Recovering

Wow, what an amazing 2 days we had at Six Flags and the Texas State Fair :0), the Lord blessed us greatly at both. We are taking today OFF to recover from our 2 very busy and exhausting days. I have so many things that I need to do here at the house. The original plan was to push hard through today, tomorrow and Friday but I am just not feeling it and I know that if we forced our lessons for today they would come up dry and unfruitful. We will get as much done tomorrow and Friday as we can for this week!

JOYfully in Him,
Kelli

Boys, Books and Bikes

Reading... I love the fact that my boys love books and for the most part love to read but I also love how much they love to just enjoy and experience being alive. They can engulf themselves contently one minute in a mass of books and then jump on their bikes the next and ride off onto the sidewalk. It amazes me how AWESOME they are and I can't help it but to watch in fascination as they simply be themselves.

I have boys, boys who love books and bikes and if they could do both at the same time I know they would!

JOYfully in Him,
Kelli

Little Effort...

It has been a rough first half of the week for us here at GMW... the lack of effort is weighing heavy on my heart. I really struggle with knowing how to handle this idleness of mind with my 7 almost 8 year old. Encouragement doens't seem to work, being silly neither and punishment... I won't go there. I feel like I am incapable to bring out his thoughts with out much probing and I just long for him to spew them out all over me, I want to know what is in his amazing little brain because I know it is full of fascinating information and thoughts.

Today is going to be a test for all of us... doctors appointment in the middle of the day, no rest time for anyone and then evening church. We are going to have to push hard to get all of our subjects in this morning :0)

JOYfully in Him,

Kelli

Day 2 Examination

Last night I did a lot of examining as I am now over today. It was another "Awesome Day!" but we had a hard time fitting in all of our subjects between 8 and 12. I had an idea that was going to be a problem but I was hopeful. One of the reasons is because I have little blocks of time set out for family time and learning "breaks" between our harder subjects, which you will see in our daily schedule when I get around to posting it. I thought maybe we need to get up earlier but we are good to be making it by 8:00, 8:00 is good, actually perfect for us so that will not change. I guess I will be forced to move some subjects into our "rest" time in the afternoons. I am also not sure what to do with T-Rex, my 4 year old, who just can not and will not sit still long enough to do anything. Tomorrow, I am planning on closing our closet door which is the flood gate to all or most of the toys in our house. After trying to do a set out curriculum with him I think I am realizing that it is just to much for him and me so I am going to have to figure something out tonight or by the end of this week. I personally can not allow him to just wander and play all day while I actively pursue Superman's education. Some thoughts I have are to just have some things available throughout the week to do with him, with the idea that I would steal a few moments here and there to spend with him learning. I don't want to push him to much, he is only 4 but I do want to engage with him in some way through out the 3 hours.

We finished today around 1:45ish and entered our my sacred rest time, oh how I look forward to this time each afternoon, though I am hoping not to lean to much on it in the future because I would really like to take advantage of the majority of that time with Superman... and I do sometimes but honestly I allow the time to overtake me and my desires to just be in my own space.

Superman was so excited yesterday when Classically Cursive came in and he wanted to start it right then but I swaded him to wait until today. When we finally rolled around to our time he begged me to do more of his cursive, I orginally said no but after continuous beging I gave in and he did it for at least an hour covering many pages. I wasn't sure about letting him do it but I was watching him and guiding him the whole time. It was exciting to see him so eager to learn and today while we were in the middle of our lessons he told me that "School was fun".

Yes...

JOYfully in Him,
Kelli

I am still here!

Wow, so I have been really neglecting this place! We have been pretty relaxed with school right now which has been great for all of us. I enjoy both a very strict and structured format to our days but also a very relaxed and spontaneous format. A few weeks of the strictness and then a week or so of the relaxed keeps it fresh around here. Right now we are in the middle of studying birds still, also rocks which we are all very fascinated with. Tomorrow we will make a crystal garden and Friday we will possible make a volcano.

Learning to Spell through Copywork, has anyone had any experience with this program? I was able to flip the the pages of it this weekend and really like the looks of it but would love some thoughts of a user. I have decided on Simply Grammar after looking at it. History is still undecided for me, I was thinking of continueing Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer but have been thinking about All Through the Ages by Christine Miller. I like the idea of getting the cd for SOTW and listening to it together each week.

Well it is pouring outside and my boys just woke up ready to eat and start the day! Have a great day! Things will start back in order around here soon.

JOYfully in Him,
Kelli