The Moral of the Story

By on October 3, 2011 in a mother's heart, homeschool, Life Lessons

Sometimes they do not understand me. There are days when I feel like I am repeating the same instructions over and over. Don’t they hear me? Do I need to have their hearing checked? Then there are those moments when I am offering the wisdom I have learned and been taught: “Be respectful of others,” “The first shall be last,” “Be a good example,” and more. Some days these words of “wisdom” seem to bounce right off my children and end up lost somewhere in outer space. It is frustrating. Some days I feel like I get this mothering thing all wrong…

But every now and then God seems to settle in our midst and we are all changed.

We are teaching our daughter how to ride her bike without training wheels. She expects to be able to master everything she does and quickly. As I steady the back of her seat and run beside her bike, I repeat the phrase, “Slow and steady wins the race. Slow and Steady wins the race.”

Her personality is such that she wants to jump on that bike, start peddling and go; no help, no fear and no crashing. But then she tilts and wabbles and things do not happen as fast as she would like. Although she needs to push and learn momentum and balance… she needs to learn how to drop the fear, brake and not freak out first. She ends up discouraged and quitting way before we even make it around the parking lot.

While rushing full steam may work for some of her endeavors, there are very few adventures that she will encounter in life where rushing and hurrying to finish will actually prove to be worth it in the long run. Each of us could probably say that we are living proof that our plans and timelines are not God’s.

“In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.” Proverbs 16:9 NIV

The Moral of the Story
After one particularily stress-filled morning of bike riding, we settled in for our afternoon reading. Bike-riding adventure girl was sprawled across the floor at my feet, while her brothers and sister pushed in close to my book on the couch. I read the story of “The Turtle and The Rabbit” (ps this was not planned, nor did I have a clue that our narration for the day would be this story). As we got to the end of the story and I read the moral I could not help but smile to myself: “Slow and steady wins the race.”

My heart stirred in that all too familiar way as I raised my eyes to watch bike-rider on the floor. Her head popped up, she caught my eyes and she smiled, knowing. I laughed out loud because her face seemed to be saying, “Mom isn’t crazy afterall.”

But the truth is that this moment wasn’t just God stepping in to teach my children something. It wasn’t just a moral appearing in the midst of our day so that my words could be affirmed by another source. This was God reminding me as much as He was teaching them.

How often do I rush ahead? How often do I race trying to finish, trying to get to the next appointment or ignore the signs along the way… all because I forget that “Slow and steady wins the race.”

I remember when I am discontent with where I am… slow and steady wins the race.
I remember when I overwhelmed in my grief and wanting to race full ahead into the morning… first the night, then the dawn.
I remember when my children seem to close their ears and avoid my words… SomeONE big and mighty has my back.

Do your children have a favorite moral to the story?

 

Photo by Jezamama

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Planning for a Smooth (or Smoother) Week! {Review}

By on September 26, 2011 in book review, homeschool

In our household, routine and schedule are our close friends.

I say close friends because without them, our week quickly falls apart. With two high energy boys, I have an even greater need to have activities clearly planned and to know exactly what its coming next in our day.

Maybe your household isn’t the same, but I know that, whether homeschooling or not, my week will go MUCH smoother if I have a PLAN.

My only problem is that I can easily get distracted from our schedule and watch the week quickly go down hill…

Boo.

I have a SERIOUS tendency to procrastinate and get distracted and I have seen how that negatively affects my entire family, especially the boys.

I need help in this area and for me it has come in two forms.

1. Jesus.

I can do all this through him who gives me strength. ~Philippians 4:13

I can’t do it – HE can. Enough said.

2. This planner…

This brand new Ultimate Homeschool Planner from Debra Bell and Apologia has been a true gift for me these past few weeks of homeschool!

A little more about it…

Count your blessings while charting your family’s homeschool journey with this gorgeous day planner from best-selling author Debra Bell. The Ultimate Homeschool Planner will help you prayerfully prioritize your family’s lessons, assignments, and activities as well as academic and personal growth goals for each of your children. Includes teaching helps, record-keeping, and pages to document God’s faithfulness throughout the year. {from Apologia website}

This is not just a place to plan your lessons for the week, month and year. This is a place to commit your week to the Lord – both personally and for school – and record the ways He shows up and blesses your days.

I like having everything in one place and I can do that with this planner!

For me: a place to record prayer requests, Bible verses to memorize, Scripture reading plans, ways to reach out to others, appointments and so on.

For school: a place to journal achievements and memorable moments for the week, as well as evidences of God’s grace throughout the week!

And that is all on top of the lesson planning space…

You can check out a sample of all these great features for yourself right here!

