Homeschool Confessions!

I wanted to share a pic of Clara and her new “mad” face the boys have taught her.  I love it when they “teach” her such useful stuff.  Actually, you know, I do love it.  I love that they love to be together, play together, and teach each other!  She can also make a silly face and we are working on the sad face. 

Also a note that she is wearing her Princess and The Frog pajamas that Aunt Candy gave Clara for Christmas.  I had not tried them on her because they were a 3T.  I decided to wash them and give them a go.  Well, you guessed it.  They fit with a bit of room to spare but definitely not too big for sure.   This is Clara’s new smile when we tell her to say “cheese”. 

I will be honest and say that it can be very difficult to home-school.  I love my kids but there are some days I just find myself not being the mom that I want to be.  I am short with them and do not treat them with the patience they deserve.  I have really handed my last few days of schooling to God and have to realize that when I try to do it all myself I will ALWAYS fail miserably.  I know that when I give my days to God from the very second I wake up and then continue handing it to Him throughout the day it goes so smoothly; not easy, but smoother.  I love having the honor of teaching my children, but often I don’t act like it.  I need to remind myself to slow down, breathe, and realize this too will be gone too fast.  I want to cherish the moments I have with them reading on the couch, teaching how to finish a pre-algebra problem, putting words together to express yourself in writing, and so many other things we do in a given day.  To learn what God’s will is in their lives and to learn how to live it out as HE sees fit is my purpose as a mother.  What other more important thing could I do with my life besides raise my children in the way of the Lord and protect their hearts as they reach Christian maturity?

I have decided that I need to blog more about what we do with our schooling.  Today I decided to take some photos to share too.   I had realized that I needed to do more schooling with Clara.  She tends to run around here just doing as she pleases while I focus on the subjects we must fit in with the boys.  This is cheating Clara and also not a good way to be training her.  So, I must make time to “school” Clara while also keeping her occupied well while teaching the boys.  This is a shot of Clara in her kitchen.  She likes to cook us some strawberries, oranges, broccoli, etc.  She will bring them to us while we are doing school at the table.  We will act like we are eating it all up.  She loves it!  She will then go back and make more. 

Here is a little photo album of our day today.  Clara started the day with the letter ‘B’ and a worksheet on brown bear.  She painted with brown paint.  She really enjoyed it.  Later we pulled out a sheet on ‘b’utterflies.  She did dot painting on it.  Cullen helped her with a few puzzles too.  Cullen got his math and science done by himself.  Christian and I focused on strengthening our pre-algebra skills.  He took 4 tests today and tomorrow we plan on taking 2 more and working on strengthening our weaknesses.  Cullen worked on how to write a letter and what the parts of a letter are called.  We then curled up on the couch and started The BoxCar Kids book 1.  Christian and I have read it before but you can never read a good book just once.  I have really tried to make it a priority to read out loud to the kids and have them read to me.  This is something that has been weak in our household but something I feel is so very important.  (so then why do I cheat it??)  I am going to try and use my blog as my accountability partner by documenting what we are getting done.  I know it is Martin Luther King Jr. day.  I told the boys that MLK would not want us to cheat our education and that we were going to get some schooling done today.  =) 

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I hope you all don’t think I am awful for spilling my guts.  I just know that the reason I started my blog, besides keeping Tierra up on our day-to-day life, I also wanted to help others as other blogs help me.  I do know from 6+ years experience homeschooling that some moments are just much more hectic/chaotic than others.  I also know that there can be some glorious times spent growing together.  I will just continue asking God to lead and guide my every day.  I pray for His wisdom in educating my children.  I pray for guidance down the paths we need to travel.  Although I never get to “clock out” from my career I would have chosen no other!  I have the best co-workers and I need to remember that on a day-to-day basis.  =)