Our Adventures in Homeschooling

Mom’s Lesson

02 Sep 2011 Leave a Comment

by denisethinks in Reflections, Schooling Tags: activities, History, the Lord

Been a little behind on posting.

Oh, man, what a couple of weeks it’s been!  Do you ever notice that when you homeschool and you have a bad day, or week, it’s really difficult to discuss that with others?  You know, when you have a child in public school and they act out or have a hard time, everyone is understanding, offers advice or empathy, etc.  However, when you homeschool and the same thing happens, you get entirely different responses.  Like, it’s alright for kids in public schools to have moments of poor behavior, but since we homeschool, clearly our children must be perfect.  Apparently since we choose to homeschool, we shouldn’t ever complain.  It’s a little annoying.

So, obviously, we had a bit of bump in the road.  And, because neither my children or I can really be perfect, we had some behavior issues last week.  The kids just couldn’t seem to focus on their lessons or work.  There weren’t any huge problems, just a bunch of small things, but it seemed like they were happening all the time.  And frequency definitely magnifies the problem.  So, we struggled last week and didn’t get as much done as we should have.

Then comes Friday.  Fridays we spend all day with the other family we have our co-op with.  Generally, we work on history and science in the morning, then have random activities in the afternoon.  We could do some PE activities, work on big projects, do art, or a ton of other things.  This last Friday, however, those plans went awry.  I had created a game for the kids to play as a history review.  I thought they would love it, but they just kept whining and complaining.  It took us all morning just to get our history done.  Then, after lunch, we had to do science still.  Out the window with our plans to take the kids swimming that afternoon.  And, during their recess time, some of the kids got themselves into more trouble.  Then, Friday night we were headed out the door, to drive out of town to do our first astronomy lab.  Then, I looked up.  Clouds.  A lot of clouds.  Why not?  Astronomy lab moved to another night.  Needless to say, by the end of last Friday, I felt absolutely drained!

I don’t say all this to complain, just to explain.

As I’m lamenting the situation, I began to search for answers.  Why were the kids having such a hard time??  What could I do to change things up to help all of us to do better?  The answers just wouldn’t come.

Then, it hit me.  Hard.  Right in the face.  As I am sitting in church on Sunday, I realized we never had our beginning of the school year blessings!  Hello, McFly!?!  Of course that was the problem.  Can’t operate successfully without the Lord’s help.  That evening, we all got some blessings and I instantly felt peace.  What a wonderful thing to have the ability to, through the Priesthood, receive blessings from our Heavenly Father!

There are always going to be hiccups along the road, but I felt like we were hitting landmines last week.  Now, this week, of course went much better.

For history, we have been learning about the Reformation and Counter Reformation in Europe.  It’s really important because it was a huge tipping point not only for some freedom in Europe, but it was necessary for the founding of our great nation.  Anyhow, one of the things we learned about was the Peasants’ War, when over the period of a year, peasants across Europe spontaneously started rising up against their lords and demanding more freedoms.  Unfortunately, it didn’t end very well for those peasants involved.  Over 140,000 lost their lives.  However, their message carried on and some pretty big reforms would soon follow.

Now, you all know, a couple of my big things are hands on learning and getting the kids excited about whatever they are learning about.  I’ve got to say, learning about all of this can be pretty dry.  So, why not spice it up???  Today, for co-op, the kids will be able to reenact the Peasants’ War of 1524-1525!  Oh yeah, this has fun written all over it!  I’m SO excited!  Now, clearly we cannot allow the kids to have real weapons.  But, pool noodles and those spongy balls filled with water make a great replacement!  We are going to go to a little park in the middle of our neighborhood.  I must say, I’m looking forward to the looks we’ll get from neighbors who think we are just crazy and by the way, why aren’t our children in school where they belong??  (You know the looks I’m talking about.)  Oh, I think it’s going to be awesome.  Promise to have pictures up asap.

I think at the end of today, I won’t feel so terribly drained, like I did last week.  Lesson learned:  Never forget to include the Lord in all you do!  Truly He has the best lesson plans of all and we would be wise to follow them.  The biggest lesson learned this last week certainly didn’t come from me to the children.  The biggest lesson was taught to me.  I’m grateful for that.