May. 22, 2008 - Family, and Homeschooling
Something I thought I'd never say, "I combine my children" has been uttered from my lips...
I never expected these words to spring forth from my lips, I was adamant that each child should have his/her own personalized education, that they should have exactly xyz (whatever that was for each child), but my mind is changing.
The Lord keeps putting the ideas order and Family in my heart.
I still want to inspire my children to learn and not make it dreadful work, I still want them to pursue interests, but I keep thinking that God is of order, and what is of Him is of order, and well, I feel that I need more order in my day, and within that order, I do not want to have to teach 2 different periods of history, totally different literature, science, etc.
I am learning what my stress level is, and while teaching 2 histories does not a crazed woman make, I feel that it is more than I need to put myself through while mastering: gardening, baking bread, teaching Hebrew (two different groups: to adults and to my children), have my quiet time with the Lord, maintain a house of order, learning how to can, knit, sew, and the myriad of other things that I have on my list. And still have enough time to be sane enough to include and sweetly (!!!) teach my children while I'm figuring out the learning curve myself.
The Lord also keeps pressing Family into my heart, so this is about continually building a strong Family. And shared experiences and play have a way of doing that.
Yep. That archaic word in a world of hyper-Individualism. Family.
Family. Family. Family.
I want my children to grow up with a strong sense of family and a shared childhood, a shared life, not where they are separated doing everything alone (I won't address individual study time right now), and the only time they come together is when we do picture study. That's not quite what I'm wanting to achieve.
What do you mean shared childhood, shared life, don't they live in the same house?
Well, as a matter of fact they do, but I mean shared in a bigger sense, not shared in the sense that they were birthed from the same mother or sleep under the same roof.
I mean shared as they actively do projects together because they are both studying the same period of history, the same science (albeit on different levels when needed), etc, so we can easily share in the same projects, experiments, etc. I know I am more likely to do one nice project with both children vs. two
I have no dreams of being Wonder Woman, OK, maybe I did, but I was 8 years old. 
This is about creating a flow, a life, a family, and I know no better way to do this, than to make eduction a life, an atmosphere, and I know no better way to do that than to give our life some unity, some cohesiveness.
That's just my story, and I'm stickin' to it. 
