LIVE A LIFE OF NO REGRETS!!: September 2011

Quote from "Stepping Heavenward" by Mrs. E. Prentiss

"She says I shall now have one mouth more to fill and two feet the more to shoe, more disturbed nights, more laborious days, and less leisure or visiting, reading, music and drawing.

Well! This is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other.

Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which dwells is worthy of all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ's name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other dear darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, wondrously blest!"

Thursday, September 8, 2011

School is In

As stretched as I get teaching so many different levels of school in one day, I cannot imagine missing out on seeing my 1st grader practicing her reading on me each day, my baby "schooling" with the others as they practice their Classical Conversations history sentences, math facts, English rules, Latin words, science facts, and timeline cards. With my first two graduated, I've gone back to teaching at CC. It's been difficult to learn Latin II and "relearning" Advanced Math in order to teach it; however, it's also been great to be able to work alongside my son and model life-long learning habits.

I've been blessed with a great class of students at co-op who get as excited as I do when we are looking under the microscope at pond water that we stored with egg yolk and see all kinds of creatures that we get to draw and label in our lab journals. We ewww and ahhhh together when we admire fascinating art like the mirror in Van Eyck's Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride. It's only been four weeks of classes but already we have been discussing great British Literature that we've read at home between classes. We all enjoyed Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Canterbury Tales. Paradise Lost was not a favorite of many although it still made for great Socratic discussion. They are to read Pilgrim's Progress this week and I hope it will become one of their favorites! We do Logic together in class and are working through Francis Shaeffer's How Shall We Then Live book and watching the video series along with the book State of the Arts.

Son # 3 is in another Challenge class that is also learning Logic, Math, Latin I, and Current Events & Debate. They have been reading great books like The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and Little Britches. They have been studying Kepler and Newton in science which has made for interesting conversation and discoveries.

The rest of my guys are learning about the human body in science to coincide with their cycle 3 work in CC. It's quite a bit of juggling and we don't always accomplish all I'd like but it's still a joy to watch your children grown in wisdom and knowledge. Especially, when you see them making the connection in all learning to the One who created them and the wonderful creation that surrounds us. To find His Truth hidden in every subject is one of the most exciting things of all. Had I sent my guys to school, I wouldn't have taken the time to learn all I've learned over the past 20+ years of homeschooling, Did I cover it all and get it all right? Absolutely not. But for what I did, I give Him the glory and pray He'll continue to grow and teach my children marvelous truths long after I've graduated them, continue to write His Word on their hearts, and continue to overwhelm them with His love and beauty.

Until,
Michelle