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| Traditional First Day of School special breakfast made by Mama |
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| 8th Grade: homeschool--4th Grade: public elementary |
In one way, we were very excited for today. Routine is really what we prefer. We accomplish more. We spend less time in front of the screen. We use the B word less. I grew very weary of the word BORED this summer. It was a tough summer for us all. Daddy has continued to struggle for complete recovery, while mama has spent hours and hours getting our pile of "move paperwork" under control (who knew it was so much work to move states? I have felt that the overwhelming amount of registration, doc changes, address changes, car titles, bank changes, etc etc etc has been way more work than moving countries!). We learned quickly that the summer months in southern Texas are not conducive to outdoor living.at.all so that has been a huge change for our busy 9 year old boy. Our girl is just struggling with the move in general.
We are making friends at church but that takes time as well. We have had the joy of having several families in our home and also visiting a few homes. That has afforded us much sweet fellowship. But we just MISS so many things and people who were our decided comfort zone.
What a school routine will change is the opportunity to pick up and go see something new on impulse. We have so enjoyed the Houston Museum of Health and Science, The Holocust Museum, the new Spiderman movie and the Big Rivers Water Park, all courtesy of dear friends who sent us "outing money." How grateful we are for people who love us and wanted to bless our children in a very specific way this summer. You know who you are. Thank you again. A million times over.
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| Health Museum |
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| Study of sheep blood and learning the difference between red and white blood cells. We even got to see real human blood infected with the Sickle Cell trait and how it is different from a health person's blood. |
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| Watching DNA from wheat germ separate! |
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| A fun evening with church friends walking through The Woodlands, Houston's version of San Antonio's River Walk. It was an incredibly HOT evening but such a beautiful part of the city. |
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| The Butterfly Wall at the Holocust Museum-honoring the thousands and thousands of children murdered during World War II. |
So, this morning I dropped off our son at yet another new school. This is his third school in 4 1/2 years of living in the USA. My mama heart aches over that, but my faith challenges me to just give it to the Lord who can hold his heart and mind so gently and so well. And yes, grace for the moment. He will have two teachers, the subjects divided between them. They both seem like lovely women. He is very excited to make friends with little boys who will presumably live around here close. He thinks it is very cool his school is all one building, has two stories and was just remodeled recently!
My daughter is sitting at the table next to me. Day One of Homeschooling. It's not quite noon and she is almost done with 4 of her 5 subjects for the day. Her dream come true.
She has been miserable in public school the last two years. My social butterfly that has always made friends so easily was crying every morning on the way to school, begging me to homeschool her. I told her I didn't feel called in the least to homeschool so she should probably pray for God to change my heart and life's circumstances. She did and He did. Here we are.
Can I just say here, I LOVE BEING A STAY AT HOME MOM? I have worked out of the home for the last 7+ years and I am absolutely loving being at home full time. I don't know for how long, but for now I am home and I am so so so grateful. I have many friends who work out of the home for a variety of reasons and believe me, I know how to pray for you from first hand experience. The pressures on a working mother are immense. This reprieve has been a tremendous blessing to our family.
So, in the middle of moving and documents and paperwork up to my ears, I was also researching and meeting with homeschool mamas to look at curriculum. We wanted a child-led based curriculum because I knew any amount of class planning was out for me this summer. We also are on a tight budget so that was a huge consideration. This is day one officially (though Chloe started her math this summer because she "was so bored!") and so far we are absolutely thrilled. She just said, "Mom, this is so cool! They even teach Science from a biblical perspective!" Yes, love. They do. God created Science. It is a beautiful thing to study it from His perspective.
We went with Master Books Curriculum. The same publisher has published most of Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis material, so I felt very much at peace that it would be a sound biblical view. A meeting with a friend, who is using the same curriculum for her four children, confirmed that this was a good path for our girl. Because of her dream to be a certified midwife, we knew we wanted a very strong math and science base.
As for affordable, her entire school year was a little over $300.00. They are designed to "open and start", meaning the books come with recommended schedule for 180 days if the child wants to do it in a schoolyear or a 90 day plan if they want to do it in a semester. There is no planning or class prep involved. Will keep you posted on how it works for us...for her. The amount of curriculum out there is overwhelming to put it mildly. We are blessed to have found this one.
I also want to thank those who have answered so many questions and encouraged me this summer as I waded through these decisions. For my cousin, Kristen, who has so patiently helped me come up with a plan for Chloe's remaining five years of school before college and given me feedback on curriculum and dual enrollment possibilities. For Nikki, who took time from her homeschool day to come to my house, her arms loaded with books, so I could see what they actually looked like and felt like! For Stephanie, who has answered untold lines of questions by text from northern Texas as to what homeschooling looks like in our new state and what she is doing/has done that has worked. For Yvette, Madison and Jessica who answered scores of questions about the curriculum they use and why they use it. They also brought books over for me to hold and look at. For Dana, who shared many things but what I most heard was, "Hey, if one thing doesn't work for you, be easy on yourself and make a switch! That's the beauty of homeschooling!" Many others have chatted with me and encouraged me and offered wise counsel in this new journey.
Makes me tear up to think of the scores of people God has placed in my life to do life with us, to encourage us and even this week who are praying for us. THANK YOU!!!
May the joy of the LORD be your strength this week as you walk in the Light!
Because He lives,
Jama
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