Working Through the Hard by Focusing on the Joy that I Have

Yay!  I’m so super excited.

No, my cough isn’t gone.

But I have an appointment with an allergist and my nurse practitioner is sure that I’m having an allergy issue.  We’ll see!

I do know that being dairy free makes a huge difference, and I can feel it immediately even when I have a tiny bit of dairy.

I feel more food freedom despite this because I can have anything else (though I am trying to eat balanced and not have much soda).

I’m still 10 pounds down despite the steroids making me extra hungry.

My blood work came back mostly perfect (I just need to work on exercising more to increase my HDL).

Routine is NEAR!  Next week I will be working on prep for school.  The week after I see the allergist and Robert is taking me to Dallas for a few days for my birthday (Pocket Sandwich Theatre, staying in a hotel which we never do, and lunch with some of our best friends!).  The next week we have staff retreat (which we ALL love!!!).

Then the 26th we officially start school!  We will be doing 6 weeks on, 1 week on except for holidays (we’ll take more time around then).

Guys.  I have never been so excited about homeschooling.  Ever.

I have been doing lots of research on Brave Writer and the Brave Writer Lifestyle.  I have done bits of this in the past, but I’m going to focus more on the language arts program this year and doing things more project based.  I’ve been talking with the kids about it and they’re excited also!

I had plans of using The Good and the Beautiful LA for our language arts curriculum and just add in Brave Writer projects, but recently I decided to focus on the mechanics/literary devices through good literature (their Arrows and Boomerang studies) because it teaches things in context, and just use TGTB as a supplement for the phonics and some basic grammar.

I have been struggling with TGTB for a few reasons… one is that it is written by an LDS mom and I struggle with the beliefs of the LDS.  Two, I struggle with the fact that if you aren’t doing all the “good and beautiful things” then you’re doing it wrong.  All of the books on the booklist are pretty awful and old fashioned.  It’s hard enough to get my boys reading, so I want them to be able to choose. Also, it’s very works-based and all about being “good.”  That’s not what I teach my kids (morals are important, but a relationship with my Savior is the most important… and we can have that relationship because of His sacrifice and grace!).

Also, the majority of the poems, art, artists, etc are ones I have never heard of.  I want them to be exposed to more of the famous ones as well as some new ones (including of all different cultures). The geography also jumps around  a lot and there’s not discussion of culture.

I decided to study geography, art appreciation, artist study, culture, etc through choosing a continent or country per month.  We are starting with Mexico because we are reading Esperanza Rising.  I bought some fun, used books to go with it, and I will spend some time on Pinterest!  Geography and things won’t always fit with the books that I choose, but it does this time!  I happen to already have the unit and the book, so I didn’t spend much.  One month at a time!

I plan to do things with the Wild + Free San Antonio group as much as possible, but we’ll see!  I am hosting an event with the group at camp on September 7th and we’ll go from there!

I’ve somewhat updated my “Our Homeschool” page to share this.  I’ll continue to update it as I go because I feel like as I’m figuring our family homeschool style out, I change things a little at a time.  I’m learning to be okay with that!

I still want to finish reading Brave Learner.  I started it months ago and felt over-whelmed so I shelved it for a while.  I’m ready to start fresh!

I read it for a bit before a nap today, and it was so so amazing.  I am reading it with a different lens these days.

I want my kids to grow up in a home where homeschool isn’t something we do.  It’s just life for us.  A language/literature rich environment, learning things in ways that are meaningful (instead of just doing worksheets and not using things in context), making things special (as much as we can), bringing them into the experience, giving them the opportunities to be creative and artistic as they desire, studying nature where we live (and when we travel) as a part of life, reading aloud often together, etc.  I know I will definitely not feel this way every day (no one does), but I want this to be the over-arching culture of our home.  I have been slowly working towards this, and I’m feeling that it’s time to “take the plunge!”