The second, third and fourth day...

There's a couple of things I have learned from being a parent, that I truly never understood before this experience.

One is that my relationship with God is more important than water on many days. Yes, water. Because we all know you can only live something like three days without water.

This is me...with a marker mustache.

I can be thirsty - parched even, during the day - and still manage to address difficult or challenging issues in my home, cook something, run errands, whatever comes up as a mom, you know?

And I'm fine. I'll survive. I may have a headache at night, but I'm good. I can manage.

But you throw any issue at me that even slightly overwhelms, and take away my relationship with God - my Savior - my Jesus, and I am reduced to nothing more than a heap of tears, an angry tirade, or a mom who simply gives in and up and hides under the covers.

The second thing I've learned from being a parent, is this...

No amount of planning, preparation or even lack thereof can dictate or change a child's behavior. 

This goes back to the idea that the only person I can control is me...not my kids, not my husband, not my neighbor or my dearest friends.

Lego animals for Mystery of History lesson 2

I can only control my behavior and choices.

So, the homeschool day in my head that I love to envision - the one where everyone listens, everyone works quietly and independently, everyone does their work with a cheerful heart - yeah, that homeschool day doesn't exist. Never has. Not in four years.

"Mom, I want to wear camo."

The first year would have been my best shot at homeschool utopia since I only had one child to teach. But that one child - it could have been any of them - he just has a mind of his own. And many days they don't cooperate. Many days they don't want to listen, participate, work together, work independently, work quietly, work quickly, or work...at all.

Daily notebook work

But at some point there is a rhythm that occurs and we begin to hum along as best we can...as if traveling a bumpy, dirt, farm road. Smooth, smooth, smooth, pot hole, smooth, smooth, swerve for the cow, smooth, smooth, smooth, smooth, smooth, pothole and cow, pothole, pothole, smooth, smooth, smooth.

This year I love our science and history. And I think I love our math. We shall see with math, because only time (and grades) will tell.

Our science and history are so interwoven with the Bible that I can't help but soak it in. And my prayer, is that their little hearts will be as parched as mine and soak in the Word of God like a summer rain.

Planning ahead...

We hadn't even finished the January when I excitedly began to pencil out our homeschool plans for 2013-14.

I made my own (inexpensive) planning book and set to work. I researched and looked online. I read reviews and blogs to find out what others were doing.

Mostly, though, I found throughout the year the things that I wanted my kids to learn...the things I wanted them to love and enjoy. And that is exactly what helped shape our plans for next year.

There are a few things we will all be doing together - history, science and Bible.

The rest, by necessity, will be separate. I love the togetherness that homeschool provides, and I'm determined to make the most of our moments together.

It all begins with two, big, white binders for the older two, and one, big, white binder for Superman.

Homerun Kid will be in 6th grade. He will be using:

• Easy Grammar 
• Math-U-See 
• a selection of 18 books for his reading journal

Wonder Woman will be in 3rd grade. She will use:

• Easy Grammar 
• Math-U-See 
• a selection of 18 books for her reading journal

Superman will be in kindergarten! Kindergarten! My baby. A kindergartener! He will be using mainly the K curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler along with some other customized items I have come up with. 

• Math-U-See
• various readers from the library

The curriculum we will all use for history, science and Bible are:

• Mystery of History Volume 1 (cannot wait to start this!)
• Apologia Science Exploring Creation with Anatomy & Physiology
• Bible - we will be studying Proverbs and other specific books of the Bible each six weeks. Each day we will read the Proverb of the day, month after month. We will also continue memorizing a new verse each week. 

I simply couldn't be more excited about this year! What a gift to be able to teach our children...

So thankful for this freedom.

Along with all of this...we are using the following worksheets that I created...one was inspired by someone else's idea which you can see here. I just created my own, added a background, a different font and a dotted border.

We will be studying the Word of the Week as well as the Character Trait of the Week. Additionally, as we study our verses for each week, I am asking the kids to think about the meaning of the verse and how they can apply it using a SOAP sheet.

I just like to dress things up on my own and have things look similar, so we will be using this color scheme a lot.

We will be adopting a different scheduled for next year as well where we go six weeks on, take a week off and then six weeks on again. In December we will take three weeks off and then in the summer about six weeks off. I just feel like we need more breaks throughout the year. I think it will work beautifully. I can't wait to see the Lord's hand at work throughout the year.