What We’ve Been Up To- In Homeschool and In Life. Still Keeping It Simple

This isn’t one of those “deep thoughts posts”- just a little bit about what we’ve been up to lately in homeschool and in life…

We are still enjoying our new home immensely. It serves daily to remind me of waiting patiently on the Lord to reveal His plan, in His time. It was like this house was built for us, and it is where we are truly meant to be. I feel so at home. I am anticipating all we will do here…for His glory.

For years, I dreamed of seeing beautiful sunrises and sunsets from my windows- and now this. This is my view each night as I prepare dinner. He truly has been faithful and given me more than I ever deserve.

We have been having a good few weeks of school. With some upcoming trips planned this Spring for my speaking engagements, I have made sure to buckle down now. We are persevering through Algebra, and daily the Lord is teaching me so much about myself through those school lessons.

We are studying Romans in our family Bible study. We don’t do anything too fancy. As always, simple for us works best. We read through the book together, a little bit each day, and discuss. We read commentaries and try to dig in to understand who wrote the book, when, and why. We learn what was going on in the world when it was written. I love our studies together.

Together, we are also studying history with The Mystery of History. We are on Volume II. Sometimes we add in the extra activities if time allows, especially for the younger ones. We also incorporate geography in together. Each child also has various reading assignments, writing assignments, copywork, etc. for language lessons.

The youngest is learning to read, and I truly feel such joy in my heart when I see him “getting it.” He is writing words, and today made some sentences on his own. We use many, many real life lessons and lots of play to teach him.

Today, he even made his own “letter book.” Future writer? 😉

My younger boys are working through Apologia science, using Exploring Creation with Physics and Chemistry. We are almost finished with the book. My daughter uses a middle school course on her own. We also daily learn science through nature outdoors, robotics, Lego building, house projects, lots of documentaries, and just everyday life. We love watching birds, and this week enjoyed two pileated woodpeckers. We also have two red-tailed hawks that visit our property daily.

We are preparing my eigth grader to learn how to start her own business. We have decided part of high school learning will be entrepreneurship and real life skills. What a perfect time to start a business in her life- she has nothing to lose! She lives at home and is not relying on the income to support herself. At the end she may decide this is the path she will take, or God will lead her elsewhere. But for now, we are starting to prepare for teaching her all the ins and outs and to actually have her start a business. Right now she practices and learns photography daily. Next, she will learn the business aspects-from marketing to bookkeeping. She even has some clients lined up! My husband has “added her” to his staff and I even use her quite a bit for blog photos.

We firmly believe the best way to prepare for life these days is not some standardized test, but to get out in the real world and learn how to live in it. This is an exciting venture for her (and us!)