Now, don’t get me wrong. Getting this planner is NOT going to make your week magically become smooth. Sorry.

But I have found great motivation and organization through it AND I’m not wasting time looking in a million different places for plans and prayers and so on.

Wasted time in our house = restless boys = chaos = not good.

You get the picture :)

I am so grateful to Apologia and Debra Bell for putting together this wonderful tool for homeschool parents – check it out and see how it could bless your family as well!

{Stay tuned for lots more fun with Apologia as we get closer to the Relevant Conference as they are sponsoring the MOB Society to the conference, as well as the MOB meet-up at the conference! If you’re coming to Relevant, make sure you RSVP for the meet-up on Facebook! Hope to see many of you there!}

*****

Disclosure: I received a planner from Apologia to review. I was not compensated in any other way for this post and all opinions are 100% my own!

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Learning with boys {Homeschooling}

By on September 9, 2011 in homeschool, School

Learning with boys is a bit different than learning with girls; a little bit more rollicking, a bit topsy-turvy, a whole lot of movement and add in can’t-sit-still-itis.  My subject roster looks the same, but the execution needs a bit of creativity and understanding.

To keep everyone happy while learning, I’ve stumbled on a few tricks:

  • Keep it short: Subjects and or/study periods/homework periods should stay short, 15-20 minutes for young boys.  When their eyes start to glaze over, or the feet start to jump- move on to a totally different subject or take a short break.
  • A short play break will deliver boys ready to pay better attention.  This works in Sunday School, also.
  • If he can’t stop fidgeting, do him and yourself a favor and give him something to channel that energy into.  Some moms let a very busy boy sit on an exercise ball and bounce a bit during read aloud time, sometimes silly putty in the hand or play-dough does wonders.  I often let my boys draw while I read.
  • Alternates subjects and plan the next one to be different than the first.  If you are doing handwriting move on to something more mental such as reading or spelling.
  • Pick reading books that will appeal to your boy’s sense of adventure and will strengthen his sense of honor.  Thrills are good, too.

Our current boy picks:

  • Farmer Boy
  • Encyclopedia Brown
  • The Mysterious Benedict Society
  • Lion Boy
  • How to Eat Fried Worms
  • Little Men, Jo’s Boys
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follow the leader

By on August 10, 2011 in connection with boys, growing godly men, homeschool

 

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Some boys are born leaders, while other boys naturally follow a leader.  My job is to paint a picture of what a good leader is, without preaching.  My favorite resource? Literature.

Strong leaders in children’s literature include:

  • Dickon from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Dickon is strong, healthy, older/wiser and kind to animals.  He is a gentle friend.  By contrast, the boy Colin is young, spoiled, crabby, weak, indifferent, unkind.
  • Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens.  Nicholas is intelligent, well-educated, goes out into the world to take care of his mother and sister, is kind to others.  He goes out of his way to be kind to others. He hates greed, sin and injustice.
  • Encyclopedia Brown.  He is boy genius, but does not lord it over the other children.  He does not go out of his way to embarrass his foes.  He works to help others who are taken advantage of.
  • Capricorn “Cap” Anderson in the book “Schooled” by Gordon Korman. This book is about a very naive homeschooled boy who is raised alone on a hippie commune.  When his grandmother is injured, he is suddenly thrown into the world of modern middle school.  We can guess what it is like…the popular kids make him class president to torture and humiliate him, but- his kindness, braveness and fairness turn the tide.  Most of the school admires him in the end.
  • Summer of the Monkeys: Jay Berry has more typical faults, but works hard to earn money for a pony. In the end, he does the agonizing, right thing, denying himself.

Stories with the anti-leader:

  • The Emperor’s New Clothes -the classic story done with animals. How not to be a leader, and how not to be a follower.
  • Artemis Fowl -a boy not to admire. While it is tempting to admire his genius (he’s Encyclopedia Brown with evil schemes) the feelings he will provoke are pity.
  • Little Men and Jo’s Boys-Louisa May Alcott- filled with boys, jolly good times, and boys to admire and boys who grow up not conquering their biggest weaknesses.  A fun tale with warnings to the wise boy.

I love sharing a story well-told to my boys because the lessons and characters will stay will them, long after any talk I could give.  A good story becomes part of them and will continue instructing them long after the last page is turned.  Truths wrapped in a fun tale can reach a boy’s heart and catch them in unguarded moments of reflection.  A story told well is my favorite teaching tool.

Of course, all good stories lead to the best story of all, and to a Christ that was the ultimate leader: one who was willing to lay down His life for his friends.

Classic literature is full of hero’s who reflect Christ. Share them and let your boy make the connections.

What are your favorite hero stories for boys?

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