Frustrated with your curriculum?

Hi dear homeschooling friend... Ever get frustrated with your curriculum? I sure have, but I have learned over the years to stop the frustration as soon as possible. This is for your sake as a parent, but also for your child's sake! :)  If you are getting frustrated with the way a curriculum is laid out, or requirements that it is putting on you and your child... just stop! I suggest a day or two off from school, take inventory of what exactly it is that is frustrating you.  Make a list, this will give you a visual of what you don't like.  Then make a list of the ways that your child learns best - really think about this. You could watch how your child plays and learns for a day and make notes. Compare this with your frustration list.  What do you find?  I am guessing that will find that your child's "strengths" are NOT the things that are frustrating you.  These lists are telling you something loud and clear... find a different curriculum!

The lists of your child's strengths should guide you in your new curriculum choice. Find a curriculum that their learning style will find a comfortable fit. This in itself should help alleviate that stress thats been stalking you lately... There are so many great homeschooling curriculums available, that there really is no need for you to suffer with one that isn't a good fit for you and your family!

Being a Martha AND a Mary

I have been meditating on the story of Martha and Mary today... I am sure you can guess why! Feeling as if my busy serving has totally "encumbered" me. I have many many things that need to be done for my family as well as for the Lord's service.  Yet, in trying to get it all done - I have begun to feel encumbered - just like Martha.  Luke 10:40

Serving the Lord is a good thing  -even serving Him with all you have until you have nothing left...  but we cannot truly serve Him without also having comunion with Him.  Like Spurgeon says, being Martha and Mary takes great grace.  Being busy serving the Lord - and being in constant communion with Him is not an easy task.  In fact, the harder tasks are always the more spiritual tasks.  It is harder to pray an hour than to "serve" in menial tasks for the same amount of time.

God help me today - to first seek You and communion with You... then serve You with all my heart!

Creation Evangelism 2011

I am so excited about the outreach our church is doing this year.  We have been planning for several months now, an evangelistic outreach ministry to our town. We are hoping to reach our town through distribution of DVDs, materials, visitation, and gospel CDs. Would you pray with us about this ministry?
We are trying to reach our whole town with a Creation DVD.  I am posting it here if you want to check it out.  We have also tried to find some tract/brocures that support creation evangelism. 


What really put it all together for me was one of Ken Ham's videos.  He stated that today we are fighting a losing battle against the effects of an eroded foundation.  We are trying to battle the decay in many areas... but we are not getting to the root of the problem.  This is what really spoke to me... the root is the fact that over the past century the foundational belief that GOD  created the heavens and the earth in a literal 6 days has been attacked and evolution has now given many people the "godless" belief of their beginnings.  When man believes that he has been created by chance, on accident, he then does not have to acknowledge a Creator God.  Yet, if man agrees that there was a CREATOR... then man is responsible to that Creator... and must then follow his Creator's will for his life.  Also, if Gen. 1:1 is not true, then the rest of God's Word is not true.

Basically - no Creator - no responsibility - no sin - no right - no wrong.  Can you see it?  This is so true... this is IT.  This is exactlly where our society is... exactly what has happened to us! If we can restore that foundation... the fact that man was created by God... and that Genesis 1:1 is true... then man must also agree that the rest of God's Word is true as well. We are accountable to a holy God, and that one day man will face his Creator and give an account of his life.  Oh... that God would give us souls in our town that through this ministry may be prepared to meet HIM on that day!

Fourth grade Writing

Writing isn't an easy thing to teach at best, but given a set of twins who hate writing... it's a nightmare! It has been our present joy to have a book report to write this week. Wow! after writing, rewriting, and rewriting... it still isn't any easier.  Taking  each step one at a time was the only way that we made it.  Gathering information, taking notes, and then writing interesting sentences from the information was slow going. The twins, age 9 are not fans of anything that has to do with creative writing.  Though it isn't easy, it is definitely something that we need to keep at.

 So,  though a necessary evil, I see many harrowing days of writing in our future. If you have any advice for lessening the pain of teaching creative writing... please share! My life may depend on it! :)

Snow...Snow...Snow...

It's here again, snow in Georgia! Beautiful white snow... freezing cold weather... keeping all of my energetic wonderful little indians inside! We are attempting to make good use of these "stay at home" days by working hard at our schoolwork. I find that working double hard on these "yukky" weather days gets us where we need to be to enjoy the beautiful weather once it finally comes. So it's been a long day, working hard at our online lessons, but here's lookin' toward the sunny days of the  future!

Homeschool Blog Carnival

The Homeschool Blog Carnival has its Princess Bride edition up... if you love encouragement, great ideas, and uplifting homeschool stories... check it out.

Click here to visit the blog carnival -

Refreshed and Ready to go?

Okay, we have just had two great weeks of festivity and family time... I should be totally refreshed and ready to get back to homeschooling. Yet, for some reason my mind keeps begging for more time... could it be the never ending "To Do" list that I just can't complete, or maybe the dread of getting back to that troublesome subject that the twins just can't grasp? It really could be a myriad of things, but I know that if I don't get down to business sometime soon... I never will. Yet, as I sit here wondering what could help me get into the right frame of mind... some advice a friend recently gave me popped into my head.

I was struggling with meeting the daily requirements of homeschooling, being a mother and wife, working at home... and finding joy and excitement in them.  She suggested reading books on the topics that I was particularly discouraged with. I thought she was a bit crazy at first, but since I was in pretty bad shape... I was willing to try anything. I immediately went to the library and Amazon.com... I found several books on homeschooling and children's learning checked them out, and ordered the rest. What I discovered really changed my perpective.  I realized that my dear friend was sooo right! When I started reading about homeschooling and the benefits as well as the struggles that other moms face and how they tackled them,  I got excited. I began to see again how worthwile all the hard work is... how meaningful every day can be in the life of my children... and I found my joy and excitement again!

So, I am going to take one more day of "holiday" and we are going to read... read... read...I know what I will find when I dig into the treasure trove of other mother's amazing experiences,  and remind myself of the many victories that we find daily in the trenches of homeschooling. Not to mention that the kids will love reading books themselves and will probably also appreciate the fact that I regained my perspective before we started back to the old grind... Needing some refreshment?  a little perpective? Have a mini workshop in your own home and read up on the benefits of ... homeschooling! Guaranteed to get you ready to get the new year started... ahhhhh just what I needed....