Week in Review: March 4-8

We have had a full week. I had the week off from reviews, but my Crewmates were busy posting all about some great homeschool products!

I didn't plan it this way, but it was a really good thing to have the week off from posting reviews because we were busy the first of the week with our Global Focus Week! Our denomination, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, was not founded in order to be a new denomination. It was created in the 1880's to be a movement of Christians from all denominations who were passionate about missions at home and abroad. Churches eventually emerged from this movement and the denomination was officially formed in the 1960's.

We love when our international workers come and tell about their work overseas. Our girls are especially excited about our visitors. Grace was being shy in the picture of course! One of the great things for my girls about these times is it helps them understand what missionaries do as well as how and why we need to pray for them. It is a blessing for our family to personally know so many serving Christ overseas.

We did have our regular school days, which made everyone tired! In retrospect I will plan a lighter week during our next Global Focus Week. We managed, but Grace is the only one of my girls to still take naps and Beth and Rose had a harder time focusing because they were more worn out.

Little Hands to Heaven: Week Off

Grace is usually begging for more work, but I suppose being quiet at our meetings every night wore on her and she didn't seem to even notice that we didn't do her normal schoolwork! She enjoyed cutting paper. At first I drew lines for her to cut on, then she started drawing her own cutting lines.

She played some learning games online...a HUGE treat for Grace! We limit the girls' time in front of a screen and she was given a little extra time to play this week than usual. Her two favorite websites to play games at are PBS Kids and Disney Junior. She is particularly fond of Mickey Mouse and Elmo.




She also  enjoyed drawing on the chalk board quite a bit. When she got done with this particular picture she said, "Mommy, do you know what kind of animal I just drew? I'm not sure!" She's just so funny sometimes!

My favorite part of the week was when I caught Grace teaching the Incredible Vegetables a Bible story. I heard her ask Junior what he learned. He said, "I didn't learn anything!" She gave an incredibly dramatic sigh and said, "Oh Junior. Now we have to learn all over again!" 


Little Hearts for His Glory: Unit 21

Beth has begun to really enjoy her history readings. She had always listened well, but she now gets really excited about reading them. I love history so seeing my girls get excited about history! I credit my love of history to my dad who used to tell me stories about real people and interesting things about them when I was a child. He made history alive and interesting, so much more than mere dates and facts. The living books used in Heart of Dakota remind me so much of these stories and just like me, my girls are falling in love with the past as well!

An idea borrowed from traditional school that I'm implementing is a word wall. Each week Beth looks for words beginning with a specific letter in the alphabet. This week was the letter M. A retired teacher friend gave me several word wall pages and it's something else she really looks forward to each week.

Our cat, Zoe, really loves Beth. She can typically be found in her lap, on her bed, or just sitting beside her at any given moment throughout the day. Beth read her a story out of her reading book one day and I was quick enough to get a quick picture of it!


Bigger Hearts for His Glory: Unit 23

We received next year's guide, Preparing Hearts for His Glory, at the end of last week. When your child gets as excited, maybe even more, than you are, about your curriculum, you know you have something fantastic happening in your homeschool. Rose asked to see all the books we'd be using as well as the teacher's guide. I mentioned already my love of history. Heart of Dakota is helping me pass that love on to my daughters! I can't say that everything always goes as planned, that my girls love every activity we do, or that I never have to deal with any complaining. That's life as a teacher, homeschool or otherwise! I can tell you that overall, my girls genuinely enjoy school more often than not. I really can't take credit for this because I just follow my guides!

This week Rose learned about John Audobon, Louisa May Alcott, and a handful of other authors as children. It is so easy to think of the great minds of our past as always being adults. I'm glad that someone took the time to research and find out some of what they did as children years ago so my daughter could see that she could one day grow up and do great things as well. Rose is getting much quicker at vocabulary now. She has come so far from week one when she looked up her first word in the dictionary.


Rose continues to do well with cursive in A Reason for Handwriting. We had it on hand already and so I went with it this year. She does quite well when copying, but still has a hard time spelling words correctly when she writes in cursive on her own. I've been told this is fine and it will come soon. For now if she is going to write something in cursive she tells me what she wants to write and I write it for her first in cursive for her to copy.

I have to confess...we didn't get to any of the history activities this week which we normally do. Our week was so full with the special services every night. I was planning on playing catch-up on Friday...but then we had a surprise visitor for the day! A sweet family in our church needed childcare for their adorable little boy. We of course jumped at the chance and you can believe this little guy was spoiled rotten by my little girls for the day.

One of the things I like about homeschooling is we are available to help friends out like this. My older girls still did their schoolwork while Grace and I kept an eye on Little Dude. Since Fridays are light anyway they pretty much worked independently. I was so pleased with how well they listened to directions and worked so diligently.

And so another week of our lives comes to an end. It is amazingly easy for moms to feel as if we're just marking time. Whether we're stay-at-home moms, working moms, or a little of both Satan has a way of making us feel unsuccessful and not doing anything that will make a difference in the future.

Every once in a while God allows me to get a little glimpse of the truly important roles I fill each day. Rose and Beth both have a love for far away places and foreign languages due much to the passion for missions my husband and I are trying to show them. Beth loves to pretend she is a mommy and today when she had a chance to care for someone younger than her she did her best to entertain and teach.

This week when you feel discouraged for whatever reason, remember that training your kids is an important calling, kingdom work from the ground up.

And finally...just to make you smile...I present for your viewing pleasure Beth's dramatic reading of My Beautiful Cow.