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A Day in the Life
Nov. 10, 2005
Greetings!
Have you ever had one of those moments
where God put the right person right in your path at the right
time? Thank goodness for me and my children that has happened to
us. I had been considering the notion of homeschooling but was so
scared and then I met a member of this board (not sure what her name is
on this one, it is Violet where I know her from). I have to send
out a big fat THANK YOU to her because she has seriously been so
instrumental in helping me to gain a better understanding of
homeschooling from a spiritual and a practical perspective in a very
short period of time-- hooking me up with resources and giving me my
own personal much needed pep talks. She rocks! :-)
My
whole journey in this area started because I've been sending my oldest
daughter (3yo) to preschool two days a week and have been rather
disappointed by the results. Not that the teachers aren't nice or
doing their best but I remember as a teacher how hard it was to have
real and meaningful teachable moments with individual children in a
classroom setting. Between paper work, hustling in and out of the
room here and there, responding to behavior issues, going to the
bathroom, having snack time, etc-- I can understand that there is just
not very much time invested in pure education. There is also the
fact that as their mother I naturally have more vested interest in
seeing that my children get the very best. I want the kind of
education they would get at the best of the best of schools but can't
afford it-- but even if I could they would be missing out on the
relationship with me that I hope to build with them while
homeschooling.
I was reading a book called Sacred
Parenting and it really talked about how parenting is a ministry that
changes you as much as it changes the child-- I feel like it ties in to
this adventure I'm undertaking. I know a lot of parents in my
family whose actions seem to indicate they think their children are a
nusance more than anything else-- it is really sad. But the thing
is-- I can relate to that. I would never have thought that on a
conscious level but my actions said otherwise. I am working on
developing a servants heart toward my kids. Rather than get
annoyed at them when they need my time, money, attention, etc I need to
learn to really and truly give of myself.
My first steps
have been to look around on this website and to just simply start
working with my daughter through out the day in natural ways.
I've always intimidated myself with the idea of homeschooling--
thinking it had to be "just so" for it to work. Well today we did
a lot of great things that weren't difficult, expensive or tedious:
1. We raked leaves in the back yard-- we talked about the importance of
chores, why the leaves fall off the tree, counted the bags, moved them
and stacked them.
2. We looked for different nature items in the backyard-- a rock, a twig, leaves, grass, dirt, etc and talked about them.
3. We worked on a preschool workbook for as long as she wanted-- she
went almost halfway through the whole thing and it is HUGE.
Apparently stickers are a MAJOR motivator for my child :-)
4. We did flashcards with different phonics combinations.
I also got the VERY COOL idea from Violet to do a puppet show theater-- will sooo be doing that tomorrow! :-)
My goals are to:
1. Limit TV watching to 1 hour per day.
2. Develop a structured routine for homeschooling and chores.
3. I have a temptation to want to shop to death-- but instead I would
like to focus on **Using What I Have** for two reasons-- to save money
and to spur creativity.
Until next time, Brandi
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Posted by 
Nov. 11, 2005 - YEAH!!! IT'S MY GIRL!!!!!!!
I'm so glad for that God hook-up too, girl! I have a whole separate section in my links for my God hook-up crew (now that you're here I can add you. I was thinking the other day how I would add you since I knew you from somewhere else). God has been working in me through this place and I so thank the Suarez family for setting this all up. THANK YOU, JESUS!!!!!!!