wouldn't be homeschooling- but the stress and RUSH of trying to squeeze EVERY single topiI and minute out of our day to accomplish that "perfect" classical christian education has caused me to miss the most important things- those splendid moments of learning and bonding with my sweet children!
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| C & B at the pool with Friends |
I began the year with a schedule that included all that I wanted to cover- not what we NEEDED to cover but everything I WANTED to cover. We began slowly, and I was able to get a feel for how things would work. I found, however, that I have been pushing my 3rd grade dd's as much as my 5th grade son. I had to pray and step back and look again. The girls were becoming frustrated and stressed and that's never a great way to have school! <3 I've been so accustomed to handling so much of the grammar stage together- memory work, history, and science that I had to change my thinking a bit.
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| A, B, & C at KD with friends. |
Five weeks in and I took this weekend (with having Monday off because when my dear husband is home from work for a holiday we take a holiday) and sat down to read parts of , "The Well Trained Mind" yet again. I must have read certain chapters in this book 40+ times each! Yet I find myself going back to it again and again! This year, however, I am also pulling back out my "Charlotte Mason Companion" that I read as many times during our first couple of years of homeschooling. My prayers are that I will glean wisdom from these authors, mothers, homeschooling veterans, and educators those things that will work for our family and create a model which provides solid education, a great love for and desier to better know the Lord, senses of value and kind but strong character, and many joyful memories for my amazing children.
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| New Nephew, J born on July 4th! |
I'm adding the weekly schedules I created for my
3rd graders and
5th grader.
It's a tweak on the schedules we've been using the past couple of weeks. I've rearranged things and split certain things up based on how our days and weeks have resulted thus far after 4 weeks into our school year. I'm certain to continue tweaking and praying over it. I'm just as certain I will do this throughout the rest of our homeschooling careers! <3 As homeschool moms we have to be flexible in order to meet the needs of our households and our children. It is a great joy to be able to spend my life caring for my family! It is also a difficult and time consuming job- one that I wouldn't change! Feel free to use these schedules to assist you in your homeschooling journey.
My goal is to create history schedules and POSSIBLY some literature schedules that will include quality literature from the history time period we are studying. We're focusing on the Middle Ages this year. I've been pulling together resources and looking over different curriculum. I have an eclectic bug that requires I do this! I'm very happy to find some time to blog once again and I will prayerfully be adding many new posts, resource links, notebook pages, photos, and free materials and/or quality materials I come across in our journey. I have missed my dear readers and I look forward to more as we continue on our journey!
Love,
Tiff
Make Your Own Coat of Arms ~ Not only does this site have amazing (FREE) maps that you can print as large as 7 feet, but it also contains a great software program that allows you to create your own coat of arms and then print it out. You can print it as a single page (8.5 x 11 size) or choose to make it large enough to glue to cardboard and play with by printing it on 4 pages. 
