Laraba's Homeschool Blog

I am guessing that I come across, fairly often anyway, as really having my act together.  Seven kids.  Homeschooling.  Working one day a week.   You may wonder, how does she do it all?

Of course, I don’t do it all.  The list of things I DON’T do could fill a book or two.

But still, most days I feel fairly competent.  Today, I really didn’t.  I am not sure why.  It wasn’t a terrible day, but by the end of it I felt more strained out than usual.

First of all, I was off schedule.  Actually, I don’t have much of a schedule right now.  We are not having “normal school” right now.  I continue to do some kind of teaching each day, and am trying to emphasize science projects, reading, and the occasional TREASURE HUNT.  Yep, treasure hunt. More on that later.

So we got up and had breakfast and the kids did chores.  All of this is totally typical and always completely frantic.  Our children are learning to do many things and I’d be lost without them, but the younger ones get distracted very easily. So I’m always working with them to be diligent and productive during chore time.

About 9 a.m., Sarah got tired and I put her to bed.  I knew today would be a scorcher, so decided to take the kids swimming RIGHT THEN.  That way, I wouldn’t have to be concerned with the kids getting sunburned, and I wouldn’t be quite so uncomfortably hot while lifeguarding.  So in they went for half an hour.  I will say that this year is easier than last because Angela has a good floatie swimsuit that keeps her up fairly easily. I still have to watch the children carefully, but am not as concerned about Angela — last year, her swimsuit would make her float, but didn’t keep her head out of the water.

  Ok, so then we went inside.  And Naomi and I started working on a treasure hunt.  Lydia and Isaac had fairly tricky clues with coded messages.  Joseph’s were simple words with short vowel sounds. The little girls just had pictures.  It took a couple of hours what with one thing and another, but after lunch we had a chaotic and thrilling treasure hunt. The kids loved it.  I got totally stressed out because multiple kids needed help at once.  So I was creative today, and the kids loved it, and it was educational, but it wore me out.  Naomi did a fabulous job, by the way.  She is growing up and maturing and is such a bright young lady.

  The rest of the day I spent much of the time cleaning and organizing, as my semi annual organizing frenzy has hit me.  There is a lot to do but it is good to be making some progress.  However, I kept feeling unsettled.

  I realized that part of my agitation has to do with our 6 year old son.  Joseph is a bright, sweet kid and we treasure him.  I am concerned he has some kind of a learning glitch.  That is really NOT a big deal, but it feels overwhelming when added to the mix of homeschooling 4 kids, soon to be 5 kids, and caring for a preschooler and a baby. 

Joseph’s handwriting is poor. Well, actually, at this point his handwriting is non existent.  His fine motor skills are poor.  I’ve figured out he is “mixed dominant” which means he is left eye dominant, right hand dominant — and people who are mixed dominant have a higher likelihood of having some “learning gates” blocked.  His reading is coming along well, but his math skills are limited as well at this point.  Our little girl who is 16 months younger than Joseph seems to be another of our “gifted mathies” and it is startling to hear her chattering away about 30+ 30 = 60 and 30 + 30 + 30 =90 and so on when Joseph has to think hard about much simpler problems.

  I pray often for wisdom in homeschooling the children, and feel that the Lord led me to a book by Dianne Craft called “the Brain Integration Manual”.  This book has many exercises to help children develop good connections between different sections of the brain.  I’m starting to work with both of our boys on these exercises, and am determined to be consistent about them over the summer and into the new year. 

   I’ve thought more than once that having a child with a learning disability would be overwhelming.  I am not sure Joseph is “learning disabled”.  I prefer at this point to say he has “a glitch”.  Some things are not coming nearly as easily for him as they have done for the older children.  More to the point, he is having a hard enough time that it is frustrating to him.

  Working very hard to learn can be good in some ways in that a child develops perseverance.  Well, let’s put it another way.  A child who is very bright and learns quickly may get lazy.  That’s not good. 

   I don’t think anyone is wonderful at everything. I was the quintessential student, but still struggled with mechanical drawing.  But if a child is struggling really really hard to form letters consistently, or to read, or to work with numbers, that can be discouraging.

  So, I pray the Lord will lead and guide.  I’m reading up on possible issues.  I’m doing these exercises with him.  I’m praying.  Maybe what I really need to do, again, is give Joseph (and all the children) to the Lord again.   Of course, I know that God is their Faithful Father and He has good plans for them.   These “problems” may be God’s way of doing powerful things in their lives.  I have to remember that when I don’t know the answer to a problem, God does. And when I think something is a big deal, God may well know it is not. Essentially, I need to trust that God will watch over, guide, direct, and appropriately protect our wonderful children.