As I suspected when I started this blog, I found little time to actually post anything. I thought about it a great deal and had very good intentions, but after full days of schooling the kids, after school activities, and dinner the last thing I wanted to do was more work. If you homeschool, I know you can relate. This is our first year and hopefully next year I find more time for things I need and want to get done rather than spending 16 hours a day on school prep, school teaching/helping, grading papers, and all the other things moms have to do every day.

No matter how much work this year has been, I wouldn’t go back to public school. Lord willing, we will never have to face that decision. This has been the most rewarding and fun, yes FUN, year with my kids. All of us learning together and me being able to share what little knowledge I already possess and where they have to actually listen (haha). Don’t get me wrong, it hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows. There have been definite hard days. Days with raindrops, that is, tears (theirs not mine) and days of gloom when none of us seemed to be in the mood. Praise the Lord though that those days were few and far between. I actually expected much worse! This homeschool experience has been one day after another of God showing me his power, his mercy, and his love

So the title of my blog post is “Twenty Days” because that’s exactly how many days we have left to reach the required 180 school days. Not all those days were at home with books open; several were educational trips. We will more than likely go beyond the 180 days in order to finish up a few things but we won’t need to spend hours a day on schoolwork. Not all homschoolers schedule their days and many shoot for 2 hour days. Whatever your method doesn’t matter much. Whatever works for you and your kids and complies with PA law is what is best. My kids do best with a schedule. We spend anywhere from 5-6 hours a day on academic time. I am trying to prepare for highschool years that my son is fast approaching where there will be required hours to receive required credits for graduation. This year was like a rough draft figuring out what worked and what didn’t. Next year will be more prepping for the transcript years. I already keep track of classes and know how about much time they spend on their courses and record grades and even issued mini progress reports (because they wanted to know where they were at) and report cards.

A note about grades: I am not hung up on grades equating intelligence. Grades aren’t nearly as important to me as what the children remember, retain, and actually learn. Is this always reflected in tests? No. My children need a bit of “un-schooling” to understand this however, or at least my son, who is a perfectionist, does.

With all this said, let me briefly share what curriculum we chose for this school year. I hope to review these better in another post.

For my 5th grade daughter : Alpha Omega Press Lifepac: Language Arts, Math and History/geography and Veritas Press History of Art.

For my 7th grade son: Alpha Omega Press Lifepac: Language Arts, Pre-algebra/geometry, History/geography and Veritas Press History of Art.

For both : Christian Light Education: Science (grade 6 because it was a general science course), and various books on human health and anatomy for health and websites for PA history. We did a variety of Bible reading and devotionals and incorporated many science and art projects they also did some skits for history. We did a variety of activities for PE and spent several weeks on fire prevention/safety, bike safety, and internet safety. Also both have been using typing.com and icivics.org as well as cursive handwriting practice. They were made to, by me, to do several book reports throughout the school year in addition to all the reading they already do in their curriculum. We varied the type of report and book because I wanted to keep it fun but also introduce them to more than just fiction books. They had to choose some non-fiction and classic literature books and then also fiction of their choice (well, I had to approve it).

For music we studied classical composers. I bought 2 books that I read to them and copied the worksheets out of the books for them to fill in. The books were by Hayes, “Famous Composers and their music” books 1 and 2 for grades 4-8. I can not really recommend the books because I didn’t like them entirely. They were OKAY but the set up of book one was odd and though the books are rated for grades 4-8, I, as an adult, had a lot of trouble reading some of the words because they were French, German or other non-English words and can’t see children, especially young, being able to read through and understand everything. Overall we got a good amount of information about the composers chosen in each book and was easy enough to find more about them online and to find samples of their music so we could hear the compositions that we’d read about. We did find a lot of it interesting. Before the end of our school year I am requiring my children to do a report on their favorite composer that we read about.

Overall this school year has gone really well and I am very impressed with my children’s behavior and getting along better than I could ever have dreamed. I know without a doubt that the Lord has been in this house every day with us because there is no way we could have accomplished what we did without Him. Let the count down begin. We are all looking forward to our summer break though there is much work for me to do yet to finish our school year, such as, putting our portfolios together, getting our evaluations done, getting our next years affidavit notarized, having my daughter’s 6th grade physical done, and sending in all of our paperwork, not to mention choosing our curriculum and ordering it.

With a little organization, determination, and with the Lord’s might power to help, it can all be done and hopefully leave you feeling some sanity and enjoyment and a sense of accomplishment. Knowing too that what you’re doing for you children is not only a sacrifice, but a tremendous blessing. What an honor it is for God to have entrusted me with these two lives. To raise them to be God-honoring humans and be his children and one day, perhaps, pass down what they learn to others. These children don’t belong to me, but God has trusted me to care for them and raise them for his purpose. Homeschooling children can be difficult and sometimes it could feel like a burden, but looking at the bigger picture makes those feeling fade, at least it does for me. The biggest reason for this is because God is on my side and truly nothing could get me through this better.