In the Swing...

One thing I love about our Homeschooling Days is that built within them is time at home, time to get a little restless. Sound crazy? Well that restlessness can drive a person to creativity. In our home no one admits to boredom because that means mom gives you chores! I don't solve boredom for them by creating an activity(unless it is chores...snicker). Instead I let boredom do it's work, creating in them the motivation to entertain themselves. Today Christian spent time making a movie by drawing pictures and putting them in front of a VCR camera and providing sound effects (I know, I must get pics!). Later he and Rachel had a giggling good time acting out a little drama comedy. Rachel even put together a costume for her character! Here she is in the above picture!

We are knee deep in Medeival History and Literature with
Tapestry of Grace. I can tell I am going to really love this year. We started our Literature by talking about the times from which the literature was born. You see, the culture of the day was an "everybody believes in God" sort of culture. So, in much of the Literature, there is a backdrop of believing in one God. It gives a nod to Christianity but is far from a reliable source on what the Bible teaches. This is going to be so good for the children (me too, of course)! They will learn the lesson not to believe everything you read and how to discern truth.

The best counterfeit has an element of truth to it. It is vital to our Christian faith to develop discernment and to "test the spirits. This year we will spend lots of time comparing a certain literary works against the Bible.

Already, in the first week, my younger children have been reading "King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table." Christian asked me, "Why would a magician be telling a King that God is angry with him for anything?" He knows God doesn't want us practicing magic and picked up on the inconsistency there.

Then Tyler read "The Dream of the Road." It led to a great discussion on how people would worship the cross of Jesus and not the Savior ON the cross. Yep, this is GOOD STUFF!!

It always takes me a little time to get my head in the game and be thankful again that I homeschool. But really, I am so thankful I do and I love the chance to really know what my kids are learning and to direct it and have all that time to mentor them. It's all good!! :)

We are taking the year slower too and will only do the first 18 weeks of the 32 week curriculum. I was hesitant to do this. But my husband looked at the curriculum and shared with me that he thought it would be best so the kids would have the chance to dig deep and really learn. The "check every box and do it to the schedule" person in me had a hard time with it but now that we have started I really think it is right and best. I feels good to really have the time to do the timelines, the mapping, the accountability questions, etc.

So...we've dug in! It's all good!!