It was one of those trying-to-catch-up school days. But in all reality, we're ON schedule if you will. Because when you're homeschooling, you learn a lot of other things besides doing all the books.
I'm going to brag right now on my daughters who are no longer girls but are young ladies. They are 14 and soon 16. They are experts in the kitchen! They bake an assortment of breads, cook all kinds of meals on their own, bake anything you want. The one thing I need to teach them yet is how to make a pie crust. And I am most certain they could can anything I'd tell them to. They've helped so much this past summer.
I love them so much not just because of their hard work, but they have a passion for God!!! Amber is my teacher, if you will. I'm learning so much from her. She has time to read some great books and shares the secrets of those stories to Allison and me.
My advice to young mothers is if your young daughters want to help you in the kitchen, LET THEM!!!! Mine were getting their hands messy at the age of two. So what if you can't cook or bake as fast as when you're working by yourself. It's so important to let them work with you when they want to. Aren't we the ones who need to train them? How can we fulfill that role if we don't allow them to help?
I think another reason our ladies have so much kitchen knowlege is that they were basically my nannies and maids with our two youngest boys who are now 5 and 7. We were blessed with church friends helping out with meals. Plus we had their grandmas with us for about a week. But other than that, our young girls at 9 and 11 were doing the majority of laundry and cooking with lots of advice from me while recuperating from having a baby.
So much for reminiscing......
Today was a good day of school. One thing I love about Sonlight is that everything is scheduled out for us. This year we copy each week's schedule and then check the box when we're done. So if we 'fall behind', we know exactly what we've done and what we missed.
We had 2 weeks worth of reading to do for the little guys. We got it done in ONE DAY! It was fabulous reading The Apple and The Arrow by Mary and Conrad Buff all in one sitting. It's a great account of the legend of William Tell. Zach couldn't resist listening to the entire story!
Some days we do only history. The next day maybe science and so on. It works nice for us. We've been getting started earlier in the mornings and we like it.
As a teacher and mom, there's always tons to do. Some days the girls take turns with laundry. Other days it's my job. So far, I've been the only one making the butter which does take time. We often have a gallon or two of cream a week to blend into butter.
This morning I cooked the grape juice and thickend it with clear jel. We had a great big kettle of the 'mush'. We love it plain or served with ice cream and/or cake.
Daily things like this take time out from school.
We did school till afternoon. I like what one lady wrote about 'doing school all day':
If the time that this is taking seems unreasonable, try actually timing it to see exactly what you're doing with all that time. This is what proved to MY children that they were NOT "spending all day doing school" like they claimed to their father (what a mean mom they had!). They were taking time out to play with the new kitty, to make chocolate milk, to have a snack, to go to the bathroom, to find a toy, and all sorts of things ... all the while, I was saying, "Get your schoolwork done" and "Do you have your reader done yet?" and "Is your math ready to check?" The elapsed time really DID take all day, but the time spent productively on schoolwork was really quite low. But to prove it, I had to provide them with stopwatches and a paper log to write down all their activities so we could all see exactly how they were spending their time.
We finally took the time to go up to our garden to do some serious weeding. My spring resolve of keeping the garden weed free didn't pan out too well. I'd not visited the garden in a month. And I KNEW there were weeds then. We had some immense weeds in the potato patch. And in order to dig potatoes, they had to go. All six have us tackled that patch and we had her licked in a couple hours.
Of course, we had plenty of time for finding and playing with worms. That was Braden's specialty while Landon picked up the potatoes. The girls were busy slaving away with the weeds and falling down on their backsides sometimes. Zach was right in there with them, but he tired of the job a bit easier than they. We had to remind him to keep with it since he had two gloves. Braden also went from pulling weeds, to emptying the trailer, to picking up potatoes, to playing.
Zach was busy 'hunting crocs' while he jumped into the soft dirt with all fours yelling in a mimic Aussie accent "I'm looking for potatoes". We've again been reminded of Steve as we anticipate watching the dvd from the library - He Changed Our World, Steve Irwin Memorial Tribute. Sadly Steve worshipped the creature more than the Creator! But he had a great passion for life. What if all of us would be passionate for Christ like that?
All the gang went down to the house while I pulled a few more weeds in the flower garden. That's another day's job, but not quite so bad as the potato patch. I yanked a big handful of carrots from the dirt and headed to the house.
Merv is very busy and we are thanking the Lord. He had an appointment to meet and then grabbed a sandwich in town so he wasn't hungry. We ate a late supper of fresh fried potatoes, scrambled eggs, raw fresh carrots, pears from our own tree, grape pudding, and cinnamon flop from this morning's baking. You can't beat the garden's fresh produce! It is a wonderful gift from the Lord.
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